Peddie EXP 2017

My last week in the lab was a normal week. It consisted of continuing the process of homogenizing the samples that I had collected at Catalina and putting them into labeled tubes. Below here I have pictured the screen of the Mass Spec machine, and what data would look like. The first flat peak is the reference nitrogen (nitrogen with a known isotopic combination). It is a flat peak because we inject this reference nitrogen at a steady pace. The second peak is the unknown nitrogen. The third is the unknown CO2 followed by the reference CO2. This is what a typical data set would look like, and after we create this data it is sent off to my PI and graduate student to get analyzed.  After I was done with my duties at the lab, however, I was treated to lunch with the whole lab staff and my dad, and then hit the city with my roommate and dad for Korean barbecue and delicious soft serve ice cream. It was a fun process and I am so grateful for The Capone...

For this week we really focused on running our Mass Spec machine in order to get a bulk of our filtered water samples processed so that we could move on to running other data that had been collected in the field. The figures above show what our Mass Spec machine looked like. It really consists of 2 components. One, the "EA" or Elemental Analyser, and the second part, the actual Mass Spec machine. These two components work together to give us the data that is needed To run these machines, however, tons of preparation and tiny details must fall into place.  First, the EA needs to be brought up to temperature to ensure that each capsule we place will combust. Second, we must pump oxygen for a multitude of reasons in order to keep the EA functioning. And third, helium must be running through the system to ensure that the combusted CO2 and N2 reach the Mass Spec machine and get processed.  Other than these details, each furnace of the EA must be packed with sp...

For this week I was tasked with decommissioning a past lab so that the Capone group could start to move into the new space. Currently the Capone accommodation is rather small, so the new lab will definitely help with space issues and also help with tons of new equipment that is in this lab.  This is a picture of the new lab. The first step was to contact hazmat and have them clean all of the fridges and freezers that were in use, and to remove all potentially dangerous chemicals. Next it was my job to take a heat gun and start to defrosts ice that has accumulated over 7 years of continuous running.  We are scheduled to almost be done, and just recently hazmat has started to come in again, and begin the task of disposing all mystery chemicals and items that are potentially dangerous to the people who will be working in the lab.  During the time of decommissioning the lab I have also been working on my project of homogenizing the samples th...

T This week I have been taking the samples that I have gotten from Catalina and begun to crush them  into a powder that can be turned into pellets that are able be burned in an Elemental Analyzer and then transferred to a mass spectrometer in ord er to test for carbon/nitrogen ratios. To the right you can see my work station. In order to get my samples crushed I needed to first retrieve a labeled foil pocket that contained each sample, then I would crush each sample and place them into a tube labeled with the specific species, day, and replicate.   Later in the week I will be using the Mass Spec machine in order to look for carbon nitrogen ratios in the samples that could suggest nitrogen fixation, and not just nitrogen uptake. This is however a tricky task due to the fact that the mass spec machine is not tuned to run macro algae samples, rather it is tuned more to running filtered water samples.  The main problem is that for these small of s...

During this week my lab sent me to Catalina Island where USC has their very own satellite campus in which they do most of their marine research. My job was to spend a whole week at the island learning the different side projects that Dr. Capone and his graduate student Yubin where doing, and to collect samples of macro algae that were to be used in these experiments. We would spend the days at the water front diving for samples, and also looking at the marine life that surrounded the island. Here is a video of what we did most of the time. For the most part not much research has been done on decomposing matter and its role in nitrogen fixation, but Dr. Capone's lab has been changing that. When macro algae decomposes the enzyme nitrogenase is very active and is more likely to be fixing N2 nitrogen. What my lab does is take different species of macro algae and keep them in tanks to wait for the decomposition period. When that happens they take little samples and inject acetyl...