Tequila and Diesel Rivers

Tequila in the morning, Tequila in the evening, Tequila at suppertime, when you are in Mexico you can have tequila anytime. We really got tired of this concept while we were in Mexico. I seriously think that Mexicans think that this is the only thing US Citizens do when they come to Cancun. Which is probably true.
Sarah and I just got back from a wonderful six days in Mexico where we spent our honeymoon. It was all in all a very enjoyable trip and very relaxing which is what we truly desired it to be. We arrived in Cancun last Saturday afternoon. The faint smell of ocean was in the air as we made our way off of the plane. And we hopped aboard a shuttle to our hotel. Upon arrival at the Royal Solaris we were quickly seperated from our bags and escorted to meet Omar who would get us oriented with the hotel. Omar was enamored with Sarah when he found out she was an English teacher because we was an aspiring writer of pop fiction and the english language in general. I was left out in the cold because no one wants to talk to a lowly research assistant. We we coerced into signing up for a tour the next day where they would of course offer us the amazing opportunity of becoming a member of the Solaris family. We were offered an oceanview room if we took to tour so we quickly consented. Most of the time we spent on the beach just relaxing. For most of the trip the weather was so amazing. It was the absolute perfect temperature due to the clouds that provide constant shade from the scorching sun. We didn't need to go very many places because our hotel had quite a bit to offer us. Several things stood out on this trip that I will always remember. The turquiose color of the ocean mixed with the bright white color of the sand on the beach was such a wonderful sight to wake up to every morning as well as listen to all night long. The sight of hovering seagulls eating bread from a an elderly gentleman's hand was pretty cool to watch. I really wanted to try this feat for my self which suprised Sarah because of my slight fear of birds (I have had a lot of encounters with small rodents and birds whizzing by my head and I just can't seem to get over them). And the most unforgettable event that occured on our honeymoon was the trip to Chitzen Itza. The most memorable experience about this whole trip is that we didn't even occur at those old ruins. We had scheduled our tour for the day before we came home. So we board the double decker bus that morning and Sarah wanted to sit on the bottom level. It looked very crowded to me so I pointed out that we should just find somewhere up stairs so we made our way up and found a quite cozy place upstairs that would provide me with the much needed leg room and provide Sarah and I with a little bit more privacy. So the bus starts and we are very excited to get going. The bus gets about a mile away from our hotel and the bus driver comes up with the fun idea of his own. He was turning the bus around and decided to pull out in front of a dump truck. He then instead of gunning it to see if he can get out of the way he decides to stop. Sarah and me had the absolute perfect spot to witness the entire accident take place. Time stood still. The dump truck full of cement and rebar is doing everything he could to just stop. Adn then it happened, the dump truck hit us. The bus lurched to its side in protest and everything in the overhead compartment spued out of it and fell onto the floor. and the people under it. I happened to have a stroller hit me in my arm and I think Sarah ran into my elbow. And then a very pungent gasoline smell filled the air and all we heard was shrieks and wails of "Gasoline" and "explode" filled the compartment. So both Sarah and I proceeded for the closest exit along. We were shocked at the scene that appeared as me made it down that narrow stairway. There was the dump truck halfway inside the bus and a woman that had been sitting in the seats that we would have been taking had we not moved to the upper level was pinned between the bus and the undercarraige of the dump truck. The exit door was half blocked by the truck as well. Sarah got through first but accidently got caught for a minute and I let a mother and child go before me. I had never seen so much gasoline in my life. It literally was a river of it that we had to wade through to freedom. Both Sarah and I came away from the experience unscathed physically. And no one on the bus including the pinned women were killed in the whole ordeal. I am glad for several things taht occured that day that prevented us from sitting in those seats. One of those being my long legs that couldn't endure a three houre trip to Chitzen Itza. But the most eerie thing about the whole accident is that for the rest of our trip we couldn't really enjoy ourselves. We had felt that we had somehow cheated death. Kind of like a "final destination" kind of a thing. In fact the next day we decided that we would just go to the airport early. We had had it with Mexico. The beach was amazing but we just couldn't bring ourselves to enjoy its wonderful view anymore. So it was a wonderful trip where both Sarah and I got to really relax and unwind. Which was much needed. I also learned that life is so fleeting and any little decision that we make on it can change our lives for the good or the bad. I am just glad that Sarah and I are back in the U.S.A.. Mexico is great don't get me wrong but after a long trip it is nice to be able to lie down in your own bed and relax on your own couch. After a long trip you just get the yearning to come home.

I just found out this week that months and months of work that I had been doing on the Stipeae would now have to come to an end due to the fact that there is not enough money to pursue it any further. I have been working on this particular group since June and have really enjoyed my time working with them even though it has been somewhat of a challenge throughout the entire process. I thought because I am sad and frustrated right now that I would do a recap of the past several months of my life as pretaining to the lab. I began in June doing work on the Stipeae which is a tribe of grasses. Mary (who is my boss) had spent the from November to March in Australia working on this group and others and obtained samples of the Australasian Stipeae to come up with a phylogeny of the australasian samples. Phylogeny deals with the evolutionary background of a plant species. So these samples would help in establishing a (ancestral) tree for this particular group. I was asked by Mary when she got back if I would be interested in helping her on this project as well as others. So in June I started beginning to extract the DNA from the plant specimens that were brought back. These samples were packed in silica gel which helped to dry them out completely and keep them dry so the DNA doesn't degrade any more. The extraction process started offf really good. This didn't last long due to the fact that a change in plastic tubes halfway during it caused some extra stress. There are several things that happen during the extraction process. I obtained this simplified process from Wikipedia.
1-Breaking the cells open, commonly referred to as cell disruption, to expose the DNA within, such as by grinding or sonicating the sample.
2-Removing membrane lipids by adding a detergent.
3-Precipitating the DNA with an alcohol — usually ethanol or isopropanol. Since DNA is insoluble in these alcohols, it will aggregate together, giving a pellet upon centrifugation. This step also removes alcohol-soluble salt.

Or in other words, the samples are weighed and then placed in a small tube. A nickle bee bee is also placed in the tube. Then the samples that we are going to extract go through the disruptor which in simple terms it shakes the samples at very high speeds to break up the material.

The next parts of the extraction process has a lot of little technical steps that may come across as boring so I won't tell you everything. The main steps are we use chemicals to lyse or break open the cell and another set of chemicals to seperate all the extra stuff in the cell from the DNA. These chemicals are called buffers which is a substance that help facilitate a reaction but at the same time resists changes that occur during the reaction so it doesn't combine with the stuff in the reaction. So by the end of the process we have a vial of DNA. We then put it through a spectrophotometer and run a gel to test for the quality of the DNA. The polymerase chain reaction is the next process that we underwent. In this process which has several steps we amplify or enhance the DNA and then send it to the CIB for Fragment analysis. After we get if back from them we have the sequence of DNA which we then have to align so that the sequences line up. In order to do this we look at graphs called chromatographs to see what is actually happening in the sequence. The highest peak in the graph represents usually what is found in the sequence of DNA. This is just a simplified view of what I do at the lab. I know it is probably boring to most but I find it a very fascinating process. I will just have to deal with the fact that disappointment is a part of my job now. That is the nature of science. To try to find answers to questions but never really obtain those answers. The answers we receive will just lead to move questions. It's a fascinating process. I have to give up for now and not receive an answer.