Hello everyone!

Hope everyone had a fun 4th of July week!  This week was really fun for me.  I kicked off the 4th of July festivities by watching the Ithaca fireworks at Stewart Park.  They were really amazing!  My friends and I got to the park a few hours early and enjoyed the beautiful weather.  We threw a frisbee, walked around, and talked.  It was great to get off campus for a bit and just hang out with friends.  The fireworks in Ithaca took place on Monday (July 2nd) so the show definitely got us all excited for the 4th of July!  As for the actual day, I had to check my experiment (I check every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday---science doesn't take a break!) and then I went to dinner with my work. There is a international evolution conference this weekend in Canada that researchers from around the world are attending.  Professor Hairston hosted a dinner where everyone from the lab was invited as well as non-Cornell professors who were passing by on their way to their conferences.  It was so great to meet the different professors who were interested in evolution, just like me.  We talked about our research and some even gave me advice on how to improve my technique (since my qPCRs have been acting funny lately).  It was a lovely evening filled with amazing food!!  After that dinner, I hosted a movie/painting nails/just relaxing night with my friends Melissa and Lauren. It was a great Independence Day :)

 Me, Lauren, Melissa, and Marina at the fireworks

I volunteered through the CARE program again but this time Lauren joined me.  For an hour, we divided our time between 5 adorable dogs.  It was so much fun and we will be returning this week again! :)  We tried to teach the dogs fetch (but failed) and gave one of the dogs a bath!

My new CARE volunteer buddy (and one of my best friends), Lauren!

This week in the lab I worked primarily with the live Daphnia clones.  I am trying to get as many juveniles as possible for each clone line.  The juveniles need to be hatched within 5 days of each other so when they mature and when I zap them with UV, the Daphnia will all be the same age.  This serves as a constant in my experiment because ages makes a huge difference with UV damage/repair.  If the Daphnia are very close in age, my results will be more reliable.  I spent the majority of my time separating the moms and the juveniles, feeding the Daphnia, and preparing for the UV portion of the experiment.

However, I did get some time outside of the lab. I got to go out on the boat again for weekly sampling!! I went with Lindsay and Katie.  It was a lot of fun but it was super hot! Unfortunately we had some technical problems with the boat so we had to switch boats midway through.  Luckily we were prepared to swim and after our sampling work was done, we jumped in.

 Me on the boat

Swimming in Lake Cayuga

That's it for this week! There are lots of adventures planned for next week so stay tuned :) and have a great week!