Getting Back in the Swing ... of Things?

A quick update to those who still happen to check this blog.

Though we have a bit of a problem with background noise, our dual SYTOX Green / rhodamine phalloidin stain is an apparent success! Well, more or less; we have another set of fixed slides we will stain with an adjusted staining protocol.

The indominable Isaac had a few preliminary viewing sessions of our slides, and the colors for both stains (green and red respectfully) can be seen. From a very rough qualitative observation, it seems as though the distance between the nucleus and the slide decreased slightly in the 2xg samples, as expected. What was not expected was that the distance decreased in our microgravity samples as well, but to confirm this, we will need to look more closely at these images when our team assembles at Duke.

Also, if anyone at Duke is interested in taking part in this program, we are founding a club for the purpose of providing support to any people who have the ambition, guts, and cast iron stomachs to be just as crazy as us! Feel free to email any of us (though just me at jkf4@duke.edu is fine since I haven't discussed this with any of my teammates) for more info on the program. I will be blunt, however: it ain't no walk in the park (well, maybe Central Park at 2 AM). Is it rewarding? A resounding yes.

Look for us on the field during the Student Activities Fair this Saturday!

Back in the ...

[Edit] Amazing, my replacement post was published before original post ... I love the internet sometimes [End Edit]

... swing of things? That was the original title to this post, but my IE happily crashed along with the 200 or so words I had typed already. Here's a summary of what should have been published:

Cells look good; SYTOX Green / rhodamine phalloidin stain are clearly differentiable, though some background noise is visible due to the phalloidin

Isaac is a indominable beast for taking a preliminary look at the cells on the confocal before the rest of us gets there.

The nuclei seem to have moved closer to the slide surfaces in the 2xg samples (as expected) AND the microgravity samples, as compared with our 1xg controls. When the rest of us assemble at Duke, we will investigate in more quantitatively and in more depth.

Come see us promote the new NASA RGSFOP support club that we hope to form at the freshmen Activities Fair this Saturday(?) on East Campus. Let us know if you are interested, and we'll help you in any way we can.

All good things must end...

...but not quite yet.

A quick post from NC. Dan and I made it back safely. I think we were both knocked out during the flight. Anyways, we stained half of our cells down in Houston and are shipping the rest back up to stain here at grand ole Duke. After staining them, I'll probably take a look at the little guys under the confocal microscope after my math exam. We'll post our observations and results as we get them.

In the meantime, enjoy the media that we'll post from time to time and check out our picture gallery (link is on the navigation menu on the right) . To be honest, we were really surprised at the publicity this blog has received. We've been found on slashdot.org and nasawatch.com. We hope you have found our blog as fun to read as it was to write.

Videos? You've Got to be Kidding Me!

Yep, we have video now! You can find them at http://www.duke.edu/~gcs3/NASA. Enjoy!

Peace.