rebeccmeister | Braining away

Phew. Today has been one of those days that feels like it holds a huge number of simultaneous breakthroughs. As long as you ignore the fact that I was so dead-tired when the alarm went off this morning that I skipped the morning crew workout at the Rec Center, heh. No fitness breakthroughs.

My mind and body needed the rest. I was up late yesterday evening hanging out with friends after the Monday Night Social Ride, and I haven't been getting quite enough rest recently (see: Saturday).

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Breakthrough feeling one: Yesterday, I weighed out a set of 13 leaf samples into screw-top test tubes, added some hydrochloric acid (same kind as in your stomach), and boiled the samples for an hour to digest out all of the available carbohydrates. Today, I added phenol and sulfuric acid to the carbohydrate extracts, which makes the carbohydrates turn yellow (as can be seen in this photo), and then I measured the yellow color in a spectrophotometer and compared my samples to some reference samples with known amounts of carbohydrate.

The leaf samples were ones I collected in March, in Arizona (some are pictured starting here), for the purpose of getting an idea about natural protein and carbohydrate availability for desert leafcutter ants. This is the last big piece of information for the leafcutter manuscript I'm currently working on, because it provides context for the diets I used in an experiment.

Actually, the carb data are the penultimate piece of information. The last piece will be digestible protein availability, but I'm a bit further out on measuring protein. Recipes have to be tweaked some more first. Still, it feels like pieces are falling into place for this manuscript, finally. I lacked access to certain key pieces of information and key techniques when I was doing the experiments for my dissertation, but I'm closing the gap now.

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Breakthrough feeling two: A call for grant applications came across my desk today, and I'm actually eligible to apply, plus I think I have a good shot at this particular grant. It would let me pick what I want to work on, and where, and I have two good ideas for how to write it. I just have to be strategic about which idea I pick.

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Breakthrough feeling three: I had a meeting with my postdoc advisor, to work on one of two manuscripts we're currently writing, and it was a useful, productive meeting. Somehow, he and I are able to work together really well on writing projects. I would credit, in large part, his much more extensive writing and collaboration experience. He's really good at identifying shortcomings and talking through them, and I have learned a tremendous amount about how to approach scientific writing from working with him. We can both see that we've got two manuscripts in front of us that are coming together, and it feels good to have the work from the past 2.5 years finally reach fruition.