Friday, August 6, 2010

Day 20 - Experimental set-up

The algae arrived today! It came in to glass vials filled with agar, and it looked like streaks of green smeared on top. In the morning, I finished sterilizing about 20 L of tap water by boiling it in a kettle. I poured 400 mL into each of the 21 half-liter bottles.

For the experimental set-up, I covered a tank with foil on all sides to provide the algae with ambient lighting. Matt spent much of the day helping me build a stand for the UV lights and wiring the lights. Thanks to Matt, I simply plug in a cord, and the algae will have the bright light they need for optimum growth.

I scraped some algae off from the agar and transferred it to two starter culture bottles with some growth medium in each.

I am also much indebted to Julie, who talked me through every step and walked over to Parsons to grind and weigh out the caffeine and ibuprofen pills. I used pipettes to measure out the needed volumes of DEET and antibacterial soap. All the chemicals were deposited into stock solutions, which will be transferred to the other 15 bottles with the algae once the algae have time to grow over the weekend.

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