We're Back At It

This week I got to catch up on projects and items I put on hold while I was at the conference. However, since most of our team was at the conference, I didn't have too many items due but rather some new tasks to work on that we discussed during the conference itself. Additionally, thanks to a few presentations I attended, I got some insights to improve my side research project, and the presenter was super friendly and simplified his methodology without removing important content or concepts.

Additionally, my day at sea was a great time. We took about 20 students out on a boat and showed them multiple aspects of marine biology research, including fish trawls and plankton tows, underwater mapping, seawater collection from depth, megacoring (using a giant coring device that we attach to a crane to lower to the seafloor), microbial sampling from different media, and meiofauna and microplastics extractions on a boat, though I don't recommend the latter. The students got hands on in the mud, took lots of pictures of fishes and dolphins (no dolphins were caught by our netting), and got to experience a research vessel for likely their first time.

At the lab this week, I also learned a new skill that I've been interested in because of its application to my [potential] future research: DNA extractions. One of our wonderful postdocs at GCRL took me through all the steps of extracting DNA from mud samples, and what I thought was going to be a complex process actually seemed straightforward - though lots of steps. I'm always excited to learn new skills, as that is a major part of the postdoctoral life. 

Next week's update may come slightly later on Thursday than usual, as I will be presenting an outreach talk at Science on Tap - a public talks series at our local bar where students, postdocs, research scientists, and others talk about their work or science research in general. Also, depending on what tasks we start accomplishing on Monday, I might get to report back on moving our modeling work into space (geographic not outer), which will be an exciting next step in our research journey. Stay tuned!