EQ

1.   The Rule of Three Criteria:

• Provide a framework for studies (It calls for breadth and depth of research, Is not a yes/no question)
• Takes a stance (Allows you to argue some point, Cannot be a recitation of facts or a list)
•  Format (It is specific, The wording makes sense)

I reviewed the rule of three for writing an EQ.

2.   

     a. What is the most important factor in healthy weight loss?

The criterion that this EQ meets quite well is the second one - as it is very arguable.  Experts debate on how to loose weight healthily, the value of fad diets, etc. The author just needs to decide on whether to focus on the "how" or "what".  How to loose healthily, or what makes a weight loss plan healthy?   

Summation: This EQ meets criterion 2, partly 1, and does not quite meet 3.  

     b.  What is most important to securing a conviction in a criminal investigation?

Perhaps "what" should be specified - maybe "technique".  A who should be included as well.  How can a, I don't know, lawyer best secure a conviction in a criminal investigation, maybe.  

Summation: meets all but last criterion.    

     c. What is most important in creating a hairstyle that best satisfies a customer?

This EQ doesn't seem to meet criterion 1.  "Listen to the customer" seems to be the answer.  The EQ could be worded to allow more wiggle room - perhaps focus on the most important skill for a hair-dresser to have.  

Summation: doesn't meet the criteria.  

     d. How can an Anesthesiologist best treat chronic pain?

This EQ meets the three criteria.  It calls for the author ti research medical papers, secure credible sources, explore opinion and find evidence.  Answering this EQ means settling on an opinion - no doubt an arguable one, as medical method varies out there.  Finally, the EQ is nice and specific.  The profession it involves and the condition being treated is included.  Even the use of the word "treat" adds specificity in a crucial way.  

Summation: meets the rule of 3 criteria

3.  Based on your review of the rule of 3 and your experience with assessing four EQs, please write another draft EQ for your senior project.

•What is the most important advancement in microbiology that extremophile research has facilitated.

•Why should microbiologists continue to research extremophiles?

•What is the most useful application for extremophile research in the context of the world today?

•What is the most important development that extremophiles research has to offer?

The gist of my EQ drafts is "Why extremophiles?".  I just need to get the wording right.

Of Revenge and My Perfectly Good Finger

Going to Oak Crest each week, I always leave feeling that there is so much I have left to learn.  It's a bit frustrating at times, actually.  I've decided to exact organized revenge upon this frustration for causing me hassle in previous learning experiences.  You shall not conquer me this time!  My main weapon in this stage of the battle is Coursera - home to a plethora of excellent online courses, hence the name Course - ra.
Ha, ahe, he.  That's clever.
In particular, there is the "Useful Genetics: Part 1" course taught by Dr. Rosemary Redfield of the University of British Columbia (the Canadian accent shines through every once in a bit) that commenced Nov. 1st but which I discovered Nov. 8th, so I missed the first graded quiz.  Grrr.  I've been rushing to consume as much information as I can to get caught up - upon enrolling the class -, leading up to this very busy weekend of finishing two weeks worth of work in two days by the time the second graded quiz is due - about 2 hours from now at 11:59 PM.  Wish me luck.
This course will reacquaint me with biology and familiarize me with its molecular aspects - a focus of my independent component.  It will also force me to keep my toes in the pond, so to speak, to think about biology everyday, to be born back into it, mounded by it.  Also, genetics is cool.

Proof

Hopefully, this course will be to me what Sam was to Frodo and help me reach Mount Doom to cast my worries into its fiery depths - and  I am NOT wasting a perfectly good finger fighting Gollum for it.  I need that to pipette stuff and things (in the words of Rick Grimes).

Well, if it's not the whole Sam, than his super fresh head of hair.

Did I mention that Dr. Rosemary Redfield has blue hair?

Nice plant

It's Christmas!

Today, I learned how to operate an ultramicrotome.  This may seem like a fancy device, but it is actually quite simple.  "ultramicro-" implies that the instrument deals with the very small, while "-tome", comes from the Greek "temnein" to cut.  Thus, it can be inferred that an ultramicrotome cuts stuff into extremely thin slices - and that is exactly what it does!  The "stuff" it slices is sample - some bacteria perhaps - so that it can be viewed under a transmission electron microscope.  In transmission electron microscopy, a beam of electrons is shot at the sample, and the microscope detects the electrons that passed through, thus creating a detailed image of the sample.  

C. elegans embryo - example of a TEM image

    
The samples must be fixed, dried, and set in a resin.  My teacher for today, Paul, a microscopist and senior faculty member at Oak Crest, had prepared some samples years ago and used them for today's instruction.  It was a rectangular block of resin with some sample at the end of it.  He fixed it onto the segment arc of the ultramicrotome and first trimmed some resin off with a metal blade, looking through the lenses on this apparatus (it is much like a microscope, but with the added slicing capability), until the section of resin with sample in it was jutting out from the rest of the pod.  He moved on to the glass blade, fixing the segment arc onto a special port and the glass blade onto its throne beneath the ultramicrotome lens, and manually cutting the resin until the top of the bit of resin with sample in it was flat and some sample was exposed.  Behold a graphic to make more sense of this.  Hopefully it helps.

I was allowed to cut some resin myself.  The slivers that curled off looked like tinsel, with worms of pink and cotton candy blue wiggling around their edges, like the surface of a soup bubble.  It was marvelous.  The top of the jutting sample/resin block was "polished" by the glass blade, creating a very flat surface.  Next, Paul took out a small, clear, plastic box.  inside of it was a foam holder and inside of that was a blue block.  At the edge of that  block was, what other than, a diamond blade.  :'D It was beautiful.  He replaced the glass blade with this glorious instrument.

After operating it manually for a bit, he filled the trough behind the blade with water so that the slices made by the blade could float off, waiting to be collected later for TEM, and automated the slicing process.

The blue thing is the trough filled with water, and the gray rectangle is the diamond blade.  Floating on the surface of the water are the slices of sample from the resin block.  There are only a few nanometers thick.  That golden thing is the resin block, held in the segment arc.  The diamond blade is caught in mid-slice.  You can barely make out the sample - the dark spot on the edge of the resin block.    

It was at this time that I watched the diamond blade working its magic through the lens.  Here is a short video of this excellence.  Excuse the bad quality.  

It was like Christmas!  Each delicate sliver was a present, a snowflake, a bit of tinsel.  There you go - the connection between the title of this post and the post itself.  Got that over with.

Anyway,  once the slicing was done, the water was thrown out - slivers included - sadly.  They were only for demonstration, after all.  It was a pretty cool experience.  I remember Mrs. Matthews explaining electron microscopy to use, holding up a diamond blade that I could barely see.  Little did I know that I'd be getting a good look at such a blade one fine day...