Plant Press Stress

Last week was the most stressing week of three days I have had this year.

I am not sure why either, but I am sure that it had nothing to do with the following test week, because I had greater things going through my mind.

The burden befalled me on wednesday, when we returned to school after the Chinese New Year holidays. Due to my very short legs and very big steps lining the stairs down the track, I walked down the steps too hastily, and one of my knees hardly hit the ground. Defination (Hardly): To hit something with a lot of force. Antonymn: Barely. At least in this context.

First the skin went paper white, then pain seeped in, while blood oozed out. Great, another cut on the usual lucky spot of my knee, which always had a tendency to get injured. This time, it was a rather deep injury, it wasn't just surface blood, it was crimson red and staining the surrounding skin.

One of the horrible things about my school, is that it only had one washing hose in the middle of the track, which was bound to attract a lot of attention if I went there in the midst of assembly. So I went to the showering room to shower my wound which got my pants rather wet.

Not being able to walk properly for the following days was a rather big blow to my confidence. I could not run during P.E, but still got forced to run, typical of the lousiest teacher in the school. And I lost that happy energy in my footsteps. Not moving is one thing. Knowing that you can't run around even if you wanted to is much worse.

Horrible start, isn't it?

Cell biology article review was due on Friday, and for the whole holidays, I have not touched a single piece of work. Searching through many interesting articles, I either had nothing to write about them, or was doubtful about its relevance to cell biology. I finally completed it at 12midnight, really late for me considering that I usually slept latest at 10pm. And then one gigantic burden looming over me for the day before was finally lifted. But I was still feeling stressed. What could the source be?

Unknowingly, I had a really bad feeling about plant press project, which I have kind of forgotton about the approaching deadline, yet a subconcious mind was sending me a warning. I had better start.

A few weeks ago, I went to Botanic gardens to get plants specimens with my friends, where the scientific names were readily available on a mind-soothing little rectangular plate at the base of the plant. However, I forgot to add a layer of paper while pressing them and put the leaves under my textbook. Thus they turned black over the days and started describing themselves with tiny white rings on the contrasting black background. Since then, I threw that project out of my mind along with the leaves.

And it has been unconciously haunting me since.

I finally figured out the complex mathematics on friday, and I got so freaked out that I started taking out my notebook and planning each detail of my weekend frantically.

Plan: Biology Plant Press starts on Saturday.

Where in the world would I cook up 10 plants with their scientific names without the assistance of botanists? Ben's book was not being too helpful as the variety of plants within were not too wide. I decided that I needed a more rigorous and determined approach.

I cried for help.

Actually, I went to meet Benjamin at Simei, where he gave me some plant specimens from his home. I am really grateful to that, because not only had that contributed to my plant collection, it had also given me a huge morale boost which was at level 0 when I walked about aimlessly around Pasir Ris Mrt Station fruitlessly trying to identify the plants with Ben's book.

I went to the library and borrowed a book titled "1001 Garden plants in singapore" which added to my confidence. That afternoon, I did a lot of cross referencing from difference sources which included yahoo images, wikipedia, scientific resarch of plants on the net, those books and my common sense. The next day, as I was browsing through the 1001 plant book, I came across two plants which I had, which felt like a real miracle. By the end of the weekend, I have identified (or at least relatively sure) 8 plants.

Woohoo!

Now that my wound is also gradually healing, I am starting to see light through the windows along the sides of a dark tunnel.

Foldit - I am going to try this

Gamers Saving Lives -- Biochemists And Computer Scientists Collaborate To Create Protein-folding Computer Game

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2008/1003-gamers_saving_lives.htm#

ScienceDaily () -- Computer scientists designed a computer game based on the principles of biochemistry. It allows amateurs to compete against and collaborate with specialists to design protein structures. Introductory levels teach the general governing concepts that users must understand before moving on to design complicated, potentially useful molecules.

What if instead of waging war or dropping blocks, gamers set their sights on something like a new HIV vaccine? Sounds strange, but biochemistry might be the new must-play video game.

It looks and sounds like a computer game, but Foldit is much more than just a computer game -- it's crucial biochemistry research.

Biochemist David Baker wants to discover the unique folding of proteins to better understand how they make our bodies work. A friend suggested turning this scientific puzzle into a game. That's where computer scientist Zoran Popovic and his team come in.

"You no longer need to get a degree in biochemistry to actually start doing this stuff," says Zoran Popovic, Ph.D., an associate professor in the department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle.

The game's introductory levels "trick" you into learning all the concepts you need to know. Then all you do is play -- alone or in teams.

"I know that some of our users have kind of described it as Tetris on steroids or something," Dr. Popovic says. The goal is to get the highest score by folding the proteins based on the same criteria they use in the lab. Each protein is a puzzle -- the more people play, the better chance a correct "fold" will be discovered for each protein. Eventually the puzzles could be used to help make vaccines and even cure genetic diseases.

"You can get into work and say I stayed up all night -- [but] I wasn't playing Halo," says David Baker, Ph.D., a biochemist at the University of Washington in Seattle. "I was designing an HIV vaccine."

Sometime ago I read about this online "game" which involves gamers playing police, having access to the many recordings of security cameras throughout London and scoring points each time a crime is reported...

The world is getting involved.

Overdid It

Hard to find quality time to post this year.

Chemistry Demonstration today. Previously, sodium acetate crystalisation had been quite a problem, as they did not crystalise fast enough. We hypothesized that it was because it was not supersaturated enough.

Being in charge of the sodium acetate crystalisation reaction today, I dumped a layer of sodium acetate into the beaker and added a few squirts of water to it. Now, that should supersaturate it...

As the magnetic stirrer whirled and the temperature rose, the salt started vanishing into the water, and before long, it was clear again.

So I added more sodium acetate, then it became clear, and I added more, and it dissolved and I added more...

When we poured it out for testing, it worked wonderful. A few drops of sodium acetate froze in the positions at which it hit the glass dish, and as more drops pounded onto it, a pillar was formed in no time.

Pouring the solid back into the mixture of heating sodium acetate, I added more sodium acetate, just in case.

Till now, a transparent tough-looking film was forming on the surface, indicating that it was supersaturated, but when we increased the angular velocity of the magnetic stirrer, the current disrupted the film.

No more film? Add more acetate.

We switched off the heat and went to look at the other group presentations.

Supersaturated sodium acetate was trouble, every now and then the surface turned into a blanket of white salt. And we had to heat it and stir it again. Timing was crucial.

And hard to manage.

We did not have time to practice our presentation once through, so when I moved the sodium acetate off the hot plate, it did not cool down fast enough before it was time to pour it. However, due to the overly supersaturatedness of this wonderful solution of destruction I have boldly concoted, it crystalised quite fast even at an uncomfortably warm temperature.

Do not forget. This is hot ice. Crystalisation of it is highly exothermic. Until now, we did not really consider the amount of heat released as a function of the concentration of our solution.

Unexpectedly, as the sodium acetate shot needle like spicules from nucleation centers, the crystalisation contagiously spread throughout the tiny existence of the puddle of sodium acetate. As we all know, this was an exothermic reaction, and especially when the solution is so saturated that crystals can form under a turbulent current and high temperature...

You can see how overly supersaturated that would be.

Like nothing has happened, the puddle disappeared the moment I turned around. Upon probing with the glass stirrer, the hot ice had burned away and melted the plastic sheet and fell into our 'dormant volcanic liquid'.

Shouting "Hey look everyone we melted the plastic" would not have been a very good cover up for my blunder.

I tried to see if there was any more sodium acetate left to 're-do' it. Oh my, the liquid in the conical flask has started to crystalise too. If there was any chance of find out any more was left...

I tipped the conical flask over and dripped a drop of sodium acetate onto my hand.

Since hot liquid + exothermicness = very hot, with the assumption that it could melt plastic, and the liquid crystalised upon touching my hand; the result was a rather embarassing turn around, mouthing of not very nice language and slamming my hand onto the lab bench repeatedly like I was a lunatic trying to kill an invisible cockcroach.

The high supersaturation had made the crystalisation a lot MORE exothermic than what we have tried...

Around 5 times more unexpected.

It crystalised so well that instead of shards of crystals that could be washed off, it turned out to become a plate of solid white which clings onto the glass, which only way of clearing would be to melt it.

Our elephant toothpaste lava did not go quite well either, due to some mix up in our requirements, we used 6% instead of 35% hydrogen peroxide, so no one saw our lava.

Probably the only thing anyone saw throughout our demonstration was the plastic melting effect of volcanoes. Not very exciting.