Last week in organic chemistry lab we synthesized aspirin. We treated the fluffy white product with the care usually reserved for other drugs, since it threatened to blow away everywhere and we needed to measure our yield.

This week we distilled eugenol from powdered cloves. I loved putting together the whole rig from the expensive and specialized ( Read more... )

I'm writing up a physio lab on thin layer chromatography of amino acids, in the style of a journal article. I was expecting the results (distance traveled by spots of amino acids along a plate when moved up the plate by a solution) to be neatly correlated with hard data on the polarity (hydrophobicity) of the 20 different amino acids.

Ha.

This ( Read more... )

the view of Mt. Diablo today in Contra Costa County is spectacular ( Read more... )

GD Portal thesis approved. (Wild cheers!) Now trying to make sense of astrological charts, particularly my own. Forest, trees. Sigh ( Read more... )

Courtesy of the debonair jonathankormanI will likely be slower at this than he, but I will respond ( Read more... )

I'm looking at Physiology through a straw. Currently, my entire view of the subject is that everything is determined by transmembrane proteins that either let things in/out of the cell, or not ( Read more... )

Like many in the community, I'm mulling over Pantheacon and slowly emerging from my post-convention muzzyness to put fingers to keyboard ( Read more... )

Not much narrative. I'm very focused - even posting here feels like a distraction ( Read more... )

Today's the first day of classes again. Organic chemistry, physics lab, and physiology. Classes start around lunchtime Tuesday through Thursday. I got up at the crack of dawn today, hoping to switch my evening T-Th physiology section to a 4-day morning session, but no luck. So, Tuesdays and Thursdays will be especially long. Classes until 10:15. ( Read more... )

Lots of long hours put in over the last week by artist Shelley Masters and her team... as well as eye_of_zoharFields has now reopened and it's beautiful! The ceiling, once a harsh off-white, is now celestial. An alchemical Sun rises in the East, over the door. Golden dawn sky shades to midday clouds and then to twilight at the Western end of the store. In the ( Read more... )