the dma lives!
I never thought that I would be so happy from seeing a string of seemingly nonsensical numbers displayed on a laptop screen. But these aren't nonsensical numbers... no, no. These are the numbers that a mercury analyzer shows when it is actually running properly! We have been struggling big time with our direct mercury analyzer (more like indirect and useless mercury analyzer) for almost a year now. After being sent a brand new one that also didn't work consistently, I had pretty much given up hope. Luckily it seems like the technician who came out to fix this one actually made some progress and it is slowly chugging out beautiful, beautiful lines of data...
And I probably just jinxed it just by writing this. I'm getting so superstitious about this machine that I'm steps away from needing lucky underwear and doing incantations before each run.
And I probably just jinxed it just by writing this. I'm getting so superstitious about this machine that I'm steps away from needing lucky underwear and doing incantations before each run.
the end of summer party
I'm a little slow to post about it, but we had an awesome end-of-summer BBQ at my house last week to celebrate the end of the undergraduate's internships with me. And how do biologists end the summer? In incredibly dorky fashion - by playing "band the song sparrow", "floy tag the bass" and "regrow the newt tail"*. My interns did a great job helping to make the playing boards (totally pivotal use of internship hours...). Although adults outnumbered children playing the game by about 4 to 1, we were luckily at a major disadvantage due to height and alcohol consumption. *yes we were all a little confused about the last one, but it seemed like after summers of cutting off salamander tails for science, it seemed nice to pretend that we could put them back together. |