Change of Plans

Slight alterations to the plans.

With the deadline approaching, we've managed to change the plans.

-Our specimen will NOT be a Protista at all. There were too many complications with the Paramecium caudatum and the Paramecium multimicronucleatum. It will probably be Annelida. This makes the blog name, "Hypergravity Protista" obsolete. 'Hypergravity Annelida' will take it's place. We will probably now be studying Earthworms in the Centrifuge. Perhaps we could have a study on the effects of asexual reproduction in a Transgravitational (or would it be supergravitational? Hypergravity would be a slight hyperbole, wouldn't it?)

-I'm not entirely sure, but due to time constraints we may have to adapt our current Centrifuge to the new experiment instead of building a Centrifuge from scratch, as was originally proposed.

We'll hopefully get a chance to argue out a few things next meeting, which should be pre-Thursday for many people's convenience.

12/9- The Plan (for Bio)

*Keep in mind that there are three groups involved here:
-The Biology Group (led by Chris R. and Cameron) is responsible for research and maintenance of the Paramecium.
-The Chemistry Group (led primarily by Rachel) is responsible for the research and observation of Chemicals involved in the experiment (we expect primarily biochemical studies)
-The Physics Group (led Chris C. and Darlene) is responsible for studying and implementing the construction and the effects of the centrifuge.

Anyway, progress for the Biology Group is underway. We have agreed to each chip in $4.00 (US) to order two different species of Paramecium: P. Caudatum (which has one large nucleus and one small, compact micronucleus) and P. Multimicronucleatum (which, as the name suggests, consists of multiple micronuclei as well as the nucleus). Each species cost 5.99 (USD) and shipping and handling add the total cost of buying both species to about 19 dollars.

We plan on ordering the specimens tomorrow, if all of us have made our contributions. The two Paramecium species would arrive within a week (next Monday). From there, we would borrow school material (ideally, a microscope with computer attachments) to observe the Paramecium, dye them if possible, and perhaps breed them to create a larger population with which to develop a substantial control group and experimental group...

Meanwhile, we appear to be facing minor planning difficulties with the Centrifuge portion of the project. More on that later

11/22- More Information Regarding the Experiment

Project Topic
-How would a hypergravity environment affect a simple organism such as Paramecium (a Protist)?

Members
-
Physics: Darlene B. and Chris C.
Biology: Chris R. and Cameron H.
Chemistry: Rachel S.
-

Species of Choice (at the moment)
-Paramecium caudatum; Paramecium multimicronucleatum (one of these two because they are the largest Paramecium species and would be easiest to observe). We selected Paramecium because they are large enough to observe, reproduce rapidly enough to see effects with greater ease, and are simple enough to recognize and observe in-depth with few complications (including ethical ones).

Hypergravity
-Simulation via a homemade Centrifuge. The force of the Centrifuge in G's will be determined mathematically. The Centrifuge will also be adapted to be habitable by Paramecium in normal conditions by providing them with the proper nutrients and environment to prosper in normal (1 G) conditions prior to experimentation.

An additional link (our first tip-off as to which species of Paramecium to use)
http://www.hope.edu/academic/biology/meciums/paraget.htm

Happy Thanksgiving!

Collection of Somewhat Relevant Web Sites

Collection of Relevant, Previously Posted Links (gracias to Chris Chow for posting these first)

http://esmdeo.arc.nasa.gov/hyperg/t_classroom.html

http://weboflife.nasa.gov/currentResearch/currentResearchHardware/bpsAmes.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitropism

http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/31/4/565

http://www-saps.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/records/rec63.htm

http://www.actahort.org/books/366/366_34.htm

- - -
You may recall that the first website on the list (also the thumbnail for this post, if I did it right) was the one that we saw in Mrs. Power's room on Wii-day, that basically described a plant-in-centrifuge experiment in one section in very simple terms. It has been confirmed that we will likely be using a protist, paramecium, mainly due to it's economic and practical advantages.

G4 PiC WIP FTW

(Group 4 Protist in Centrifuge Work-in-progress... for the win...)

Introducing our new blog regarding the aforementioned Group 4 Project. The main purposes of this blog:

• Keep tabs on important information here (it's possible to add this to an RSS feeder to get updates and whatnot). It helps us not to lose whatever vital information would otherwise be difficult to recover from our web conversations.

• Later documentation. It makes documenting our research chronologically much easier, as this is what blogs often do.

• Record Facts, Ideas, etc.
  

You get it. Over the next few days hopefully I can extract the more important nuggets from our web discussion for bloggification.

-Chris R