11/22- More Information Regarding the Experiment

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

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