Today's DIL Report

Today I went to the lab to use the CryoStat (it turns out it was just locked last week, and it just needed the "lock" button pushed). I sliced an entire brain. It was one of the four from last week (two were mine, two were U's) and it was definitely one of mine -- the olfactory bulb was quite messy and folded under the cortex. There was also a large slice through part of the cortex which C thought was from uneven freezing.

Also! C came with me, which was awesome. She graded papers at the desk next to the CryoStat while I sliced and looked over my slides. She says that they're very good, even amazing considering it was my first time slicing. Every set of slides she'd look over my slices and show me landmarks from the mouse atlas. That was the best part of the day, looking over my slides with C and her teaching me what on the brain corresponds to what in the atlas and some of the functions of certain major structures.

As for the actual slicing, I think it was pretty good. The olfactory bulb messed up the first few sets of slides and I had some serious cracking issues, but they couldn't be resolved by adjusting the temperature which means it was most likely a problem with the brain itself. I got a lot of a sort-of "venetian blind" effect, where the slices had a series of parallel horizontal cracks. Both C and U said that it's not desirable but also not abnormal and that there's really nothing I could do about it. Looking at the slices, it didn't seem to mess them up too badly.

At some point I'm going to bring my camera into the lab and take pictures of my slices so that I can look them over enlarged, digitally, and compare them to my later slices (as well as include them in my DivIII portfolio).

Next Tuesday U, A and I are going to harvest more brains, which is great for getting me more exposure to animal sacrifice. I definitely prefer slicing brains to harvesting them. That said, I still want to get it perfect. I want my brains to look like this every time:





In other news, I got a note from Laurie today requesting a letter for Rayane's file (and I assume one will come for C's too) so I better get on that. I also need to put my DivIII on TheHub so that S can read it. So, list!

To-Do by Friday:
TheHub DivIII Proposal
Rayane's Letter
C's Letter