Loose ends are tied!

Loose ends always need tying-up. Not that I have any serious loose ends, unless you call a $35, 000 HECS debt a loose end, but since the annual biosafety test for our school has become available, I've been meaning to complete the online assessment. And register for the Evolution conference that is being held in July. Not to mention all the administration forms I have yet to complete, and replying to multiple people about availabilities for tutoring this semester.... ok, so I have had a lot of small things building up over the last 4 months that needed to be done. But today I did it all, and I feel very relieved and happy. Seriously, if you're having a bad or unproductive day, tie-up those loose ends and you will have achieved something for the day and feel a lot better for it.

I also met up with another person who works with Drosophila fruit flies, to see what feeding protocols are used and how to distinguish between different larval stages. Conveniently, larval development is divided into four logical stages: L1, L2, L3, and L4. That much was easy to understand. I was surprised to learn just how fast generation time was in these guys; in 10 days an egg will become a sexually mature adult fly, given it was reared at 25 degrees C. To encourage females to lay their eggs, simply dye an apple juice-based medium blue, introduce to the female fly, then lo and behold, little white eggs will appear. Apparently, this only works for Drosophila melanogaster, not for other species like D. simulans.

Imagine little white eggs on a blue (in this case purple) medium. At least, I hope the eggs are actually white, because if they are clear I'm in trouble!

Now that I am officially registered for it, I am really excited about the Evolution conference to be held this year! It is going to be in Ottawa, Canada, and runs from 6-10th of July. My supervisor and I haven't really been to an international evolution conference before, so we aren't sure what to expect, and whether my research thus far is even worthy of presentation, seeing as we aren't even sure if it suits the draw crowd for the talk sessions. To spare the on-lookers the pain of being told what they already know, we agreed that I will just present a poster for this conference, and focus on learning and getting ideas for my own research. What am I most excited about for this conference? Definitely the networking!

Image: http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=drosophila+melanogaster#/d148ear