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Because I'm both bored and nostalgic at the same time
When I was in my senior year in high school, I took AP biology. I bloody loved that class. In fact, I think I can put most of the blame on it as to why I went into the biological sciences when it was time to do the school thing. There are several reasons I loved it so. One was that the teacher was awesome. I know several people at school didn't like her because she had a tendency to be tempestuous, but I suspect that had something to do with the fact that in the lower level classes she had to deal with people who just did *not* care. You know the type, the ones that are taking it because they have to. And that bugged her. With us, the ones that were in AP bio because we wanted to be, she was just plain awesome. Another reason was the awesome people in class. Our class was basically divided into three sections, mainly due to the arrangement of the desks. Two of them were the quiet, insanely smart types. Then there was us. We were the zany loud section that were having as much fun as possible with the class. Each of the experiments was an escapade for us, and I'm sure we drove the other two sections of the room crazy. XD Anyway, over the course of the year I compiled a list in my sketchbook in the sort of "Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned In..." style of several of the events that happened in that class. The other day I started looking at the list again, and decided to regale you all with stories of my days as a zany high school student, should you be so interested. I'll try to explain them as best I can, as I figure the only ones who will completely get all the stories in here will be ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
teanymph and dragon_god_jc. So, without further to do,
Regular scientific scales can be used to create black holes
I don't remember the experiment, but there was one day where we were supposed to measure something using the digital scales. Nothing too unusual about that in and of itself, but then we put the object on the scale and discovered that it was registering as having no mass. One of us in the group then loudly declared "It has no mass! There must be a black hole there!!" Yes, we were zany. XD
There's no right way to say 'Lophophorate'
Lophophorate is an animal...family I believe. As I recall, it was a group of little watter critters, but beyond that I don't remember. But what I do remember though was our teacher trying to say the word in class and being completely uncertain where the stress was supposed to be in the word. So we all agreed that it doesn't really matter. So say 'Lophophorate' how you feel like!
Never use white medium for flies
Ah yes, the fruit fly experiment. We were raising our fruit flies in these tubes and gave them this sort of oatmealy medium for them to eat. You put it in the tube and added water, and it created a mush with the consistency of, well, oatmeal. The medium was white in the dry form, but when water was added it turned this lovely bright blue color. Our teacher gave this medium to the two sections, but when she got to ours she had to open a new bag. Instead of this medium turning blue, it stayed white. Well, we figured it didn't really matter, so we went on with the experiment. We soon found out that it does matter very much. We still don't know what was in the medium, but the other two sections' flies were happy as can be, making tons of larva and pupae and all that good stuff, so they got plenty of data. Sad to say though, our flies were pitiful. They were tiny with deformed wings and were generally dead by the time we got to them. ;_; So never EVER use white medium when you're raising fruit flies.
After drugging flies for two weeks, you never forget the smell of flynap
This is true. I'm sure if you gave me a whiff of flynap today I'd still be able to go "Yep! That's flynap!" And what is flynap you ask? Anasthesia for flies, basically. XD I suspect it's ether-based, but we used it to put our fruit flies to sleep so we could examine their phenotypes without them buzzing around and such.
It's possible to clone cells using a refridgerator, a knife, a lamp, and some pineapple.
For our biotechnology project, my group chose cloning. Boy what a blast that was. For our visual, we ended up going over to my good friend Olga-chan's house and filming "Cloning for Dummies", which basically involved me and her demonstrating how to clone cells using common household objects. It is TOTALLY silly and it still cracks me up when I see it because it is just SO RIDICULOUS. The info in it is reasonably accurate, it's just the film itself is silly beyond belief. Incubating cells in the fridge and growing them on pineapple indeed. XD
After spending all day doing AP bio labs with the same group of people, scary things happen
One of the labs we did for the class involved doing large things like gel electrophoresis and getting bacteria to accept plasmids. It'd take several hours to complete, so instead of spending several weeks on it, our teacher decided instead for us to make a field trip out of it--we spent the day in the lab at school. We did everything there, including eat lunch. We were a bit stir crazy by the end, to say the least. But boy was it fun.
Unfortunately, there are websites out there like clonaid.com
The headquarters for the Raelians, for those who don't know. ^^; We found the site when we were trying to find stuff for the cloning project. In fact I think it was something like the first site to pop up. Oh dear.
Two words: Cane Toads
If you ever get the chance to see this documentary, I suggest you do. It's both funny and depressing at the same time. And despite what you think otherwise, it is in fact a legitimate documentary. In fact, I think it was said to be the Monty Python of the documentary world. XD
It's a lot of fun to randomly scream out "1,3-biphosphoglycerate!!"
Oo yes. 1,3-bi(s)phosphoglycerate is a compound in glycolysis, and we had to be familiar with it. Olga-chan and I shared a couple other classes together, so we took to practicing our compounds in there. I think we scared our classmates with our zealism over molecules.
Yes, you can relate the Krebs Cycle to oranges
You can scare people by yelling out glycolysis compounds at random
Look up two entries. ^^;
Beakers are very sensitive creatures
There was one day we were sitting in the lab(in fact I think this was the all day lab day), and I was practicing a monologue I was going to use for an audition. I wasn't talking to anyone in particular, but my eyes ended up latching on the most convenient object, a beaker. The monologue I was doing was a bit heated, and when I finished I looked up to see my fellow groupmates looking at me funnily. One of them made a remark akin to "Now what did that beaker ever do to you? Don't you know you hurt its feelings?". I guess I do need to give more care to lab glassware. XD
Never clone a Russian
The end of the cloning video involved a statement where "Just about anyone can clone!". At which point we had Olga-chan show up onscreen with slightly different clothing each time. The joke was that she had gone off and done just that--cloned a bunch of hers so she could take over the world. Well, we thought it was funny.
No matter how pathetic your life seems to be, just remember there's someone out there who is very proud of the fact that they are a member of the Cell Death Society
Another site we found while looking for cloning info. Apparently, yes, there is a society out there dedicated to apoptosis(cell death). We found this to be a source of extreme amusement.
Everyone should have a pair of tryptophan pants
While we were doing amino acids, I found the word 'tryptophan' to be rather funny. I still do actually. But I found that when said dramatically with the word 'pants' at the end, the funny factor increased dramatically, at least for me. So I went through a phase of dramatically declaring 'tryptophan pants!' at opportune moments. Hey, I never said I was sane.
You can't handle the truth about Jello!
No, seriously. You can't.
teanymph and dragon_god_jc. So, without further to do,Regular scientific scales can be used to create black holes
I don't remember the experiment, but there was one day where we were supposed to measure something using the digital scales. Nothing too unusual about that in and of itself, but then we put the object on the scale and discovered that it was registering as having no mass. One of us in the group then loudly declared "It has no mass! There must be a black hole there!!" Yes, we were zany. XD
There's no right way to say 'Lophophorate'
Lophophorate is an animal...family I believe. As I recall, it was a group of little watter critters, but beyond that I don't remember. But what I do remember though was our teacher trying to say the word in class and being completely uncertain where the stress was supposed to be in the word. So we all agreed that it doesn't really matter. So say 'Lophophorate' how you feel like!
Never use white medium for flies
Ah yes, the fruit fly experiment. We were raising our fruit flies in these tubes and gave them this sort of oatmealy medium for them to eat. You put it in the tube and added water, and it created a mush with the consistency of, well, oatmeal. The medium was white in the dry form, but when water was added it turned this lovely bright blue color. Our teacher gave this medium to the two sections, but when she got to ours she had to open a new bag. Instead of this medium turning blue, it stayed white. Well, we figured it didn't really matter, so we went on with the experiment. We soon found out that it does matter very much. We still don't know what was in the medium, but the other two sections' flies were happy as can be, making tons of larva and pupae and all that good stuff, so they got plenty of data. Sad to say though, our flies were pitiful. They were tiny with deformed wings and were generally dead by the time we got to them. ;_; So never EVER use white medium when you're raising fruit flies.
After drugging flies for two weeks, you never forget the smell of flynap
This is true. I'm sure if you gave me a whiff of flynap today I'd still be able to go "Yep! That's flynap!" And what is flynap you ask? Anasthesia for flies, basically. XD I suspect it's ether-based, but we used it to put our fruit flies to sleep so we could examine their phenotypes without them buzzing around and such.
It's possible to clone cells using a refridgerator, a knife, a lamp, and some pineapple.
For our biotechnology project, my group chose cloning. Boy what a blast that was. For our visual, we ended up going over to my good friend Olga-chan's house and filming "Cloning for Dummies", which basically involved me and her demonstrating how to clone cells using common household objects. It is TOTALLY silly and it still cracks me up when I see it because it is just SO RIDICULOUS. The info in it is reasonably accurate, it's just the film itself is silly beyond belief. Incubating cells in the fridge and growing them on pineapple indeed. XD
After spending all day doing AP bio labs with the same group of people, scary things happen
One of the labs we did for the class involved doing large things like gel electrophoresis and getting bacteria to accept plasmids. It'd take several hours to complete, so instead of spending several weeks on it, our teacher decided instead for us to make a field trip out of it--we spent the day in the lab at school. We did everything there, including eat lunch. We were a bit stir crazy by the end, to say the least. But boy was it fun.
Unfortunately, there are websites out there like clonaid.com
The headquarters for the Raelians, for those who don't know. ^^; We found the site when we were trying to find stuff for the cloning project. In fact I think it was something like the first site to pop up. Oh dear.
Two words: Cane Toads
If you ever get the chance to see this documentary, I suggest you do. It's both funny and depressing at the same time. And despite what you think otherwise, it is in fact a legitimate documentary. In fact, I think it was said to be the Monty Python of the documentary world. XD
It's a lot of fun to randomly scream out "1,3-biphosphoglycerate!!"
Oo yes. 1,3-bi(s)phosphoglycerate is a compound in glycolysis, and we had to be familiar with it. Olga-chan and I shared a couple other classes together, so we took to practicing our compounds in there. I think we scared our classmates with our zealism over molecules.
Yes, you can relate the Krebs Cycle to oranges
You can scare people by yelling out glycolysis compounds at random
Look up two entries. ^^;
Beakers are very sensitive creatures
There was one day we were sitting in the lab(in fact I think this was the all day lab day), and I was practicing a monologue I was going to use for an audition. I wasn't talking to anyone in particular, but my eyes ended up latching on the most convenient object, a beaker. The monologue I was doing was a bit heated, and when I finished I looked up to see my fellow groupmates looking at me funnily. One of them made a remark akin to "Now what did that beaker ever do to you? Don't you know you hurt its feelings?". I guess I do need to give more care to lab glassware. XD
Never clone a Russian
The end of the cloning video involved a statement where "Just about anyone can clone!". At which point we had Olga-chan show up onscreen with slightly different clothing each time. The joke was that she had gone off and done just that--cloned a bunch of hers so she could take over the world. Well, we thought it was funny.
No matter how pathetic your life seems to be, just remember there's someone out there who is very proud of the fact that they are a member of the Cell Death Society
Another site we found while looking for cloning info. Apparently, yes, there is a society out there dedicated to apoptosis(cell death). We found this to be a source of extreme amusement.
Everyone should have a pair of tryptophan pants
While we were doing amino acids, I found the word 'tryptophan' to be rather funny. I still do actually. But I found that when said dramatically with the word 'pants' at the end, the funny factor increased dramatically, at least for me. So I went through a phase of dramatically declaring 'tryptophan pants!' at opportune moments. Hey, I never said I was sane.
You can't handle the truth about Jello!
No, seriously. You can't.