Final Preparations

I cannot believe we are heading into week ten! The final senior project presentations have been scheduled for Saturday, May 6. Mine is at 12:00 p.m. in the BASIS Phoenix gym, and I would love for anyone interested to attend.

I plan to conduct two more surveys this week: the one for classical music and the one for pop music. I hope everyone enjoys Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and 24K Magic.

In the lab I have been learning a different technique: the Western Blot. It is much trickier than the immuno. It's purpose is to visualize certain target proteins that have been separated by means of gel electrophoresis (separating particles based on their size and charge). To break it down simply (I hope), the first step is to perform the gel electrophoresis. In this step, the liquid samples-- in this case brain tissue samples-- are "loaded" into the wells using a pipette. They are often dyed a dark color so they can be seen. Then, using electricity, the different sized particle fragments separate out through the gel, where smaller fragments travel further.

Then the proteins that ran in the gel must be transferred to a membrane. To do this, you must prepare a stack as shown below and then run electricity through it.

Lastly, you do the antibody staining, much like an immuno, to visualize your target proteins. Here is what a final Western Blot might look like. This one used chemiluminescence and was visualized using fluorescence, where the protein of interest was tagged with a molecule that fluoresces under a certain light.

Thanks!

Some Bumps in the Road

Planning an experiment is hard...

As I explained previously, each participant is to play the memory game with or without music, and then report their score on the survey. I capped that score at 12,000, with the final highest score report option being ">12,000." I clearly failed to account for some of BASIS' most forgotten geniuses: the teachers. Thanks Mr. McCorkle for pointing out your score was well above 12,000. We get it. You're brilliant.

To account for this lack of information above 12,000, I have adjusted the rest of the surveys to extend to 18,000 (I really hope that's enough), which will allow me to collect better, more precise data, and ultimately calculate a more accurate measurement of how participants score on the following surveys. I unfortunately cannot re-do that first survey, however I do not think the lack of information at the high levels will ultimately affect the overview of the results, because the vast majority of participants scored below that initial cap, so the number of scores affected was very few. Even still, the following surveys are now better designed. Research and experience entail learning from your mistakes.

With the teacher responses, I have 81 total for the first survey! The next round will likely take place on Thursday.