Siliceous and Delicious

Another incredibly slow start to the day—late to work after a longish run in the morning, then a long grad student life commiseration session with Jc. The calendar, however, calls for a return to the FIB project. I don’t even know what I need to do next on that front. Let me consult OmniFocus and OmniPlan. It seems the most pressing need is for sample lists of both extant species and fossil diatoms upon which to perform FIB torture. I’ll start with the extant, since that’s easier.

In my proposal, I set out to FIB about ten species. As I started listing possible species to use, a problematic thought occurred: these species all grow under different temperatures (as listed in the CCMP catalogue). Since temperature affects growth rate and, as Zoe has shown, growth rate affects silicification, isn’t this a problem—comparing apples and oranges? For now, note, ignore, and move on…

Several positive possibilities present themselves on the CCMP website, too: first, they offer f/2 kits—sets of stock solutions for making 20 or 50 liters of media. That would be a much simpler way to make media, provided I can get access to seawater, rather than mixing everything from scratch. Secondly, in addition to little test tubes for starting your own culture, they offer ‘mass culture’—harvested cells from up to 20 liters of culture. This would be a way of getting my cells for FIB (and sonication) without having to do any culturing at all—however, it’s a lot more expensive (we’re now talking $525 per species).