Week 8

Hi, readers. I promised an update on my project this week. I think I'm going to have to disappoint all of you on two counts, and, for that, I am sorry. 

Disappointment one. My research will not be finished by the end of the senior project (pause for crying). It takes a while to get time on the spectrometer. It looks like it will be a couple of months. I have some preliminary data suggesting that there are local adaptions to each region. If this holds true, this would provide actionable advice to restoration projects. However, there are reasons to be skeptical. Namely, we are seeing a greenhouse effect, that the plants are not stressed enough. These plants were in a hot desert with little water when they are used to being by a river. They had not demonstrated the stress of their situation. For this reason, we took samples from a couple different periods several months later. This provides us an opportunity to examine seasonal variations. I think this has just been a long-winded way to say that I will not have data in time. Science is slow. It takes a lot of work for a single data set, which will only be part of a paper. 

Disappointment two. I do not know what I will do my presentation on. I have helped on a bunch of different projects in my time at the Desert Botanical Garden. I am meeting with the PI, Dr. Hultine, to figure out which is going to be the best of those to present. So, what do I have to tell you about my project? Not much for now. That'll have to next week. 

While were talking about weeks, I did some poor planning. I was thinking next week would be my spring break (you know to watch the basketball finals, get a passport, and to do other stuff). However, I will be needed in the lab, so Week 10 will be spring break. This means that this will be my penultimate post. I can’t believe the time passed so quickly. I’ll probably include some sappy words next week, but, if I don’t, I want you all to know that I have really enjoyed your involvement with the blog.

P.S. I would like to thank my readers who read this just for fun. I think there are just two: Yash and my dad. But still, many thanks!