Whit and I felt we would fill you in on what we are doing up here in Oregon! Whit, or should I say we are working on his thesis right now. While I don't have the scientific vocabulary to explain the details of his thesis I can explain the tedious, twice, daily process. With pictures of course!
First, we go to the Sheep Center and pick up the blood samples Monday -- Friday. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't 9:00 to 11:00pm. Unfortunately on weekends Whit is on call for all the blood processing.
Second, We go to the lab to process the blood. We take the blood to get it ready to send to Michigan for final testing by separating the whole blood from the serum.
Third, Whit separates the red blood cells from the serum in the blood. How? He shakes it really fast. haha. . Just kidding! He puts it into a CENTRIFUGE. Its a machine that spins the blood at 2000 RPMs. While Whit does this I am busy labeling a lot of little tubes. Some times there can be up to 80 tubes to label! Yikes!!
Fourth, After all the tubes are labeled the red blood cell free serum goes into the perfectly labeled tubes, and is shipped off to Michigan.
Starting this week Whit will be "collecting" the lambs tails and for the sake of decency I wont describe this process. Needless to say they will measure the selenium levels in muscle tissue. Well that is what we are up to! Its more exciting than it seems. All of these blood samples and the science talk has really sparked an interest for me. I am going to be taking an animal science course next term to learn more about all this neato stuff.
First, we go to the Sheep Center and pick up the blood samples Monday -- Friday. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't 9:00 to 11:00pm. Unfortunately on weekends Whit is on call for all the blood processing.
Second, We go to the lab to process the blood. We take the blood to get it ready to send to Michigan for final testing by separating the whole blood from the serum.
Third, Whit separates the red blood cells from the serum in the blood. How? He shakes it really fast. haha. . Just kidding! He puts it into a CENTRIFUGE. Its a machine that spins the blood at 2000 RPMs. While Whit does this I am busy labeling a lot of little tubes. Some times there can be up to 80 tubes to label! Yikes!!
Fourth, After all the tubes are labeled the red blood cell free serum goes into the perfectly labeled tubes, and is shipped off to Michigan.
Starting this week Whit will be "collecting" the lambs tails and for the sake of decency I wont describe this process. Needless to say they will measure the selenium levels in muscle tissue. Well that is what we are up to! Its more exciting than it seems. All of these blood samples and the science talk has really sparked an interest for me. I am going to be taking an animal science course next term to learn more about all this neato stuff.
Talk to you Later!!!
The Stewarts
5 comments:
LINDSAY! I saw the pic of you and whit and I started crying, I miss you so much!
i have a blog! emsiepilove.blogspot.com
Looks like fun... I wanna help!
IT HAS BEEN A MONTH!! UPDATE ALREADY
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