Archive for February, 2015

February Science Review, Maybe

Saturday, February 28th, 2015

Record snowfall  in NoCo for February! The neat thing is that it snowed a bit every other day and then it all melted the next day!

Ento 555 expedition

This is for Boris’ class on immature insects. There is a collection due in May. We need to collect 24 families of immature insects; So far I found 10 families from the orders Orthoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera, Ephemeroptera, Homoptera and Hemiptera. Will need to go on a fishing trip for Odonata, Trichoptera and Plecoptera when the weather warms up.

Warning: Contains Paunch

Paunch! It’s what’s for dinner if you are a cow or a goat or a deer. These are ruminant animals and the so-called “Paunch” or Rumen contains all sorts of living micro bugs (but NOT insects) that can be used for demonstrations in a microbiology class.

Gold bug under the microscope

OK, this was my electroforming experiment and I’m using one of the dissecting microscopes from CSU to inspect the coating for exposed sections and missing plate areas. Look good to me.

BioMed students at the LSOP

The LSOP or Little Shop of Physics this year combined with the BioMed and BioEng departments for a great show at the new improved LSC (Lorrie Student Center) at CSU (Colorado State University). One of the things on display was a fully dissected human nervous system. No pictures allowed of this out of respect for the human donor, natch.

The Bridge

Thursday, February 12th, 2015

Wow! This blog is 7 years old today.

There is a Bridge on stage

Again we paint and build sets for the Bas Bleu. Sure, we could be remodeling our kitchen instead, but then there would be no cast party after the whole thing was done so why bother?

Winter!

Sunday, February 8th, 2015

Don’t kid yourself– it’s still winter; even though the east coast is knee deep in snow and it is 70 degrees in FoCoLand…

Dead Frog

At least I *think* its dead. I poked at it with a stick and it didn’t move. Note that I put a quarter next to it on the frozen pond to show you how big this frog was or is. Whatever. Dead Frog.

Dead for sure

Desiccated frog on the shore. How did it get there? I’ve been to this pond many times and have never seen this before.  This could be a normal thing thing perhaps if the water becomes frozen solid.

Dead Fish too

There are some that claim that the ice on the top of ponds can cut the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water and if there is a lot of plant growth and silt on the bottom it can spell death to any fish if the pond is iced over for several weeks. Then again some might say it is caused by  “military testing of some kind, maybe some kind of death ray maybe some chemical, testing it on the animals with a view to possible future use on humans”