Alrighty. Got my camera mount adapter, so I'm off and running taking microphotographs. So far I've not yet figured out how to get the best focus, I'll continue to work on that. I'll post some pictures though taken with my phase contrast microscope. Warning, largish pictures coming.

Spent yesterday down in Monterey, where we went to the Aquarium. I also got samples of the marine water off Pacific Grove and the fresh water at the Camino Aguajito lake where we used to live.

So far, I've found nothing interesting in the marine water, but that's not too surprising. There are generally only 10^6 cells/ml in open ocean which is far fewer than you'll find in fresh water. Was a nice bloom of phyoplanktonic algae in the water at the lake, which turned out to be a species of spyrogyra. Generally I've found different algae in the backyard, I'll post pictures for comparison.

There were a few bacteria as well, but I haven't gone through the steps to classify them yet. No large colonies, just generally single coccoid and rod shaped bacteria with either a single flagellum or peretrichious flagellae.

Studying is going well. I've done all Bacteria, all Archaea, and all single celled Eukarya. I'm now into eukaryotic genetic modification, as there are a few more options than with bacteria.


- posted by Aargau @ 4:59 PM