Lovely Weather and Long PCR

The weather here is just lovely. It's still warm enough for a t-shirt everyday and I have yet to turn on my heat. I hear from other people that it is "cold" where they live, but I just can't relate anymore. Today has been the first day that it feels like autumn. It was such a nice day that I played hookey this afternoon and went for a quick hike. [10.24.06 addendum - it was 36F this morning!]

Paynes Prairie State Preserve is just a few miles from campus and parking is free! The preserve has an usual geology due to the underlying limestone structures. Sometimes it's a large lake, other times it is a grassland. Apparently there was one point when the limestone sinkholes became plugged and the lake became large enough to support steamboat traffic. And then the sinkholes opened back up and the lake drained within a week. Or so the story goes. My first time hiking there I was lucky enough to see the herd of wild "cracker horses". These are supposedly descendants of the horses brought over by the Spanish settlers. There is also a herd of bison that was brought to the preserve about 20 years ago, but I haven't seen them yet. The hiking trail that I normally use passes through a woodland area and then opens up onto the "prairie" component. At the end of the trail there is a small observation platform. Today when I reached the platform, there was a vulture sitting on the railing. He flew away when I approached, but he left behind the remains of the fish he had been working on. Very interesting! Mark, it would have been nice to have you along to help identify all of the different birds.

Non-biology people may want to skip this paragraph as it will probably make no sense. Today is my first attempt at a "long" (10kb) PCR. Stratagene recommends an extension time of 2 min/kb, so that means the program is quite lengthy. We only have one thermocycler in this lab and I'm a little nervous about having to repeat the PCR if I don't have any product. I'm still getting used to culture conditions here. Fermentations are usually done with at least 9% carbon source, as opposed to the 0.2% that I used back at UCLA. As you can imagine, we go through glucose and xylose very quickly. We actually buy xylose in 50-lb bags.

The rumor around the lab is that there was a snake in our building on Friday night. Very scary! I've always kept an eye out for rats after the infestation that we had at UCLA, but I wasn't aware that I should be watching for snakes here.

I bought Moulin Rouge and Trainspotting this weekend, both very original movies. The Moulin Rouge soundtrack is actually playing on my computer right now. Somewhat suprisingly, Trainspotting is in the top 250 movies on IMDB, near "Toy Story" and "Magnolia".

Many people are saying that the new TV show "Heroes" is very good. I haven't given in to temptation yet. On Monday nights I'm usually too busy watching re-runs of "Six Feet Under" on Bravo. Who all is watching Heroes and why do you like it?

There's not much else new or exciting going on here. Officially, I'm spending all of my non-work time working on writing up my results from my PhD work. I'm planning on getting an ipod and would appreciate any comments that anyone has to offer regarding the various models.

Center for Great Apes

I volunteered at the Center for Great Apes (GCA) this past weekend and had a great time. The rest of this post will outline what I did there and what I learned about the sanctuary and its residents. So if you aren't an animal person, be warned.

The CGA is a sanctuary for chimpanzees and orangutans. Most of them were previously in showbusiness or were family pets. Usually when you see chimps or orangutans on TV or in movies, you are seeing juvenilles. Once they reach adolescence, they are too strong and unmanageable to work on a set. They are then used either as breeders or are sent to small unacredited roadside zoos. The CGA aims to provide a good home for these guys where they can enjoy a safe and enriching existence with other apes. It is not open to the public and is run solely on donated funds and grants. They currently house 14 orangutans and 26 chimpanzees.

This was my first time to volunteer there, so I'm still getting to know everybody (staff and ape) and they are still getting to know me. I mostly cleaned, did laundry, helped with food preparation and made popsicles and enrichment treats. From what I can tell, there are about 10 staff members and there were 2 other volunteers.

The sanctuary is not open to the public, so the apes are very interested when somebody new shows up. They have a nice tunnel system that allows the the apes to wander around the sanctuary and still be enclosed. It seemed like no matter what I was doing (folding laundry, cleaning, food prep), I could turn around or look out the window and there would be an ape watching me. It was cool, but also a little unnerving at times.

I didn't get to spend much time with any of the individual residents, but there are a few stories I would like to share.

Grub is the alpha male of one of the chimpanzee groups. He is very much the "star" chimpanzee of the sanctuary and is apparently very artistic. He did some painting while I was there and I was very impressed. Halfway through my first day there, one of the keepers brought me a scrap of paper with two holes in it. She said that it was a mask that Grub had given it to her, but she felt like he had made it for me. Then that afternoon I stopped by his enclosure and he quickly tore the paper backing from a piece of cardboard, poked two eyeholes in it and pushed it through the fence to me. I was very honored!

Brooks is a young male chimp in Grub's group. Their enclosure is circular, with a sidewalk running around the inside edge. Whenever I got within a certain distance of the enclosure, Brooks would push a large blue barrel around and around the sidewalk. This made a nice, loud, scraping sound and he kept sneaking peaks at me to make sure I was impressed, which of course I was. If I went away, he stopped. I went away and came back several times and he was as predictable as a wind-up toy.

Pongo is an orangutan who only recently developed the cheeks pads and long thick hair of an adult male. He is just gorgeous and the pictures on the CGA website do not do him justice. He spent a lot of time sitting in front of a large fan, and with the wind in his hair he looked like a runway model. The staff there says that when he first started developing his cheek pads he was very self-concious but now he knows he looks good.

Christopher is an adolescent male orangutan and I have heard him described as "the resident MacGyver" and "a physics professor in a previous life". He didn't do anything spectacular while I was there, but I heard several great stories. Orangutans are notorious for dismantling objects, so when devices (such as hammocks) are installed in an enclosure, they are often secured with padlocks and the bolts are glued down with "locktite". Apparently, this isn't enough for Christopher - he has taken down devices and then reinstalled them elsewhere in the exhibit. He also developed a habit of using his blankets to lasso items outside of his night room, so they restricted him to very small blanket scraps. Then one night he meticulously worked at his tiny blanket scrap (less than 12" on each side) so that it was torn into one long strip and he somehow used it to lock the keeper out of the building. These stories may be embellished, but it's obvious he is a very capable orangutan.

I also met a very interesting volunteer. Betsy is an older woman who helps the CGA director, Patti Ragan, write grant proposals for the center. Several years ago Betsy was on a trip to Kenya and got involved in helping the street kids there. She has since made it her life's work to help these kids and has gone back to school in order to learn more about how to help them. Very impressive.

Oh - I also met a keeper who had worked with Zoe at Lion County Safari. Zoe is a female chimpanzee who moved to the LA Zoo as an infant. This keeper was pleased to hear that Zoe is doing so well.

Catnip Bandit

My cats like catnip, so when I saw a catnip plant at the grocery store I bought it for them. Since my cats don't understand moderation, I put the plant on my patio along with the other plants I am trying to not kill. Unfortunately I didn't consider the local stray cats, so the plant was pretty much destroyed on the first night. Last night I caught what I assume was a repeat offender hanging around. Cassie and I are keeping an eye out for him tonight. One of my coworkers compared my leaving a catnip plant accessible for stray cats to leaving marijuana plants accesible for college students.

It's been good to get such a positive response on the blog so far. Please note that there are some links underneath my picture on the right. "Laura's videos" goes to videos that I have posted on youtube; these are mostly zoo stuff. "Recommended videos" are some of the best videos that I have found on youtube. I highly recommend "Where is Matt?" - it's a little long, but an amazing overview of this guy's world travels. If it's fake, I don't care.

Speaking of world travel, I have been enjoying a re-read of Kon-Tiki. If you're not familiar with the story, here's a brief recap. Back in 1947, an explorer came up with a theory that Polynesia was settled by people from Peru who crossed the Pacific on balsa rafts. People were very skeptical of this theory, so he set out to prove that it was possible by doing so himself. The book is a diary of his experience, along with his five companions. These guys spent 101 days on their tiny raft and had an amazing time. It's a really great read. For more info, check out the article on Wikipedia here. There's also a documentary (it won an Oscar), but Katherine, Linh and I watched it this past summer and it wasn't nearly as fun as the book.

Thankfully, it appears that Love Bug season is waning here in Gainesville. I had never heard of or seen actual Love Bugs until I moved here. They do not bite or sting, and they don't buzz around you like flies. However, when you see them there are always two of them joined together (hence the name Love Bug) and car exhaust seems to be an aphrodisiac. They land on your window, or get smashed on the hood of your car, and it's just gross. They supposedly swarm in May and September, so at least it's over for now. Katy - I've heard they are big in Texas, so you have that to look forward to. Supposedly Love Bugs are making their way north, so they may be in Kentucky before too long.


Since the weather is not quite so hot, I've been enjoying walking to and from work. The University of Florida is a huge school - it has more students than UCLA and twice as many as UK. However, the southern end of campus is really dilute. The two routes that I can take from my apartment to the lab take me past either the "natural area teaching lab" (a swamp) or the farming area, consisting of fields of beans and sunflowers and a citrus grove. It's just lovely. Here - compare the google satellite images for UF microbiology building and UCLA Boelter Hall. Quite a difference. And get this - the building adjacent to ours is the "Weed Science" Building. Really.

Gotta go - watching Lost tonight!

Laura