Welcome to our Blanding’s blog, where we are excited to share our summer turtle adventures with you! The school year just ended, the field season has officially started and we are more than thrilled to get our feet wet (literally and figuratively). As a part of Dr. Matt Allender’s Wildlife Epidemiology Lab, we as veterinary [...]
I spent the last few weeks in Indiana soaking up as much fieldwork as possible before school starts up again! Three weeks ago, our group set out on a (short) road trip to conduct the first formal survey of Snake Fungal Disease in Indiana! Thanks to Dr. Sarah Baker and Seth LaGrange we found [...]
Our final week of turtle team began at 4:00am when Marta and I met at the lab to pack all of our supplies and equipment into a SUV. Just as the sun began to rise at 5am, we were off and headed to Tennessee. With only a couple of quick food and rest stops, we [...]
Most of our data collecting is complete and we are on to analysis! It was slightly sad to move out of our Lake County “mansion” and away from our 8 other phenomenal roommates, but cleaning out our bedrooms and field lab reminded us of all that we have accomplished this summer. Here’s a summary of [...]
Video #1 Video #2 (Questions with answers!)
Throughout our summer blog we have mainly focused on our accomplishments and the fun we have had while working. However, this summer was not always sunshine and rainbows. This week we want to highlight some of the “challenges" we experienced and never discussed. Oh the things we have learned... Don’t freeze your Complete Blood [...]
https://youtu.be/b-zMcQFB_zo
Time is counting down until we are out of the field and into the lab. We have collected over 300 samples thus far and we have a lot of hematology work and DNA extractions to get going on. Over the past few short months, we have tried to capture the highlights of the amazing "work" [...]
The first time I learned about DNA was in biology class my freshman year of high school. I learned that DNA is made up of paired letters that form a twisting ladder structure, and that the structure determines how living things look and function. I learned more about how my own set of DNA [...]
