Why so sad you ask? Fall Break is quickly coming to a close.
It was a much appreciated four day weekend, but unfortunately for the brains of staff and students, tomorrow morning begins another learning filled adventure.
Nevertheless, it was a glorious weekend, and there are a couple pieces of excellent news!
1. Hooray for the Brown Science Center!
Over the past several months, the laboratory spaces in the L.A. Brown Science Center have been under construction. Slowly but surely each of these spaces has been updated, renovated, and are now looking top notch. However, there were a lot of very generous donors who made the changes possible. To thank them for all of their donations, the various labs put on exhibits and demos to model the new facilities.
Waaaayy up on third floor at the end of the hall, Dr. Fox's Cell/Molecular class (that includes me!) demonstrated peroxidase tissue printing.
For those of you wondering what the heck that means, it's actually pretty simple. Inside of plants there is a chemical compound called peroxidase. It's job is to protect the plant from hydrogen peroxide that is produced by different reactions. Think about how your skin turns white and dies when you clean a cut out with normal hydrogen peroxide from the store.... the peroxidase stops that dying white part from happening to the plant cells. One way to test if you have that special compound in a plant is by tissue printing. There is "paper" called nitrocellulose which is a special kind of membrane. When fresh vegetables (lets take celery for instance) is pressed into the membrane it "prints" a copy of all the proteins and compounds that are right there on the surface. Then, the nitrocellulose is developed in a chemical bath which stains the peroxidase that was stamped into the sheet a dark blue black color. If you are interested in seeing where all the proteins are in the stamp, there is a second color bath which will stains the rest of the proteins a bright red.
Down on the chemistry and physics floors other demonstrations were also being performed. So, congrats to all the demo-ers, and thank you to all the donors!
2. Sustainability
On campus, there has been a huge push to go green. President Williams has a lot of forward thinking ideas that he really hopes to be carried out on campus, but there are a sea of possibilities that are still untapped as well. This year, a new council has been formed to outline and create a plan for Transy's continued sustainability. The first meeting was held today, and a lot of healthy discussion went on as far as what sustainability is, what that means to Transy, and what were our biggest concerns for accomplishing it. Faculty, staff, and students were able to toy with ideas and words, and in the end walk away with some new things to think about. Although nothing has been solidified, good headway has been made in the direction of organizing a plan of attack .
3. Home Cooked Meals.
There is not a whole lot more to say on this topic except appreciate your home cooked meals while you have them. God Bless the cooks at Transy, but I missed having real food.
4. The trees of Back Circle
Fall is in the air. The trees seemed to skip from green to gone in a matter of 4 days, and the whole back lot is covered in bright yellow and orange leaves! The air is starting to become nippy, and the only way to truly embrace the change in season is the hot apple cider at Jazzman's.
Luckily, after all of this, it is only a three day week a head of us.
Don't forget to look forward to Parent's Weekend which is coming up soon, as well as Raf Week is right around the corner!
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