So today everyone is here...Dr. Hornak came back from his conference at MIT and Nicole is back from her vacation :) This morning, we diluted the Iron samples that I worked with on Thursday and we took the measurements again on the diode array. In the process, I showed Nicole how to clean the volumetric flasks with the 18 mega-ohm water and measure the samples with the disposable glass pipettes. So after we finished measuring, we headed up to the computer lab to make the excel scatter plot.
We had lunch with Laura at Crossroads again. After we finished eating, we went back to Building 76 to show Dr. Hornak our graph. We were planning to trek back to Building #8; however, a crazy rain storm stopped us. Soooooo, Dr. Hornak whipped out the poster he presented at MIT last week and he explained his project. It involved putting different sizes of sands with the pure 18 mega-ohm water in the NMR to characterize the different types of sand. Basically, he wants to build a portable NMR that can take measurements and create images of the ground. Steve will be working on this project this summer.
So when the rain let up, we went to Building 8. Dr. Hornak showed us this powerful microscope that has a color camera attached so you can save images on the computer. First, we looked at 
sand. The computer can actually measure the diameter of the individual sand particles. Then we tried a 1$ and a 10$ bill. Unlike a Xerox copy, the printing on the bills was embedded into the fiber, which I suppose would make it hard to illegally reproduce. After that, Nicole and I each donated a single strand of hair and we looked at that. (See pic) Though we aren't sure, we think my hair is the skinnier and lighter one and Nicole's is the wider darker strand. Though it is hard to see it in the pic, human hair has "growth bands" similar to trees. Which I guess makes sense...Dr. Hornak said it bands could be studied to see a person's diet or stress levels. Pretty cool.
sand. The computer can actually measure the diameter of the individual sand particles. Then we tried a 1$ and a 10$ bill. Unlike a Xerox copy, the printing on the bills was embedded into the fiber, which I suppose would make it hard to illegally reproduce. After that, Nicole and I each donated a single strand of hair and we looked at that. (See pic) Though we aren't sure, we think my hair is the skinnier and lighter one and Nicole's is the wider darker strand. Though it is hard to see it in the pic, human hair has "growth bands" similar to trees. Which I guess makes sense...Dr. Hornak said it bands could be studied to see a person's diet or stress levels. Pretty cool.So with that, we ended our day :)
