FYP spree

Well, since Mokky had post up some interesting pictures, why not I add on some onto the gallery while trying not to divulge my progress, hehe...

Okay, first of all, we get do some sampling around the Kampar campus area - the ex-tin mining secondary habitat. It is an extremely interesting area for research and sight-seeing, especially the extra-large servings of "cake", aka cow dung/牛粪.

One of our sampling sites is a home for a immensely huge Mimosa species, not the ordinary M. pudica/含羞草. Let the pictures do the talking (photos credits to Mike):

The size of this plant is about knee-height. No kidding. Like the normal M. pudica, the leaves close up upon touch. It is called the Mimosa pigra.

This is a closed-up view. See the menacing thorns? Much longer and more compared to ordinary "shy grass".

This "tree" is taller than me. It is also the plant shown before - M. pigra. Huge leh. Even Dr Choo was in aghast when he witnessed this unreal plant.


Now, the other sampling site:

We were sampling around the bushes until we saw this hole. This is not the only hole, mind you. There are no less than 10 holes around the bushy mound. The guards told us sightings of monitor lizards and pythons and cobras... we were like WTFREAK?!?! The hole is one of the entrance of a nest - probably a reptilian, a monitor lizard perhaps?, due to the leathery egg shells we found near the hole as shown in the next photo:

Nah, the eggshell.

This is the flower of the bush on the nest.

These are some gel images taken during the course of my FYP, no description is given since it is "highly classified", hihi.

FYI, before doing FYP, we only do once or twice of gels, and barely once PCR. Now, we do almost 2 PCRs per day, run about 2-3 gels per day, do DNA extraction about 2-3 times per week (regardless of gel extraction or soil DNA extraction). Now we feel nauseous whenever we hear the word "gel" and "PCR". God bless all FYP students...

Note: The gel images above were taken using a gel visualizer which is equipped with an EXPENSIVE camera. Too bad it was stolen last week. Wish the culprit would be apprehended and the camera returned. The photos taken by it were of high quality. Now we are resorted to another slightly inferior gel visualizer, Mike, don't get all fired up when you read this coz I know you abhor that thing a lot. lol. Till then...