La Dissection

In my biology lab the other day, we dissected cow eyes, and I got really into it. It was much more interesting than when we did the sheep eyes. I guess it just depends on your mood. Here is a photo-by-photo account of what I did. (The descriptions go below the photos).

Here you can see the retina just covering the bluish tapetum lucidium, which is what you see when your cat looks at you in the dark, and her eyes are glowing. It helps them see in the dark.

The jelly like thing is the vitreous humor, which is the "eye juice" and what keeps the volume of the eye. You can see the big creamy lens under the humor, and the black ciliary body surrounding it.

Here, the vitreous humor, or jelly-like stuff, is removed, more or less. The retina is pulled back to reveal the tapetum lucidium, or choroid coat.

The lens is removed here to reveal the full ciliary body and pupil. The ciliary body relaxes and contracts to change the shape of the lens to focus the image on the retina. To me, it kind of looks like the gills under a mushroom :)

Here, I just removed the cornea, and am holding it back with forceps to reveal the pupil underneath. Between the cornea and the protective membranes of the iris and pupil, the aqueous humor is contained.

Here is the ciliary body will the lens and most of the surrounding humor removed. I just stuck this in because it's my favorite, and wanted to show it in detail.

Here I am pulling the choroid layer back from the sclera to see the differences between the sheets of tissue. The white fluffy looking stuff on the outside of the eye is excess fat and fascia that I didn't have time to remove completely from the sclera.

L'économie

I have an economics test tomorrow, so naturally, instead of studying, I'm reading about Daphnia, my new favorite crustaceans.

That's a daphnia, also known as a water flea. Their "skins" are almost transparent, so they're perfect for exploration under a microscope; you can even see their little hearts beating. Apparently they also respond well to stimulants and depressants, making for some cool experiments with alcohol and amphetamines.

They also make great fish food, so I'm wondering if I can get some at Petco and play with them under the school microscopes surreptitiously. They look like they would make fun pets either way; I used to love sea monkeys when I was little (brine shrimp).

At the Science Olympiad Regional Tournament last weekend, (which we won, by the way) I got to use the nicest microscope I had ever seen. All of the knobs were intuitive; I reached under the stage and they were exactly where I expected them to be. Instead of trying to scoot the slide around manually, there was a metal mechanism that moved it smoothly with the turn of a knob. It could also magnify to a much higher degree than I had ever personally seen, so I had fun playing with the slide of various muscle tissue they gave me.

I wonder why I can never sleep. I'm exhausted all day, and then when sleep becomes the normal thing to do, at a reasonable time, everything else suddenly becomes much more important.

So it goes.

La Belle Vie

The Quiet World

BY JEFFREY MCDANIEL

In an effort to get people to look

into each other’s eyes more,

and also to appease the mutes,

the government has decided

to allot each person exactly one hundred

and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear

without saying hello. In the restaurant

I point at chicken noodle soup.

I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,

proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.

I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond,

I know she’s used up all her words,

so I slowly whisper I love you

thirty-two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line

and listen to each other breathe.

This is the most beautiful poem that I have read of late, and I'd like to talk about it with you...or to you. I'm a secret hopeless romantic, and when I can apply something directly to my life, it takes on new breadth and meaning. I do not, of course, have a limit on speech, but rather find myself struggling to find words that can express the beauty of my love for a certain someone.

Actually, I have nothing to say that will carry any weight with anyone. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.