My first week as a R-STEM RET intern has been an eye opening experience. Though this week was a lot of training, I enjoyed getting to know my mentor and the bits of what I am researching. For my research I am working with fruit flies and manipulating their environments and then isolating the mothers, fathers, and siblings. My hypothesis that the second born sibling will be more “bold”, which means they are more prone enter the new environment quicker than the other siblings.

The first day was definitely a mess. I got lost, nearly fell of my bike, and cracked my phone screen. Once I got to my lab it was a breath of relief. My mentor is such an inspirational person. She is so patient with me and is always ready to answer any questions I have. I learned how to make fly food from scratch and pour them into 32 petri dishes. After that I did a practice run of emergence trials.

The second and third day I “extended” the fly racks. Which means I make new subcultures and throw away old ones, so we will always have a sufficient amount of flies to work with. I then “cleared” 4 rows on 5 racks so I can have brand new flies to work with, since age will be a factor in my research.

The fourth day I began my experiment, I collected mothers from four different genotypes and then fathers from one genotype. Sadly there were not enough fathers for my mothers. I sat around and waited 2 hours for the flies to emerge. I ended up not collecting enough, but it was more for my back up vials.

The fifth day, my mentor gave me scientific papers to read so I could understand more of what my research was related to.

I definitely respect researchers, because what they do is to meticulous and you have to make your own protocols. You cannot follow a cook book recipe and that is probably what my students want to do when I ask them to do inquiry work. This experience so far is very humbling and I am so happy I’m here! I do however wish I didn’t crack my phone screen…