TRIP INITIATIVE
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Donate
    • FAQs - Summer TRIP
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • ALUMNI GALLERY
    • Ursinus 2015
    • Temple 2015
    • WTHS 2016
    • Temple 2016
    • WTHS 2017
    • Temple 2017
    • WTHS 2018
    • Temple 2018
    • WTHS 2019
    • Temple 2019
    • WTHS 2020
    • WTHS 2021
    • Temple 2021
    • WTHS 2022
    • Temple 2022
    • WTHS 2023
    • WTHS 2024
    • WTHS 2025
  • WTHS'25 Symposium
    • WTHS'25 Symposium Schedule >
      • Session A Schedule
      • Session B Schedule
  • Donate

Regular updates from students in TRIP

Caffeine or Caf-fiend?

3/26/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
​For my project, I wanted my question to be relevant to our everyday lives. I wanted to use this opportunity to gain an insight on us ordinary humans so that my heartless fly-killing would have been for a profitable cause. But where to begin? Well, I’ve always had an interest in psychology and emotions, so what better topic to investigate than the impact of caffeine on our mood? Many of us consume copious amounts of caffeine every day through the miracle beverage that is coffee. Could this common drink have more insidious effects on our temperaments than we might think, or does it have even more hidden benefits than we give it credit for? We’re about to find out in the exciting weeks to follow. I will be giving my flies different concentrations of caffeine and comparing their “mood” (measured using the centrophobism and social space assays) to see if caffeine has an effect on their emotions and, if so, in what ways. By the end of my soon-to-be-groundbreaking project, we’ll hopefully have a better idea of whether or not we should feed ourselves and our precious pet flies that much caffeine. 

Picture
See Abby Shen in her natural environment...
Picture
Yep, science IS that awesome. Period.
Picture
Abby and Ms. P discussing some results
PictureThe art of making solutions brought to you by Abby and Maria!
​“But Abby,” you ask, “what about the past few weeks, before you started working on your caffeine project? What have you been doing? We’re all dying to find out!” As Oscar Wilde once said, experience is simply the name we give our mistakes. So here’s where we get to the good part — I’m about to share with y’all my “experiences,” a.k.a. failures. My first few weeks at TRIP have been incredibly fun, but full of stumbles and errors. First, I’ve just realized that I forgot to put a title for my previous blog post, so Dr. Purdy (I assume) has kindly come up with a beautiful title for me, which I will be forever grateful for. Believe it or not, that wasn’t my biggest misstep in my adventures so far — for example, I have killed more flies by accident than I care to admit by crushing them with the funnel or the cotton plug. Even more impressive was my failure to label my vials completely, which led to a moment of complete dread and utter terror as I realized that my experiment might have been for nothing because I couldn’t tell which vials were wrapped in aluminum foil. (Fortunately, flies tend to copulate much more in the dark, so we figured it out. Whew!) All in all, it was a learning experience to say the least. But you know what? I was glad for my mistakes, and I’m not just saying that because it’s some cheesy moral of the story. Now I’ll forever remember the importance of proper labeling, the nuances of presenting data, and the value of thinking for a whole minute before doing anything rash in the lab. Still, I’d like to believe I’m slowly becoming more adept at handling flies, solutions, and micropipettes, but none of it would have been possible without the patient guidance of Dr. Purdy, Dr. Leystra, Dr. Gardiner, and Ms. P. I’ve learned so much in just a few weeks’ time, and even if I had 10 pages to reflect on it all, it probably wouldn’t have been enough. I can’t wait for what the second half of TRIP will hold in store for me, so stay tuned for the next episode of my grand journey in a world of flies and caffeine!

Picture
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    August 2017
    July 2017

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Blog 1: Introductions!
    Blog 2: Planning An Independent Project
    Blog 3: Reflections

Thank you to our donors for making our mission possible through your generous support.
Picture

Company

About
Fox Chase Cancer Center

Support

Contact
​Menu
WEBSITE DESIGN INFORMATION:
The TRIP Initiative website was built by Alesandra (Sasha) Temerte (TRIP@TU'17 alum) ​ and Charity Robbins (TRIP@TU'22) and is not a product of Fox Chase Cancer Center
© COPYRIGHT 2023. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
WEBSITE DESIGN BY ALESANDRA SASHA TEMERTE & CHARITY ROBBINS
LOGO DESIGN BY ARNAV DHINGRA
Photo from NIH-NCATS
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Donate
    • FAQs - Summer TRIP
    • Contact
  • Blog
  • ALUMNI GALLERY
    • Ursinus 2015
    • Temple 2015
    • WTHS 2016
    • Temple 2016
    • WTHS 2017
    • Temple 2017
    • WTHS 2018
    • Temple 2018
    • WTHS 2019
    • Temple 2019
    • WTHS 2020
    • WTHS 2021
    • Temple 2021
    • WTHS 2022
    • Temple 2022
    • WTHS 2023
    • WTHS 2024
    • WTHS 2025
  • WTHS'25 Symposium
    • WTHS'25 Symposium Schedule >
      • Session A Schedule
      • Session B Schedule
  • Donate