Hello fellow readers, the previous week was, unfortunately, less exciting than the ones preceding it. This week, my main partner on my project, Justin, was not here, and I was unable to make any progress on my own. But a few things I accomplished this week are noteworthy.
I completed a pathfinder assay this week, but instead of leaving the trail barren for 3 hours to test the ant's pathfinder ability, I tested 2 ants every 5 minutes right after the trail had been established. This was to try to see at what time the drop off between normal ants and pathfinders occur. I did not see any punctuated drop off, but there was definitely a significant decrease in ability to follow the trail after 2 hours. although this does yield some useful data, I view it as more of a sidestep than progress towards my project.
We currently have everything in place to test ants on the pathfinding program except, well, the program. I tried to download the program myself but, I was told that the program can only be run on Linux. The reason this is a problem is that only a download for windows could be found online. I was able to get someone from the IT department to hep me solve this problem, but to no avail.
I was able to help many of my lab-mates this week by collecting Third Instar Eggs, fluoning new colonies and feeding.
I would have liked to see a few videos of ants on the program this week, but it isn't a huge setback. Hopefully next week when my lab partner returns we can get the ball rolling.
Until next week,
Colby Saxton
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