Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Summer: The Time For Research

Cramming As Much Fieldwork As Possible Into 3 Months

The red star represents where I am now, the black star represents UCSC, where I will be in a few days to finish preparing for my research in Israel, and the blue star represents where I will be one week from today setting up my lab in Israel.
Summer for graduate students is precious time.  It is the only time of year we don't have to teach or take classes.  For ocean scientists it is also far away from looming grant and fellowship deadlines, which are typically in the Fall or Winter.  In short summer is the time to cram as much research as humanly possible into 3 short months.  Even now, a week from when I will be flying to Israel to conduct the radium isotopes-groundwater experiment, I am in Alaska finishing up a groundwater-phytoplnakton experiment.  

To read more about the experiment I am currently conducting in Alaska follow the link below:

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Acid cleaned, then double bagged


In the figure these are just a small portion of cleaned bottles and tools I will bring to Israel. For trace metal studies one of the most important parts is that you have to make sure your bottles are clean, your vials are clean and your columns are clean. Everything needs to be cleaned before you go out for sampling. That's why we need a clean room, inside a clean room we can minimize contamination from the air. The reason we need clean containers and tools is because some elements we are interested in have extremely low concentration in seawater, such as Pb, it's concentration can be only several pmol/kg in some ocean surface water. p=pico=0.000000000001=10^-12, last time I needed this unit prefix was when I measured capacitance of some small capacitors. 

Friday, June 19, 2015

The Problem of Power

Getting Instruments To Turn On

As we prepare for Israel one issue continues to come up again and again, and that is the issue of power supply.  Israel wall outlets are on a different voltage (220 volts) than US outlets (110 volts).  Most laptops and phones made in the last few years can handle any voltage within this range.  They need only a plug adapter which merely allows them to plug into different shaped sockets.  

A US plug (left) versus a European/Israeli plug (right).

Yummy Hummus

 


Israel is THE place to each GREAT Hummus, it is healthy and easy to make at home.  This is how I make it.



I sprout the chickpeas before I cook them. This is not mandatory, but I highly recommend it.
I found that if I start soaking the beans on Thursday morning, they are perfectly ready on Saturday morning.
To sprout, you start by soaking the beans overnight or over a day, then placing them in a colander, covered with a clean towel. Give them a quick rinse every morning and evening.
If you decide not to sprout, just soak them overnight.

Ingredients:

two cups dry chickpeas
one onion
2 celery sticks
1 tsp baking soda
1.5 cups good Tahini
1-2 lemon

1. Preparing the chickpeas

Soak the chickpeas overnight.
Sprout for two days.
Place in a large pot, add water until the pot is half full. Add one peeled whole onion, 2 celery sticks, salt and 1 tsp baking soda.
Cook until the beans are soft and tasty. During the cooking a lot of solid foam forms at the surface. You want to keep removing it with a large spoon. The peels of the chickpeas will also come off, and they coagulate with the foam, so it is easy to remove the peels as well during this time.
When the beans are ready, fill two cups with the cooking water and set aside. Strain the beans, discard the onion and celery sticks. Remove about half a cup for serving.

2. Making the Humus

I do half the amount at a time, so I repeat the process twice. I find it is easier for the blender, plus, if you didn't like the seasoning with the first half, you can change it for the second half.

Place half of the chickpeas in a blender jar.
Add 3/4 cup of the cooking water.
Add 3/4 cup tahini.
Add juice of one lemon and salt to taste
Blend until smooth
Transfer to a container.

You can play with the amount of lemon juice, salt, and cooking liquid to get the taste and consistency you prefer. Note that using 3/4 cups of the cooking water it is pretty liquidy, but it becomes much harder after a day in the fridge.

3. Serving:

Lay the humus on a plate, top with some of the chickpeas you set aside, and add a generous amount of olive oil.