Transcript:

music; ambience: grinding of mortar and pestle

Scientists find out things by doing experiments and testing their ideas. And once an experiment is designed it has to be carried out meticulously; the slightest mistake can spoil the data and the experiment. Welcome to Pulse of the Planet’s Science Diaries, a glimpse of the world of science from the inside.

“Today we’re going to extract a compound from the seaweed, and for this we’ll have to go through different steps through a protocol.”

Ben Quguineur is a PhD student at the Irish Seaweed Center, National University of Galway in Ireland. He’s working with seaweed, looking for compounds which might be useful for nutritional or pharmaceutical purposes. And so he’s designed an experiment to begin an analysis. But first Ben has to prepare his materials.

“There is very few lights in the lab because lots of molecules are light sensitive, and that’s why I’m gonna work partly in the dark today. The whole purpose of today will be to extract these compounds from the seaweed. First, we’re gonna physically grind the seaweed. Then, we’re gonna mix it in the solvent.”

Before the seaweed is ground is has to be washed, dried and weighed.

“Because, of course, the protocol is based on a certain amount of seaweed.”

Once dried and weighed into precise amounts, samples are labeled and then frozen solid with liquid nitrogen, so that they can be easily ground up into tiny particles.

ambience: grinding of mortar and pestle

“I’m grinding the seaweed at the moment. The seaweed is completely frozen, and it’s breaking like tiny glass.”

We’ll follow the process of Ben’s experiment in a future program. Please visit pulseplanet.com. Pulse of the Planet’ Science Diaries are made possible by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner

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