Caltech

Monkey Mia and the Prince of Hutt River

Day 3 of the Western Australia tour was spent in Monkey Mia – a popular tourist spot famous for its bottlenose dolphins. These guys show up at the beach in the morning and whenever they feel like stopping by for free fish. Of all the dolphins in the area, only five of them, by now well known by the researchers on site, get a small snack so as to not mess too much with the local ecosystem.

Our tour joined a sail boat cruise that took us out to search for more of the sea’s magnificent creatures. We saw some of the dolphins from that morning’s feeding as well as several dugongs. I spent the rest of the day sitting on the beach writing up postcards.

Our last day in Western Australia was probably the most…interesting? Bizarre? Funny? You’ll have to tell me what you think once you read about it.

As our tour guide told the story, in 1970 there was a wheat farmer in Western Australia that had a lot of land and thus a lot of wheat and he wanted to sell, obviously, lots of it. But the Australian government put a limit on how much wheat he could sell and he wasn’t very happy about it. So he dug around the law and found himself a loophole that would allow him to secede from Australia. He named himself Prince Leonard I of Hutt River.

We drove into Hutt River Province, which, as far as I could see, had one post office, one government affairs building, one chapel, one gift shop, and one garage. We were welcomed into the small chapel where Prince Leonard himself told us very, very quickly all about himself, Hutt River, the chapel, the art decorating it, and the two royal chairs behind him in a rather monotone sort of voice. I was one of two native English speakers in the group (well, native enough), and I could barely understand him. The Swedish, German, and French girls just smiled and nodded per our tour guide’s instructions. When he was done with this first bit of talking, Prince Leonard invited us to sit in the royal chairs.

We went to the post office next, where the Prince showed off stamps, coins, royal medals, maps, and the Hutt River currency. He then personally stamped our passports, but not before showing us all the pretty pictures on them under the UV light. I decided that American passports were lame compared to the European ones and that the French passports looked coolest under the UV. As we moved past the flagpole and into the gift shop, Prince Leonard didn’t stop bragging about how awesome his little principality was, how awful Australia was, and how cool his car was. No big deal.

But my absolute favorite part of this tour was our last stop at Greenough Wildlife Park:

Summer Travels in November – Western Australia

While I was in Australia, I figured out that an easy way to get around, do the touristy stuff, and try out activities you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise is to join a tour. You hop on a bus, meet lots of people, and drive just about everywhere. I picked a four-day roundtrip tour out of Perth going up the coast of Western Australia to Monkey Mia (pronounced “MY-ah”).

I was picked up at my hostel bright and early on Monday morning. Once we had gathered our whole group, we left the city and headed north. Our first stop was the mysterious Pinnacles Desert. How the pinnacles were formed is not entirely agreed on, but over time these have been eroding away with the winds coming in from the sea, giving them that spiky look.

We also went to a beach that had massive sand dunes and allowed for sandboarding. I laughed because my family has been doing this for years using cardboard boxes, but it was cool to have a legit board.

And here's Ryan, our tour guide, being silly...

On day two, we drove to Kalbarri National Park for a day full of hiking and spectacular views. We went on a steep descent into Z-Bend Gorge and then back up for a view from above. I felt like a little kid – climbing everything while we gave the rest of the group a chance to catch up.

We also explored a place called Nature’s Window, which allows for some awesome photos.

As we went further north, we stopped by Shell Beach, one of the two beaches in the world to be made entirely from shells. For a variety of reasons, the seawater in this area, Shark Bay, is incredibly salty giving it the unique properties that led to its naming as a World Heritage Site.

Summer Travels in November - Perth

Hey y’all. Sorry it’s been a while. Between wrapping up the semester, a whirlwind of travels, limited internet, and coming back home, it’s been quite a busy month! Since my two final papers and exam were scheduled early in the examination period (which at UniMelb lasts for three weeks!), I had just over a month to spend travelling around Australia before heading back home. I hopped from Melbourne to Western Australia to Cairns, back to Melbourne to reset, over to New Zealand with my friends Holly and Maddi, back to Melbourne, and then up to the Outback with Holly for the final adventure. Not the most efficient route (grab a map and you’ll understand why), but it was the only way to do it considering that no one finished up with exams as early as I did.

So let me tell you about my travels!

I flew into Perth, where sadly I only got to spend one day wandering the city. It was really bizarre to be walking around in shorts and flip flops (fun fact: Aussies call them ‘thongs’) and seeing Christmas decorations in the summer.

[Side note: Can you picture barbecuing and going to the beach on Christmas Day? My Australian friends have told me about it multiple times, and I believe them, but it still doesn’t quite make sense in my head.]

I climbed to the top floor of the Swan Bell Tower for the full bell ringing at noon. It took eight people to ring the bells. At first it just sounded random, but after a few minutes I was able to pick out the different rounds.

I took a nice long walk around Kings Park, which had a variety of landscapes, including the Australian bushland, parkland, and botanic garden. One bushland walk was particularly steep and turned out to be quite the workout!

The parking lot and the street leading up to Kings Park were full of cars, but I never felt like there were many people around because the park was so big.

My allergies usually make being surrounded by flowers a pretty overwhelming experience, but I managed a rare and pleasant stroll through the botanic gardens. I’m not big on flower pictures but these were my favorites:

Tune in next time and I’ll tell you about my tour up the coast of Western Australia!

End-of-Year Chemistry Bismuth. I Mean, Business.

As the end of the semester approached, the third year chemistry students started panicking about the much dreaded research presentations. After two SURF projects and presentations at Caltech, I wasn’t too worried. Until I realized I had only 10 minutes to present, and not my usual 15. Then I was slightly concerned. I always think my biggest problem is that I talk too fast, (my grad student mentor will probably have other objections :P) and now I was going to feel more rushed than ever.

But like always, it worked out just fine. I had a lot of fun with my presentation since I got to use a lot of pictures and models to explain my research project, and once it was over I could sit back and enjoy my classmates’ presentations.

The week following our presentations we had the annual Third Year Dinner, celebrating the end of the chemistry students’ time as undergraduates. (I still find the whole southern hemisphere thing kind of bizarre) We got to dress up a bit, enjoy an excellent three-course meal, and spend time talking to the chemistry faculty. A fun part of the dinner was that the faculty would switch tables for each course, so I ended up sitting with and having totally varying conversations with different professors.

The atmosphere was super relaxed and once we had taken care of the more serious what-do-you-want-to-do-with-your-life conversation, we moved on to sillier discussions, covering everything from sharks to doppelgangers to the undergraduate days of the faculty when they were attending Melbourne Uni.

After dinner ended we stayed at University House until the staff kicked us out. We took some final pictures and headed home, still laughing at how one of the professors pulled out his iPhone to make side-by-side comparisons of the people in the room with their corresponding celebrity doppelgangers. I'm going to really miss these kids when I leave, especially my Serious Bismuth teammates.

(Yes, Sam is holding a beaker. No, it's not from the lab. He bought it himself.)

Australia To-Do List. Surfing? Check. Don’t get eaten by a shark? Check.

One of my most fun weekends so far is the MUSEX Surf Weekend Trip with the exchange student society. Our fearless MUSEX leaders put together a weekend of surfing, music, and games for the first 86 people to roll out of bed early on a Tuesday morning to buy tickets.

Before hopping on the bus on Friday afternoon, we were randomly assigned teams: Green, Blue, Red, or Black. The Green team was obviously the best.

Our campsite had a number of cabins with 4 bed dorms, a dining hall, common room, and was a short walk from the beach. We spent the first afternoon exploring the area and playing games that pitted the teams against each other.

On Friday night we had a Toga party, where we basically wrapped ourselves up in sheets, and on Saturday night we had a Pajama party, where we wore… well, pajamas.

Saturday was SURFING DAY! I got lucky and went in the morning with the first group, which meant I could put on a dry wetsuit.

Sadly, because everyone was in the water, we didn’t get any cool surfing action shots. BUT! After a few attempts I did manage to stand up and ride a wave nearly all the way to the shore. And then I couldn’t do it again for several attempts. The sea was fairly flat so we spent a lot of time waiting for the next wave and after a short while I realized that I couldn’t feel my feet or hands anymore. The water was absolutely freezing. Mia and I got the hang of it at the end, and I managed to catch a few more waves before we headed back to shore to drink some much needed hot chocolate.

We were completely exhausted by the end of the weekend. But it was completely worth it to get away from school for a while and spend time with friends.

Science vs. Religion: Galileo, Immersion, Creation, and Evolution

I talked about my God and the Natural Sciences class a while back when it first started out. I was super thrilled about it. Now that’s over, I’m still trying to recover from all the mind bending conversations we had.

My first tutorial presentation was about the Galileo Affair. I relearned the story that I’ve heard so many times, but this time I read some of the letters that were written at the time. It was interesting to this historical event in the context of the ongoing science and religion interaction. Later in the semester I presented on a paper called “The Immersion Solution” by Peter Lipton, which described a method for reconciling conflicting claims of science and religion. It took a while to get through, and I didn’t agree with some of Lipton’s views. However, it helped me find a more conscientious way of approaching scripture and theology.

I think this class really helped me improve my writing. For my midterm paper I chose to write about the Genesis creation story and what we can still get out of it today. My problem was that I had a lot of material to draw from, both from the readings, which I totally ate up, and my personal opinions. I spent a lot of time making my writing as concise as possible, making every word count. In the end I came up with a discussion that presented my views as supported by the texts and I even got to incorporate one of my new favorite books.

My final paper was the exact opposite – I felt like I didn’t know enough for what I wanted to write. I picked a topic that had seriously challenged me when it came up earlier in the semester: my disagreement with Richard Dawkins in his book The God Delusion. I was thoroughly annoyed when I first read the excerpts for class, because I knew I didn’t agree with him on pretty much all accounts, but I couldn’t explain why, and I felt pretty powerless during the tutorial discussion that week. So when the time came to write the paper, it seemed like a daunting task. I read and re-read his argument on morality as a result of evolution until I started finding some of his logical faults and unreasonable assumptions. Once I did that I felt like I had enough to start with.

The best part about these papers is that we were encouraged to discuss our outlines with our tutors. Stephen helped me work out the flaws in my logic, think of examples to strengthen my argument, and, most importantly, respond to objections to my conclusions. This class has definitely been a highlight of my study abroad experience, and I know I’ll take what I learned with me wherever I go.

Spring Break. Freycinet National Park and Australian Wildlife

If I had to pick my favorite part of Tasmania, I would be torn between the breathtaking views and the wildlife.

One day we were drove north from Hobart to Freycinet Park where Wineglass Bay is. It was only a two and a half hour drive and we stopped at a few unnamed beaches along the coast to stretch our legs. One neat thing about Tasmania is that if you get to a beach and there’s already someone there, you can drive over to the next beach and have it all to yourself.

Once we arrived at Freycinet National Park, we hopped off the bus and went hiking for a few hours.

Somewhere off in the distance (not visible) is Antartica :P

I got to do a little bit of rock climbing...

This is the classic Wineglass Bay picture. I sent a postcard home with this same view.

On the way drive back we stopped at Kate’s Berry Farm, where I had the most delicious homemade raspberry ice cream.

On a different day we spent some time at Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary near Hobart to meet some of Australia’s unique wildlife.

Wombat!

Koala!

This guy says “Cheers, mate!”

Wallaby!

Tasmanian Devils!

Kangaroos!

Baby kangaroo! AKA Joey

Google Your Way to Victory

Before I continue telling you about Tasmania, let me tell you where I left off in lab.

Spectrometer update: still waiting on those parts from Germany. Now that we’ve built as much as we can, it’s time to start preparing for actual testing of this brand new instrument. This was the bulk of my work. I needed to identify compounds that were suitable test subjects for our laser-upgraded spectrometer.

To remind you of the gist of the project, we want to study changes in size and shape that result from irradiation with a laser. So what I was looking for were photoisomers – molecules that change their conformation when they absorb light. I did this in part by “Google-ing my way to victory.” My mentor’s words, not mine. We considered laser dyes would be a good place to start – these are well known, commercially available, and come in a variety of absorption wavelengths. I figured out which ones were most likely to photoisomerize based on their structure. A basic example is stilbene:

After that my new skills in computational chemistry from class kicked in. I had a lot of fun playing with a program called Avogadro that lets you manipulate molecules. I built models of the laser dyes I had found as well as their possible photoisomers. Then I put these into a different program that calculated their ideal structures. Here's two different isomers of DMOTC.

Remember that the molecules in the ion chamber of the spectrometer are moving against the flow of gas. In the same way that a skydiver opens his parachute to fall more slowly, a molecule with a greater surface area will move slower. I used a program called MobCAL to calculate how fast a molecule will move through the ion chamber of the spectrometer. It does this by looking at the molecule from all possible angles and averages their “collisional cross-sections.” For example, if you’re looking at the laser dye DDCI from the front or from the side, it will have a different surface area.

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Keeping a lab notebook for this project was significantly different from the research project I had at Caltech. It felt really weird to not start my entries by drawing out a chemical reaction, but the idea was still the same. Make sure you write down everything that you do and the results you get so that you or somebody else can recreate . This was really important because nobody really knew how to use Avogadro or MobCAL, so a lot of the things I did were accomplished by trial-and-error. I also became very dependent on my flash drive because I needed to work on different computers.

At the end of the day, I came up with a list of good test subjects. These were the laser dyes whose photoisomerization made a big enough difference in their shape to impact their mobility through the chamber. Can’t wait for those parts to come in so we can get back in the lab and do some real testing!

Spring Break. Destination: Tasmania

After two months of classes we had mid-semester break. For some people at UniMelb this means catching up on work. For others, it means travelling! My destination? Six days in the beautiful island of Tasmania!

[Disclaimer: I don’t feel like I can do Tasmania justice with words, so text wise this might seem a bit short, but I hope you like the pictures!]

I couldn’t believe the sight as I flew into Hobart.

I spent Wednesday afternoon wandering Hobart. The weather was perfect, sunny, a little windy, and not too hot. I walked around Franklin Square, Elizabeth Pier, and Parliament Grounds.

The next morning I woke up early to be picked up by my tour just around the corner of my hostel. We drove south from Hobart through the Huon Valley. This area used to be part of a huge apply industry. Ships used to go up the Huon River to load up on apples to take to the UK. Today it’s a much smaller industry, but no less delicious. We made a series of stops along the to stretch our legs and to take pictures.

We drove as far south as we could. All the way to the end of the southernmost road in Tasmania. We stepped out and walked along a beautiful beach.

Next stop, the Platypus Walk near Hastings Cave. It’s only about 30-45 minutes long, but I felt like I had been taken into a completely different world. Too bad I wasn’t lucky enough to catch sight of a platypus. :(

Our final stop of the day was Hastings Cave, which was discovered in 1917. I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I’m pretty sure I feel asleep before 10pm, something I haven’t done in years.

Inside the Black Box

My research project has been a blast. Like I said before, my graduate student mentor, Brian, has already done most of the hard work of building an ion mobility spectrometer. I walked in just in time for the final touches and testing! Here’s a diagram I made of it…

The point of this machine is to make ions flow through a chamber against a current of gas before they move into the mass spectrometer, where you can measure their mass. You start out by generating ions at the ESI – electrospray ionization. What it basically does is repel either positive or negative ions so that they shoot off in a stream. I’ve used ESI before, but it’s usually hidden inside a machine. Here I could actually see a stream of ions flowing from a needle towards a brass cap that captured them and passed them along into the ion chamber. This is a picture taken with a special camera. The cap is no bigger than a couple of centimeters in diameter at the widest end.

One of the first problems we ran into was that the ions dissipated off the cap because it had such a big surface area. Our answer was to replace it with aluminum foil. This was one of my contributions to the machine. :)

It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but as soon as we made the change, we were able to measure a huge increase in ion flow into the chamber. Brian was really excited because he’s been looking forward to this moment for a couple of years. We also needed to set up the mass spectrometer at the other end of the ion chamber. Again this is the kind of thing that chemists use all the time, but it’s usually inside a big box to which you insert your sample and come back an hour later to see the results on a computer. I was able to see the inner workings of it, such as this part, the octopole ion guide.

Here’s Brian attaching the mass spectrometer to the ion chamber.

We had a lot of structural work to do. Like setting up a cooling system for the vacuum pumps and building frames to hold parts of the laser. For me this meant a return to my high school days of using power tools in the engineering team.