Fun at the Argonne National Laboratory?

Greetings from Chicago (sort of)! Matt, DJ and I (Audrey) are at the Argonne National Laboratory using the synchrotron for our Cambodia sediments and the MSMA turfgrass project. If you aren't well versed in the synchrotron, you can find information here. Don't worry, we're still learning more about it ourselves (well, except for Matt). Here is an aerial view of the whole system:

*photo courtesy of the APS*

As you can see, it is quite the setup. Here are some additional pictures from our trip so far:

Work Station-yes, we use around 8 monitors

 This is actually where we put the sample in. We don't get to see this room very often and it closes with authority. The beam goes through the metal that transects the room. There are also cameras, mirrors, and other really scientific stuff that happens in here that perhaps Matt can explain more.

Here is DJ loading a sample into a magnetic tray that will move the sample around (the beam doesn't move)

Loaded sample with a camera and detector shooting on it. Just look at those coarse sediments!

This place is so big that we need tricycles to get around. Yes, I'm serious. Here we are going to get lunch at the cafe down the path.

Anyway, this is just a quick post to show you what we've been doing. Matt, Liz and I will be attending the SSSA conference from Nov. 3-7 so I think you'll get another blog post soon. 

*Audrey*

Mama Audrey's Animal Post

Since Liz posted earlier, she was not aware of the importance of an animal picture at the end of every post. Due to this, here is a whole post dedicated to the animals of Cambodia. Enjoy!

Mama Audrey and the Go Girl

Liz Gillispie reporting here for the Polizzotto lab group!

With the patriarch of our lab no longer overseeing the work here in Cambodia, Audrey has been left in control and me as her humble grad servant, I mean student. Despite multiple pieces of equipment getting broken, excessive amounts of water being poured on the floors of the RDI lab, overuse of paper towels, and catching random lab workers clipping their finger nails with our nail clipper from the surface water kit, I'd say Audrey and I have things all under control.

Since all the well sampling and surface sampling has been completed, Audrey and I set out today to collect well water and rain water samples from various homes in the village on a main street that runs parallel to the Mekong.  It was the same road where we collected much of our well samples from before.  As Audrey and I collected the water, Dina, a local Khmi RDI member, talked with someone from each site to see how they used their water, how many people used it, whether they filtered/boiled it, and if anyone ever had stomach issues.  All went smoothly and now Audrey is hard at work preparing to test each sample for fecal bacteria (I'd give the specific names but I can't spell them let alone pronounce them!).

Our lab was able to find some entertainment throughout the sampling process, however, such as watching Audrey attempt to get out of the mud, performing titrations for large gatherings of interested locals, working around the ambitious children who were bold enough to not stop touching our equipment, playing with tree leaves, and from a competition of long jump made my our driver Pon.  We were exhausted by the end of the day and found ourselves completely ready for bed by 7:30 or 8:00 each night.

As our trip comes to end, I think we can all agree that we will truly miss the closeness of the families here and their generosity of welcoming us into their homes.  There was not a day where we weren't greeted with a big smile from Da's Aunt at the local coffee shop or waved at by little children to and from RDI (Da is another Khmi member of RDI).  Audrey and I were also blessed to have the chance to eat dinner with Da's family one night, which turned out to be a huge gathering (a typical evening dinner for them apparently).  I was able to sit next to Da's grandfather, Grandpa Da, which was completely the highlight of my trip.  That man is awesome.  But I digress.  The point is, family is important all around the world and you don't have to be related to be a part of one.  So thanks to all the wonderful people that made us feel at home during our stay here at RDI!

Cambodia: Thick Thighs, Big Feet, Swollen Lips, and a (smelly) Rabbit

Hello from Cambodia, I hope all is well. Our first (almost) week is already over, so time is flying by. As soon as we landed, we found out that the old king passed away. Apparently he had been ill for some time, so this was not a huge surprise (and he was 90!). His son has been in power for a few years, so this was not the current king.

Since the king passed away, all of Cambodia went into mourning. This meant that the lab was closed on our first sampling day which put us a day behind. The past few days have been really hectic trying to catch up on lost time, but after some long days in the field and nights in the lab, we are now mostly done with all of the well sampling. Next week we will be surface water sampling and collecting water for fecal indicator bacteria.

The 'wet' season is not so wet this year and river and wetland water levels are much lower than last year.  Luckily the government has declared that the wet season will extend until December this year.  Thanks.

A few other things happened while away:

-Liz and Audrey's room was a nesting ground for a large spider and cockroach. Matt had to keep coming in to shoo them away, but they kept coming back. In the end, Audrey's dirty socks got placed in some of the holes in the ceiling to capture these creatures, but unfortunately they got out. Audrey's socks are still in the ceiling holes.
-Liz got a high five from a kid after Audrey got groped by one.
-Audrey accidentally ordered Milo (iced chocolate milk) instead of coffee one morning...an international incident almost occurred as Matt suffered through caffeine withdrawal
-There's not much space in the van due to all the thick thighs, big feet, swollen lips, and a (smelly) rabbit

(you know Audrey had to post her favorite animals of Cambodia. Shown here is a little dog named Pupsy)

Last Work Day

Can you believe tomorrow's the final work day? We have a few other things to do on Tuesday, but we fly out on Wednesday night. We are definitely not looking forward to the long flights back!

Sarah and I have had a little time off on Saturday and Sunday to sightsee a bit. Some friends of ours opened a restaurant in December and we had dinner there last night (boy was it a feast!).

Random pictures ahead....

 Monks walking at the National Museum in Phnom Penh

 Fish Amok, the national dish, from FCC

 One of the many rain barrels we collected water from for water testing

 Most of these water sources tested positive for fecal contamination (as seen from the yellow color)

 Sarah and Dina are sampling from the wetlands

 Our mobile lab (a.k.a Pon's van) testing in a rice field....don't try this at home

 A Buddist temple located in the Buddist Meditation Center

 Sarah with the Cambodian flag. Isn't it beautiful?

We went and got our nails and toes done at the local beauty salon. It was only $2!

One Week to Go

Hi everyone, I hope all is well in your neck of the woods. I'm just giving a little report about how things are going so far. I can't believe we only have 1 week to go! Since it is near the end of the dry season, we experienced a few shallow wells that were dry. These wells were ones that are for science only, not for drinking, so this did not have any effect on the Cambodian people. It has been surprisingly wet here so far, but we did have 2 days that have been completely dry.

Tomorrow we will start sampling surface waters which will take a couple days and take us from the Bassac to the great Mekong River.

That's about it here in Cambodia. I hope to have a post up soon about our half day off in Phnom Penh on Sunday.

The (Mis)Adventures in Cambodia

Hi everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts, but we've been busy here in Cambodia. Things got off to a rocky start when the airline lost one of our coolers, but fortunately it arrived yesterday. Oh, I should mention that Sarah Seehaver from the Grossman lab is helping me here in Cambodia. She has a ton of field work under her belt, so we thought she would make a great addition to the trip (and boy has she!).

We expected it to be toward the end of the dry season here, but it seems that the wet season has started early. It's rained every day except for one, but luckily we got to the field early that day so we got a lot done. Last night it poured heavily most of the evening, but it is mostly dry now because of the hot weather. We also went to a very nice restaurant called Laprevu which had a great atmosphere and even a pool! We met a friend from RDI at the restaurant, and he beat us home on a bike while we took a tuk-tuk ride. How pathetic when a bike can beat a moto.

Yesterday was also spent starting nutrient bioassays looking at potential eutrophication of surface waters from increasing concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus. Let's just say it took much longer than anticipated, and it was a pretty stressful day. Here are a few random pictures I have to show you guys:

 Even Cambodia has Red Bull

 Dina is working hard well sampling

 Well sampling

 Using the Hanna to test rice paddy water

 Yup, they still plow with cow

 My favorite Cambodian dog had puppies again!

This crab was trying to pinch us while well sampling

Ethan Wins 3rd Place at the Graduate Student Research Symposium

We have some very exciting news to announce to everyone. First, Ethan Lineberger placed third in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences section of the Graduate Student Research Symposium at NC State last month. Congratulations, Ethan! He presented the work he has done in the past 4 months from his December trip to Bangladesh.

The next piece of exciting news is that Audrey will be headed back to Cambodia in May to analyze surface and well water. Expect a lot more posts during the trip (May 15-31).

We have one more piece of news, but that's just going to have to wait another week or so. Stay tuned!

-Audrey

Surface Water in Cambodia

We don't just look underground in Cambodia, but also think about things at the surface...especially ponds, rivers, wetlands, and irrigated fields.

Some of these are quite exciting.

If you look carefully in the photo above, you can find the cord to a multiprobe we have in this pagoda pond.

Water was high everywhere this time around, in fields, ponds, and wetlands.

The water is good for the rice fields...

...but high water in some agricultural and wooded areas led to eutrophication.

Thanks to Neil for some of these pictures from our trip!