Team:StanfordBrownSpelman/Safety

From 2014.igem.org

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                         <h5><center>Working with Live Wasps</center></h5>
                         <h5><center>Working with Live Wasps</center></h5>
                         <h6> The public often responded with surprise and occasional gasps whenever we mentioned that we caught our own wasps for our waterproofing project. Wasps have frightening reputations, mostly because they defend themselves with venomous stings – but just like bacteria, some wasps are safer than others. We were fortunate enough to work with the European paper wasp (<i>Polistes dominula</i>), which is a relatively non-aggressive species of paper wasp. We also caught our wasps under the guidance of Dr. Dave Kavanaugh, chairman and curator of entomology at the California Academy of Sciences. <br></br>
                         <h6> The public often responded with surprise and occasional gasps whenever we mentioned that we caught our own wasps for our waterproofing project. Wasps have frightening reputations, mostly because they defend themselves with venomous stings – but just like bacteria, some wasps are safer than others. We were fortunate enough to work with the European paper wasp (<i>Polistes dominula</i>), which is a relatively non-aggressive species of paper wasp. We also caught our wasps under the guidance of Dr. Dave Kavanaugh, chairman and curator of entomology at the California Academy of Sciences. <br></br>
Dr. Kavanaugh's tutelage got us through our wasp wranglin' escapade injury-free and with minimal stress to the wasps. He provided us with butterfly nets, with which it was an easy feat to catch the wasps in mid-air, as they fly rather slowly when near their nests. The wasps are not aggressive unless their nest is disturbed or if they've been trapped in a net. While both of these situations did inevitably occur, we were safe to insert gloved hands into the nets to coax trapped wasps into empty 2mL tubes, as the wasps cannot sting through nitrile gloves. Once in the tubes, we placed the wasps in an insulated container with ice. This calmed them down to a lethargic state, at which point we could proceed with dissections and RNA extraction. </h6>  
Dr. Kavanaugh's tutelage got us through our wasp wranglin' escapade injury-free and with minimal stress to the wasps. He provided us with butterfly nets, with which it was an easy feat to catch the wasps in mid-air, as they fly rather slowly when near their nests. The wasps are not aggressive unless their nest is disturbed or if they've been trapped in a net. While both of these situations did inevitably occur, we were safe to insert gloved hands into the nets to coax trapped wasps into empty 2mL tubes, as the wasps cannot sting through nitrile gloves. Once in the tubes, we placed the wasps in an insulated container with ice. This calmed them down to a lethargic state, at which point we could proceed with dissections and RNA extraction. </h6>  
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                         <h5><center>The Amberless Chassis</center></h5>
                         <h5><center>The Amberless Chassis</center></h5>

Revision as of 23:57, 16 October 2014

Stanford–Brown–Spelman iGEM 2014 — BioBricks