Tag: the gory bits

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One of those days

I’ve been working from home for a week now and I haven’t crossed a single thing off the list of “things I’ll be able to get done when I don’t have to go to school”.  When I get into a routine I’ll have time to write some dissection guides and run some workshops, in the meantime the phone rings and I can answer it, the email doesn’t pile up all day and keep me up until all hours of the night and I can pick up and deliver all over town at a reasonable time of the day.

Today, for the first time, I even stopped for lunch.  It was 3pm and the phone rang in the middle of it, but at least I sat down and ate something between breakfast and cheese-and-bic.

This afternoon I set out to pack an order for tomorrow, take the dog for a walk and be able to hang out a load of washing before sunset.  Then, since I was in the shed anyway, I thought, “I’ll just cryovac that pluck in the fridge”.

So I did.  And this is what happened:

cryovac machine full of blood
Never put off until tomorrow what you can make an awful mess of today - cryovac machine full of pluck juice. Yuck.

The pluck expelled at least a cup of blood, lung goop and general grossness into the machine and all over the baseboards inside it.  Between them, around them, under them – everywhere.  Ugh.

If anyone from the abattoir is reading this, then this is the reason I complain when the plucks are ‘too big’.  If anyone from the cryo rental company is reading this, don’t worry.  I’ve cleaned it, disinfected it, dried it out and turned it off.

Ah, well.  Order packed, cryovac cleaned from top to toe, dog walked to the bottom of the hill and back, washing still in the machine and it’s after dark.  Cheese tastes better when it’s had a bit of time out of the fridge anyway.

Miss Vivi

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Miss Vivi Section on Pinterest

Follow Me on Pinterest

I’ve joined Pinterest and I’m having a fabulous time! At first I was a bit sceptical about how it is used, but I signed up anyway just to give it a try.

I’ve decided to use it as a place to gather really good anatomy images, experiment ideas and other science images for you to refer to.

You know how frustrating it is when someone takes your work and presents it without giving you any credit, so please be courteous and credit the artists and websites if you use the images in the classroom. I have tried to link all the images back to their original websites so you can check out any copyright information they have and use the images appropriately.

I hope it’s useful to you and you find some fun there too. Feel free to point me in the direction of good stuff to share with other labbies. I’ll count it as an entry in the t-shirt competition if you do it before Easter.

Happy Australian Bacon Week
It's Australian Bacon Week

By the way, Happy Australian Bacon Week to you! It’s going to be all about bacon on this blog and the Facebook page this week.
Miss Vivi

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Stillborn piglet dissection

Stillborn piglet external view
Stillborn piglets make an excellent alternative to rats for dissection

This little piggy is the latest and greatest in whole animal dissection specimens.   They are either stillborn from large litters or smothered by the sow in the stall and come from a farm breeding pigs for meat.  They are usually disposed of as farm waste but we are collecting them and diverting them from the waste stream for dissection.  They are less smelly, cheaper, closer to human anatomy than a rat and aren’t being bred just to be euthanased for science, so each piglet used in the classroom represents a rat that hasn’t had to be put down.

Each piglet typically weighs 600-800g. The piglets are collected and frozen without any chemical preservatives which reduces your chemical exposure in the lab as well as eliminating a source of exposure to the kids in the classroom. It also makes the piglets safe to dispose of in landfill with other normal waste.

piglet dissection internal view
The organs of the stillborn piglet are clean and clearly identifiable

As they generally have not yet fed or only briefly suckled, the intestinal tract is pretty clean and there is little smell to the specimen.  Each organ can easily be identified and removed for further exploration.

piglet dissection internal closeup
Closeup view of the piglet urogenital system

The detail in the circulatory system of the piglets is particularly amazing. You can see in the photo above the veins and arteries of the urogenital system clearly visible.  Once the overlying organs were taken out, the spine was visible and a section could be removed to allow the spinal cord to be seen.

There is a lot more that can be explored with these specimens and we will be spending a lot of time working on them so we can develop some really good resources to allow you to get more bang for your buck.  In the meantime keep an eye out for workshop announcements that will give you the chance to get your hands on one.  We are expecting to be able to bring them to you at ConQEST 2012, if not before.

See you there,

Miss Vivi

 

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Top Tip: live sperm in the classroom

This is a guest post by Deb Barnett who was the lab tech at the first school to order live boar semen.  This post puts Deb in the running to win our t-shirt competition.

The kids love it!!

It gave us a relevant and interesting resource for the unit. We even had the most disengaged student managing the microscope and getting the best view of the goings on the slide.

The sample maintained viability through the week even though the ice brick had defrosted on arrival and it was warmer than the suggested 15-20 degC in the esky. Arrival time was approx. 12.10pm Monday. I followed the recommended storage conditions throughout.

Just a few notes on how the prac was run here….  A small vial and dropping pipette (1 for each class) was placed in the incubator at 38degC until required. When the class had set up the ‘scopes and warmed their slide between their hands, I aliquoted approx 1mL into a vial and took it straight to class where the teacher kept it warm in their hand whilst walking around the lab putting 1 drop directly on the slide for each group. No “lab accidents”

So, thanks again – a good time was had by all.

Good luck with the business, you’ve certainly hit the spot with it!