Today we had to show up at 7:30am (the mice have their schedules...) to take blood samples from the mice. We took each mouse and accessed the tail vein (similarly to when the doctor pricks your finger to test for anemia) and then we pushed out the blood into a very small vile. I wasn't very good at this because I wouldn't push hard enough so it took a lot longer. This then caused the access point to clot before I had collected enough blood. We then assayed the blood alcohol level through chromatography. We went back to Chris' office and he lectured me for a VERY long time about exactly what chromatography is and how it works. For the mice's blood we used gas chromatography using a flame ionization detector (FID). We then cleaned out all of the mices cages/water bottles that they used before they went into the chambers. Then we prepped the lab to do what we did yesterday, which was weigh each mouse and give it a shot of an ethanol solution. I'm getting a lot better at filling syringes without any bubbles and lining up the beveled end of the needle correctly. Today I got to handle the mice. I wasn't able to give them the shots, because if you give them the shot incorrectly you could potentially inject the ethanol into their liver (which is toxic to the liver) and kill the mouse. I did, however, get to weigh each mouse so that Chris knew what amount of ethanol to inject them with. 

I could go into a lot more detail about everything I learned about chromatography, but to be honest, I'm not exactly sure what he was talking about 100% of the time so I'll wait until I can accurately describe what I learned. I remembered a few things from sophomore chemistry though, such as V=IR (or is it R=IV) and hydrogen bonding and valence levels. 

To answer Veronica's questions:

-why's the light/dark cycle reversed? It's not reversed, it's just that Chris breaks it up into two 12 hour cycles, so some of their dark cycle overlaps our light cycle because humans don't run on two 12 hour cycles. 

-how long will the mice be in the ethanol chambers? I'm not exactly sure, but I think they go back into their normal cages on Monday.

-why are the mice both being injected with ethanol and breathing it in via the air supply, instead of just one route of administration? I'm not sure about this question to be honest. I'll ask Chris.

-what's the overall objective of this study? I'm still a little confused about this question myself. My senior project application gives a brief overview of the objective if you want to take a look at that. I'm hoping it will become more clear as we go along.