As many scientists know, experiments sometimes (often) don’t work out as expected. You just have to deal with it, because that’s how science works. You record what you observe and come to conclusions based on that. Oh, and if you find a method that doesn’t work, you look for a new one

I learned many things in that experiment back in July. (Yeah, I started this blog post a long time ago, during a frustrating lab experiment.) One very important thing: Tyrophagus putrescentiae eggs disintigrate in 70% ethanol. Important lesson! Next, we tried freezing, since it was extremely difficult to sort through the food in all ten vials  in one afternoon (every other day). Fortunately, freezing worked! Refrigeration probably would have also worked.

Anyway, science does not always go as planned, and you have to adjust to that.

Now I’m running a different experiment. It’s always interesting to find a different organism in your arena, but sometimes it’s hard to avoid. Those moths are sneaky! Fortunately, some of the little snafus aren’t likely to mess up your experimental results. Also, that’s why you use replication.

Okay, those are my musings for now. Any interesting experiment stories?