10/5/14-10/10/14

The most memorable activity for this week was definitely the BLAST lab. It was a bit confusing at first, due to the expansiveness of the phylogenetic trees, but eventually I understood it. It was interesting to see how biotechnology can be applied to criminal justice; the two seem like very unrelated fields, but they are really complementary. I also attended the lecture at Whitney Lab on bioluminescence in marine organisms. While it was definitely engaging, I'd like to see more applications of the research besides science for science's sake. I remember hearing something about inserting fluorescent genes into other organisms allowing us to see them more easily, but I feel like that could have been elaborated on more.