Colorless

Monday, September 18, 2006

Cockroach Dissection

Grrr...

I can't get anything into my head... there's a dull pain at the back of my head. How irritating!

Anyways, the reason I come to blog in the middle of the night is coz I was studying about the pronotum (which is the frontmost portion of an insect thorax) and there's this picture of a cockroach pronotum (which conceals its head), and I suddenly remembered I nv mentioned anything about Friday in my previous entry! =)

Remember many weeks agos, I was complaining that we weres supposed to dissect some cockroaches but ended up with snails instead? Well, we got our cockroaches last Friday. Haha! My, these roaches were fat man! No huge, but fat. Haha! They were cooled in the lab's cold room so they were quite immobile but very much alive when we got them in petri dishes. The first thing we were supposed to do was snip off its head so that it's dead and further mutilation would exempt us from the reaches of ethics (although I never knew of any ethical issues that concerns insects, cockroaches in particular). So I snipped the head off, stretching its neck out. Then snipped the legs, 6 of 'em, followed by the wings! But no wings! Apparently the one I got was a nymph. So yeah, used a scalpel to make a cut right down the middle of the ventral side (belly). Forceps to tease apart the integument (exoskeleton) to expose the innards. U know how the abdomen is segmented? I always thought it's like individual bands of integument but cutting up the roach showed me the transverse cut. It's like folded lor! So cool! And to my surprise (and your disgust), its innards are really pretty much like OUR innards! Intestines, stomach, gall bladder and the lot... haha! And under the dissecting microsope, wow, everything is SO CLEAR! I dunno about u but looking at all the tubes & organs, amazement washes over me... like, wow... wow... WOW.

Anyways, we weres supposed to mash up the innards to look for parasites... So I had to squash all that just amazed me... Squirted a lil saline, tilted the petri dish to 1 side and took another look under the scope. Crikey! There they were! Wriggling about in the water! Worms! Haha! Worms hold a whole new meaning to me now... They're EVERYWHERE!!! Even in the cockroach! IN a cockroach man!

K, enough about them. I think y'all wouldn't wanna hear about my poo culture and ITS worms... as well as shaking up different animal poo in water & taking some of that water to look under the microscope. But I can say, it's all very interesting. Haha! Not to mention, smelly too. Haha! Oh wells... all part of learning!

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Today, a certain friend of mine shared with me her problems with her boyfriend. (I hope you wouldn't mind me blogging about it? If u do, tell me & I'll remove this part.) Picking on her almost-everything all the time, or so it seemed to me. We discussed the various possible reasons and concluded that there were innumerable possibilities. And it just seems to me that he's trying to pick a fight... Maybe he's insecure? Maybe he's stressed up at work? Yes, maybe... I'm cynical... but I shan't mention what I think. It's too evil. I should be more naïve... more innocent. Cynicism has never been dominant... and I shouldn't let it be. *zips*

I dunno la... I don't even know for what am I writing this down. See? No conclusion, no thoughts... just blabbering. *blabber blabber blabber*

Ok, the thorax...
pronotum, propleuron, prosternum;
mesonotum, mesopleuron, mesosternum;
metanotum, metapleuron, metasternum...

Oh yes, I got my Sizzler Card finally!!! Haha! But I'm alone... =(

Eh friend, you can't stop her from completely cutting off from her guy friends la! That's so unreasonable can! You should know better. Treasure this jewel you have man... otherwise, so many others would kill to have her. K, not kill... just want so much.

Hee! *grinning from ear to ear* You can't imagine his joy when she said those last few words! *melts & bubbles*

Love me if you dare... 00:49
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