Past Events

Genomics Lab

Much of the science club participated in a DNA extraction at the genomics lab on Saturday, 2-23-2013. Next week, the extracted and purified DNA will be run through PCR amplification of the long DNA strands and then imaged through gel electrophoresis.

There will be another section of this course opening up soon, we will announce it to the club to help everyone get a slot! Bob Macey and Dustin DeMeo also have suggested that as not all club members can get into the class, we can do a club event of DNA extraction and Long PCR, to get more students involved.

The Science club has partnered with the Genomics lab, working with Bob Macey to get students involved in real research. Some of the research ideas Bob has suggested we work with him on include doing a first pass alignment with gene boundaries to check for misfolded mitochondrial tRNA, beta testing new methods of DNA extraction, running octoploid DNA out on gels from strawberries, and more.

As the lab was only just set up, there will be a small waiting period, but Bob and Dustin are keen to have science club members shadow while they work on things like DNA shearing using sonication (sound waves that create a microscopic bubble, allowing you to cut DNA to a very precise number of base pairs).

This is the lab's first semester and we are off to a great start.

The bottom of each photo contains information about what we were doing.

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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Tour

The club and some of its members are taking advantage of the opportunity to visit LBL on March 15, 2013. The tour, which starts promptly at 10am, will consist of a guided tour of the facilities on site. Please visit http://www.lbl.gov/ for more information about the tour. Our meeting place and transportation will be sorted out this weekend so please check back on here for more details if you have not already been contacted by us about the tour.

Details on where to meet:

Our tour starts at 10am and we would like for everyone to be at the location no later than 9:45am

The Downtown Berkeley BART station is conveniently located one block from the meeting spot

It would be best if we commute to Berkeley by Bart for this trip, we will meet outside of the Bart exit on Center Street

We will board the shuttle in downtown Berkeley on Shattuck Ave. at the Lab shuttle stop marked with a blue sign between Center and Addison Streets

Also! You must show a photo ID, such as driver’s license or passport, to the tour guide in order to board the shuttle to the Lab!

Pictures from the tour are up!

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Dinan Engineering Facility Tour

PEMS has graciously been given the opportunity for a tour of Dinan Engineering and its beautiful facility. The tour is on March 22, 2013 where those who are attending the tour, will meet promptly at 11:45am on Friday so that we can carpool to Dinan.

The tour will be led by Steve Dinan, founder of Dinan Engineering. For those who are not familiar with Dinan: They are the premiere vendors for BMW aftermarket performance products. Their products range from air intakes, all the way down to custom tunes for your BMW vehicle. Many of their products are designed and assembled in that very facility and our members will be given the chance to take a look around to see what equipment and tools that the engineers and technicians use to conduct their research to develop these products.

Dinan Engineering actively participates in Grand-Am Rolex racing series where they sponsor two teams and four vehicles. The no.1, no.2, no.42, and no.43 vehicles. Please visit www.dinancars.com for more information about their products and information about their events.

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Biofest at Merritt College

PEMS will have a table set up at Biofest this year at Merritt College on April 20, 2013. This festival will include different things that students can participate in. I believe that there will actually be an electron microscope that students may be able to see and operate. Quoted from Hank Fabian of Merritt College: "“BioFest at Merritt College is a celebration of technological advancements in Biotechnology, including Genomics and Microscopy” says Dr. Hank Fabian, faculty member in the Merritt Microscopy program. “The purpose of this event is to introduce the general public to emerging careers in biological sciences. Merritt College offers training for the jobs of tomorrow in the exciting fields of Genomics and Microscopy. This festival will include interactive activities for all ages, and is a great way to explore the fun side of biology.”

If you are available to attend the festival and would like to volunteer an hour of your time to man the PEMS table, please contact us and let us know!

Earth Day Cleanup & BioBlitz at Leona Heights

This year on Earth Day (April 22, 2013), PEMS is hoping to host a cleanup effort at Leona Heights along with a BioBlitz. More details will be posted about the event soon!

The cleanup was a great success; thank you all for coming and helping out to help clean our local park. We installed trash bins for empty paint cans and cleaned up a lot of trash around the area.

Guest speaker Beate Heinemann

PEMS has been given the opportunity to host Beate Heinemann as a guest speaker at Laney College on April 29, 2013 at 6:00pm in the Forum. Beate is an associate professor of physics in UC Berkeley and is also a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She is a part of experiment Atlas at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland which has recently discovered what they believe to be the Higgs Boson. The Higgs Boson's interactions is thought to be the explanation for why all particles have mass.

We here at Laney College are extremely excited to host Ms. Heinemann and welcome everyone to come and attend the event. If you have any interest in science please come by and attend this event! Seats are limited and there is no charge for attending this event.

To learn more about Beate Heinemann and her work in particle physics, please visit her Berkeley webpage here.

You may also visit her ATLAS webpage to learn more.

Directions to Laney Forum:

The best way for patrons to enter the Laney Forum is to enter through the 10th street

entrance. The entrance to the forum is on Fallon and 10th street. There are numerous

parking spaces available on 10th street. Otherwise, parking is available in the Laney

Parking lot, parking passes can be purchased for $2.00 for the evening.

Octopusing

Students interested in biology took a field trip to Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, Moss Beach on 3/30, and Duxbury Reef, Agate Beach, Point Reyes on 3/31. Both places offer a great opportunity to explore tide pools in search of gelatinous blobs and other marine organisms. The goal was to find octopus, as octopus have an incredible ability to change color and texture in an instant, as well as being incredibly intelligent.

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Transfer Panel Discussion

Thank you everyone for coming out to our transfer panel discussion! We invited back former Peralta students who have successfully transferred to their respective universities to answer questions that students have about the transfer process. This was an incredibly successful event and we hope to continue to provide students of the Peralta system opportunities like this to reach out to "upper classmen" so that the process seems less daunting. Special thanks to Matt Stavis, Chris Villareal, Luis Guzman, Gloria Vo and Gabriel Pillitiere for organizing the event and it could not have been done without our special guest speakers:

Gabriel Desourdy (UCB Engineering)

Frank Allison (UCB Engineering)

Nancy Pham (Biostatistics and Public Health)

Clay Fischer (UCSC Biology)

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