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Bioinformatics Summer 2017

The Seeds of Change 2017 Bioinformatics Research will be held at the University of Georgia Costa Rica Campus High in the Monteverde Cloud Forest. The project is led by Gabriel Vargus from the University of Chicago Coleman Lab where bioinformatics are made the focus of research. We will use the supercomputers at the University of California Berkeley which house many of the world's genetic databases associated with the Department of Energy Joint Genomic Institutes IMG systems.

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July 06, 2017

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Day 4 Zip lining

July 10, 2017

This morning half of the group went “birding” (bird watching) at 6:30 before breakfast. After we ate, we headed to class in the Chachalaca classroom and continued work on our projects with a goal of answering two of our four questions. We had a quick coffee break at 10 before heading back to class and working until lunch. After lunch, we walked back to our cabinas to get ready for our afternoon of zip lining at a close zip lining park. A tram took us further up the mountain, deep into the cloud forest where we zip lined 200+ feet above the treetops. Today’s weather was fairly clear, and we were able to see past the forest and across to the the ocean. At the end of our amazing experience, we were offered an opportunity to “fall” off of the bridge. Everyone braved the drop: jumping off of the bridge, free falling for a few seconds, and ultimately being caught by a break before reaching the mats at the bottom. As our adrenaline rushes faded, we headed back to our cabinas and then went to ...

Day 10 Sea turtles

July 16, 2017

Today was an adventurous day on the coast near Nicaragua. To start off our last day in Costa Rica we had breakfast at the house of the family that’s been feeding us here. We had some amazing coffee and some great homemade cheese with our pinto de gallo (rice and beans of course) and tortillas. After breakfast in our rash guards and swim trunks, we headed to the beach. There we hopped onto two boats with a third research boat behind us, and took an hour-long boat ride to the other side of the bay. First, we watched just the researchers demonstrate how to take samples and measure a sea turtle, then we split up into two big groups. While half patrolled the net while snorkeling, the others just snorkeled around to find fish and guide turtles to the net. Once there was a turtle on the boat, groups of 2-4 helped collect information about the turtle and then release them again. We then had lunch on the boat, which was a variety of salads, some more rice (you should have seen that comin...

Day 1 Travel Day

July 07, 2017

Hello fellow followers, We are happy to report that we have arrived; we are mentally broken, but safe. After sixteen hours of traveling it has been nice to settle in. We stopped for lunch at a local restaurant and had a delicious meal with either chicken or fish. It was very warm when we stopped and very humid. After lunch we got back on the bus for a long four hour drive up to the cloud forest. We passed many terrific landscapes along with a cute, little tourist town right at the beginning of Monteverde. When we finally arrived at UGA, we got into the bunks (which are very homey and quite comfortable) and headed to dinner. At dinner they served delicious rice, beans, a cookie, and some amazing hot chocolate! We are happy to go to bed, but it is a bitter-sweet moment because Jenna and Hayden have to get up at 5:30 to go milk cows… wooo hooo (note the sarcasm). Anyway, it’s been fun so far and w...