Europe decided to send everything at once. I'm sieving every free moment of every day and some moments that are not free. I have blisters on all my major fingertips. And both thumbs
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That's the second time you mention this, so now I can't help asking: Are you really sieving that soil by hand? Like these early last century gold diggers?!
(Will you describe eating a shoe, next ;-)?)
Seriously. There must be a method to do this that won't leave your hands blistered. And never mind efficiency. You guys probably lack funding, like everyone else, but: Holy crap? It's a lab, after all. You do have electricity in there, don't you...?
Hahaha. Yus. Unfortunately we have to hand sieve. That's the side effect of doing biology :-( We have to keep everything alive and happy and only the human hand can do that.
If we were doing chemistry or physics, there are mechanical sieves we can use (not that we have them, but we could probably invest). But for soil biology we can't grind or dry the soil so we have to push stuff that varies from mud to plasticine through a 2 mm finger grater.
Trust me, I have done a LOT of looking around to see if there's a better way. 100 odd samples is torture! But, when all's said and done, I like working with biology better than chemistry or physics, it's much more interesting.
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(Will you describe eating a shoe, next ;-)?)
Seriously. There must be a method to do this that won't leave your hands blistered. And never mind efficiency. You guys probably lack funding, like everyone else, but: Holy crap? It's a lab, after all. You do have electricity in there, don't you...?
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If we were doing chemistry or physics, there are mechanical sieves we can use (not that we have them, but we could probably invest). But for soil biology we can't grind or dry the soil so we have to push stuff that varies from mud to plasticine through a 2 mm finger grater.
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Poor you guys, in any case...
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