u/FelisCorvid615

Without explaining too much, I'm doing a thing where I have to look as student assignments in a whole bunch of different classes. The process involves other faculty making batch downloads from our LMS and giving me the ZIP file. When I extract them, often times half or more of the submissions are links to shared documents rather than an actual file.

And I just think about my own grading in the LMS, and having to make 2 clicks (click on student, click on link) for every student instead of just 1 to access their assignment would drive me up a fucking wall.

Plus now I have to go back to all those faculty and ask them to download all those linked documents which is an extra PITA for them! So much time could have been saved on so many levels if these assignments had been files in the first place....

/end rant.

We have some Elysia crispata that were part of a student project - student is now graduating, but wanted to preserve the specimens, and we are unsure of the appropriate fixative. We have 3 choices: Ethanol, Formaldehyde, or Glutaraldehyde? Ethanol is the most standard and seems like a generic choice. However, these are kleptoplasty types of Elysia and I worry that alcohol will leech out the pigments in the chloroplasts and distort the colors. So I would prefer to use Glut (it's what I've used on algae to preserve pigment colors). Each has pros and cons to their use, but wondering what others' thoughts are.

I have tried searching many places for the answers to these questions and I just can't find it. I have asparagus crowns that are now almost 7 years old. We never get very many out of them, despite lots of early spring fertilizer. I think part of the problem is I don't know when to make the first harvest.

• Do I take the first spears that come up?
• Should I leave those and then take subsequent spears?
• How many should I let go before harvesting?

I feel like I get trapped in this Catch 22 of leave the first spears, and then because those didn't get picked, the crown never sends up more. What's the balance?