News & Photos

Murphey's Law

Why did the chicken cross the road? The data is inconclusive.

Two undergraduate researchers, who had hoped to learn whether the non-native, invasive species cheatgrass displaces or negatively impacts the State Grass of Montana, bluebunch wheatgrass, instead learned valuable lessons about research itself. They said, “…nothing is as easy or as quick as it appears to be,” and Murphy’s Law, the popular phrase that originated with research at Edwards Air Force Base in 1948, “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong”, has become their mantra.

Brian Kelly and Melissa Maggio built 28 planting boxes, each with a Plexiglas side, to observe biomass (root growth and interaction) of the two plants when grown together under similar conditions but with varying states of competition. After two weeks building the boxes and repairing the many leaks where sand was escaping, which weakened the overall integrity of each box, they added an inch of topsoil to aid in germination, then planted the seeds. That’s when the real problems began.

First, Melissa went to Cancun over Spring Break and got very ill from a bad fish taco. Numerous bathroom stops and dehydration caused her to miss her plane and how she finally got back to Montana is a very long story. Near the same time, Brian was enjoying an evening downtown with friends and found himself in a jello wrestling match. Luckily, Brian was not seriously hurt, but he did lose his lab keys somewhere in the jello. After several days of neglect, the plants did recover slightly. However, shortly after Spring Break, the school paper reported that the lab had been broken into by residents of the nearby dorm. They smoked all the young plants believing them to be of a very different genus.

Well....that’s one story. Another (but far less interesting) goes like this: while most of the cheatgrass germinated, several different treatments were tried but not enough of the bluebunch wheatgrass germinated in the lab conditions to produce any conclusive results. And, they just ran
out of time to finish their study.

Whichever story you believe, despite their disappointment, Brian and Melissa are still interested in pursuing graduate studies, adding, “…this past semester working on this project has been frustrating, tiring, enlightening, and the best experience we have had in the biology department.” Forays into research for undergraduates are oftentimes eye‑opening and frustrating undertakings. However, gaining valuable real-world experience, and making a few mistakes along the way, makes for better researchers. Montana NSF EPSCoR is proud to support this educational program for undergraduates.