What I've Learned...

Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Happy Kwanzaa/Happy New Year! Wishing everyone a wonderful 2012 filed with everything your hearts desire.

I've had a nice winter break...relaxing mixed with seeing family, friends, and a little trip to New York. This was my second time in the city, and what else would three scientists-in-training do but visit the American Museum of Natural History? This was my second visit to the museum, and my second visit to the Ocean Hall, but it was so much fun with my friends. Nothing says marine biology like two grown women crawling on the floor to play with the interactive tree of aquatic vertebrates.

I didn't complete my usual trip to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, but I did visit the zoo today. I honestly don't remember the last time I've been there, and this was the perfect time to go with the lack of tourists. Of course, my first stop was at the Invertebrate House to see the new octopus and made my way to other areas such as the Big Cat area and the Asia Trail. So overall, what have I learned?

1. While organisms like sponges lack a nervous system, they still have intracellular communication (courtesy of AMNH)
2. Snapping shrimp are larger than I thought they were (courtesy of zoo)
3. Sapping shrimp do not mess around! I could hear the popping loudly through the aquarium glass (courtesy of zoo)

I'm gonna count those as my facts of the post and leave a couple of pictures from the zoo.

How rude!

Say hello to Pandora!

Don't underestimate the power...

...of a class that you assume has no relevance to your life.

I've done it. You've done it. We've all done it. You take a class, perhaps because it's a requirement, maybe because it's the lesser of a couple of evils. You set your sights on completion and revel in the fact that once it's over, it's over. It'll never pop up in your life again.

LIEEESSSSS!

Two particular instances come to mind.

1. In undergrad I was required to take Chemical Oceanography. Yes, it's just as painful, if not more painful, than it sounds. Equations that I'll never remember, my first (and only) academic warning, a cruise spent curled up in the fetal position on the deck from a bad case of sea sickness. But I fought through it and celebrated the end of that class and all that came with it.

That summer I attended an REU, and my project required running hemolymph (AKA crab blood) samples through a spectrophotometer. The grad student in my lab explained that I first had to create a standard curve with samples of known concentrations and then run my actual samples. My mouth all but hit the floor. I almost laughed out loud at the irony. Of course I knew how to do this.....it was all I had done in my Chemical Oceanography lab. The student proceeded to watch me run through a standard curve and a sample in a matter of minutes. If nothing else, I was able to impress a grad student with my stellar spec skills.

2. This semester I am taking a seminar on evolution and speciation. During the first class, the teacher asked us to describe our projects and say whether the knowledge of species was important. I didn't think it was important for my project. I mean, I'm studying pesticide toxicity in well known mollusc species, how would that matter?

Fast forward a couple of months. I'm completing my thesis proposal and one of my committee members questions our certainty that we're working with the right species of clam. I stated that I'm using the Northern quahog, Mercenaria mercenaria. But as the hatchery I'm using is in Florida, was there a chance I was actually getting the Southern quahog, Mercenaria campechiensis? We realized that answered that question would require extensive genetic testing that I didn't have time for. I ended up going through my proposal and changing it to say that I am using Mercenaria sp. My teacher would surely laugh in my face if he knew that speciation managed to affect my project.

So lesson learned: everything is useful. Don't say I didn't warn you.


Fact of the Post: A video of an octopus caught walking on land!