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Goodbye, #embryo2015!

It has been awhile since Sharkie has written here - for good reasons! The final two weeks at the Woods Hole Embryology course went by in a blur and the next thing we knew, we were all sharing our final night (or early morning) together as a group at the beach, paddling/swimming in a the sea speckled with bioluminescence. Words cannot describe the magical feeling of sweeping the water with your hands and feet and watching a burst of stars appear before your eyes. As each of us return to what we call 'real life' (because Woods Hole is the Matrix, really), here's a little offering on the science(?) that passed through Sharkie's hands...

This time, David (the coding wizard from previous post) and I joined forces again and decided to take a closer look at the sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis, as part of the cnidarians module. These guys, as seen here, have a thick column consisting of an elastic covering protecting the anatomical structures that are attached to the tentacles. We anaesthesised an individual and then carefully removed the covering with forceps to have a good look inside, and what greeted us was amazing, to say the least. The intricacies of various folds and structures were a joy to stare at under the microscope...even if we had no clue what we were staring at. Anyway, here are some images (#noconfocal, #cannotgetontheconfocal) that we managed to pull together after David's computer crashed with our final Show N Tell on it two hours before the presentation...

Nematostella stained with MitoTracker, DAPI and Phalloidin:

Tentacle close-up I (no Phalloidin):

Tentacle close-up II (with Phalloidin):

We unanimously agreed that the Zeiss Imager M2 and Zeiss Zoom V16 microscopes are awesome.

We had a slew of other experiments that didn't work, for example, here's a tadpole with axolotl neural crest graft (bit of brown pigmented tissue next to the eye). Tadpole stayed looking like a happy tadpole and did not grow the striking gills that we had hope it would.

By the way, here is a neurulating axolotl. Absolutely beautiful, aren't they?

On the other hand, we had some crazier stuff that actually worked...which I will not write about here. But if you do catch either one of us in person, do ask about the finarians...

And now back to real life.

Goodbye for now,

Sharkie

Stony Beach

Dock by Water Street

Eel Pond


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