Author: mlmlblog

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology Lab.

Grab your favorite sister species and take her for a twirl – it’s Darwin’s 200th birthday today, and the science commuity is celebrating in style!  Many people begin their journey into the natural sciences by simply  marveling in awe at the colorful and diverse bounty of life on our planet – from the flashy fish of a teaming coral reef to the jewel-toned butterflies of the rainforest.   A multitude of species exist in all shapes and sizes, each the product of successful genes passed on over millennia.

Today we raise our beakers to toast the man who took the time to understand what could bring about such diversity, without even knowing that genes existed.  We celebrate the man who grounded our understanding of evolution by describing it’s underlying mechanism of natural selection, as published in his famous book The Origin of Species, which also marks it’s 150th anniversary this year.    Surely that’s a reason for a party if there ever was one, and celebrations are happening around the world (find one near you!).  There’s even one in our backyard at the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, where several Moss Landing scientists and MLML graphic artist Lynn McMasters have helped create a beautiful exhibit in honor of Darwin.

You can celebrate by reading some  interesting Darwin tidbits here, and just for fun try checking out your local plant and animal life with the keen eye that Darwin must have had.  What are the details he might have picked up on?  Maybe you’ll develop some truly “original” thoughts!

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology Lab

Classes are back in full swing here at Moss Landing, which partially explains the sporadic nature of our blog posts (my apologies!).  BUT!  I am very excited about the coming few months because, despite being a member of the Ichthyology (or fish-geek) lab, I am just now taking a basic ichthyology class for the very first time.  Which just goes to show that you can be a late-bloomer in your study interests and still make it to grad school!

In any case, I will have lots of fascinating little tidbits to share with you about our fishy friends, and will hopefully be able to convince  you why they (and the world thy live in)  are just so cool.  Take this, for instance.   If I asked you where fish live, you would (hopefully) say, “In water, obviously.”  But take a minute to think about what that means – and how very different life would be compared to our air-filled, land-based existence.  On our first day of class last week, Dr. Greg Cailliet, our fearless lab leader and class instructor, shared with us this quote from an ichthyology text by Karl Lagler (1962):

“Water is highway, byway, communications medium, nursery, playground, school, room, bed, board, drink, toilet, and grave for a fish.”

Phew!  All of that happening in the same interconnected space.  Greg added that students at MLML may very well have the same attitude towards our lab – all except for the grave part, we can only hope.  (I mean, a thesis is hard, but that’s just asking a little too much).  In any case, I thought the comparison was very fitting.

So how do fish do it?  How do their lives work when every basic function, from breathing to eating to growing to mating to sleeping to escaping all have to happen in water?  I hope you’ll stay tuned to find out the answers and more.  For now, this little fish is going to get out of the school room before it turns into a bedroom!

National Pie Day is January 23rd (it’s true! honest!), but here at Moss Landing we operate on a, shall we say, more flexible calendar.   Pie lovers gathered from across the lab yesterday to observe this most solemn occasion with a lab-wide bake off, featuring pies ranging from the sweet of apples, blueberries and chocolate, to the savory of eggs, bacon and tamales.    Kudos to the judging committee for creating such creative prize categories to accomodate the potpourri  of entries, including “Most likely to raise your cholestorol” and “Most likely to taste better than it looks.”  Congrats to Zea Walton for her grand-prize winning lemon tart, that was also voted “Most Dreamy,” and to runner up Mike Gordon, whose blueberry pie was voted “Most likely to be made by a grandma.”

No marine organisms were harmed in the making or eating of these pies.

You’ll never see a penguin soaring in the sky since they’re one of many groups of flightless birds (can you think of others?).   With their dense torpedo-shaped bodies, penguins are adapted for speedy swimming, and do all of their flying underwater.  But did you know they can also run? Enjoy this video of a penguin chase taken while MLML alum Cassandra Brooks was down in Antarctica.  Two Gentoo penguin chicks are running after their mom – and they’re about as (un)coordinated as some human kids I know!  Why do you think they’re in such a hurry?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTCs_FdbBM8]

Filmed at the Copacabana field camp on King George Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Video by Lara Asato, 2006.

As we gear up for a new year of splashy Moss Landing graduate student adventures, check out some Drop-In highlights from our first 10 months of kicking around in 2008:

We flocked from pole to pole, from Nate Jones’ surveys of seabirds in Alaska’s Bering Sea, to Kristen Green still rubbing elbows with penguins down in Antarctica.  Kyle Reyonlds warmed things up with a trip to the hot vents of Fiji’s deep sea, and Jeremiah Brower brought us up close and personal with some very old rocks.

Amanda Kahn regaled us with the multifaceted lives of sponges, even writing about them for the popular Deep Sea News blog.  Danielle Frechette showed us why balloons can spell bad news for wildlife, while Erin Loury waxed poetic about scurvy and poked around in kelp holdfasts.  To round things off, we hosted a successful Science Cafe at the labs, drummed up some coverage in the local press, and responded to some exciting questions from you!

Thanks for reading The Drop-In and getting curious about our research and experiences!  We look forward to bringing you along for the ride in 2009.

If you’re in the habit of being thankful or counting your blessings amid the hectic frenzy of the holidays, why not add the ocean to your list?

Thankyouocean.org is a website from the California Public Ocean Awareness Campaign that has tons of information about how you can volunteer, learn about, and speak up for the ocean.  Be sure to check out their podcast, the Thank You Ocean Report, which features topics ranging from sharks and sea otters to National Marine Sanctuaries, and the Marine Life Protection Act.  Like all the best gifts that don’t fit in boxes, the ocean gives us plenty of reasons to say “Thank you!”

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Happy Holidays from The Drop-In!