Author: mlmlblog

Feeling cold?  Feel like giving?  Feeling lucky?

If you answered yes to any or all of the above, then hurry and buy your tickets for the MLML Quilt Guild opportunity drawing!

Tickets are currently on sale for the chance to win “Lunar Influence,” a 44″ X 55″ art quilt that makes a beautiful wall hanging or lap throw!  The stunning design features leopard sharks, sand dunes, and phases of the moon, inspired by an illustration by Jane Schuytema.

Tickets are only $2 each or 3 for $5.  All proceeds will go to the Friends of MLML Scholarship fund, and a one-time scholarship in memory of Signe Lundstrum.   An opportunity drawing will take place on Friday, December 19th to determine the lucky winner! You do not have to be present to win. Postcards of the design are also available for $1.

Call (831) 771-4400 to buy your tickets by December 19th!

Signe Lundstrum was a much-loved member of the Moss Landing Marine Labs community who worked as an SEM and histology technician from 1972 to 1989.  She battled cancer from August 2000, and lost in 2005.  Signe found that the lab produced a special desire to give back more than one receives,  a practice continued by the graduate student scholarship created in her memory.

by Amanda Kahn, Invertebrate Zoology and Molecular Ecology Lab

I went out to sea yesterday and it was INCREDIBLE!  We saw animals we’d never seen before, explored an underwater canyon that is deeper than the Grand Canyon, and spent a beautiful day out on calm seas aboard the R/V Point Lobos.  As I was miles away from solid ground, I pondered the irony of my choice of career – you see, I get seasick.  Horribly seasick.  I was the only person running out to the side of the boat every half hour to, uh, fertilize the ocean.  I’ve tried taking Dramamine, eating saltine crackers and drinking ginger ale, pressure point bands, even wearing a paper bag against my stomach (which kind of works, actually…), but nothing fully gets rid of that queasy feeling.  So how can I tolerate going out and being sick all day?  Basically, I am really excited about learning about things that live under the ocean.  So interested, in fact, that I don’t mind the seasickness so much!  I wanted to write about this because people who get seasick should know that it is still possible to have a successful, happy career in marine science.

First of all, some tips to help eliminate or reduce seasickness:

• Medications such as Dramamine, Bonine, and Marezine are helpful.  They are most effective if you take one pill the night before going out on a boat, then another about one hour before the boat is underway.
• Pressure point bands work for some people.  These look like bracelets with a little knob that presses on a pressure point on the inside of your wrist.  If you start feeling sick, you can press the knobs into the pressure point.
• Ginger, whether in the form of fresh, dried, candied, or ginger ale, helps ease upset stomachs (although I personally think candied ginger tastes terrible!).
• Carbonated beverages (especially ginger ale) are also helpful for upset stomachs.
• Surprisingly, keeping some food in your stomach can be really helpful.  I don’t start feeling really sick until my stomach is completely empty.
• Scopalamine is a prescription drug that you can ask for.  It comes in a little patch that you wear behind your ear.  It releases medication into your body slowly over time.  Some people get a little loopy on this, but it is supposed to be one of the best medications.
• A brown paper bag (huh?).  A friend of mine just told me about this one, and basically, you just put a paper bag under your clothes, in contact with your stomach.

These solutions would not all be necessary if so many people didn’t end up with the same problem that I have.  Seasickness is common!  Everyone figures out the best way to deal with it (for example, my favorite is to take Bonine, wear pressure point bands, drink ginger ale, and keep some food in my stomach).  The other scientist on yesterday’s cruise wore a Scopalamine patch.  If you tend to get seasick, you’re not alone!  And you can still pursue marine science.  In my next post, I’ll tell you about some of the amazing things we saw on our cruise, and you’ll see why seasickness is minor compared to the amazing coolness that is marine science and oceanography.  *Sigh*

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjzkf1xiQ-8]

You can already check out some of the cool things people do at sea with this video! Also, share your favorite seasickness remedies by leaving a comment!

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology Lab

It’s a girl!  It’s a boy!  It’s 200 of each!

The MLML aquarium room was asqueal with coos and baby talk last week – and that was just from the fawning grad students.  The brooding efforts of a resident female octopus had paid off, and dozens of little eggs had become  dozens of oh-so-squishable baby octopuses.  Shaara Ainsley snapped this shot of the photogenic little tykes when they were a few days old.

Sadly, the babies didn’t survive too much longer after their photo-op, despite valiant efforts by student Erin Jensen to get them to eat.  It’s a marvel to think how something so seemingly vulnerable, drifting around in the plankton, stands a chance of ever becoming an adult in the ocean.

Here’s a rather low-quality video (sorry!) of the babies doing their bouncy thing (and Mom having none of it):

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

Now even if you don’t want to admit it, I know you’re dying to ask – where do baby octopuses come from?  Well, you see, when two octopuses really… actually it’s probably better that you learn more about octopus dating and mating by checking out this awesome UC Berkeley research, which includes work by Christine Huffard, now a post-doc at our neighbor, MBARI.

And if that puts you in the mood for more off-the-wall octo shenanigans, check out this crazy video of an octopus taking down a shark at The Other 95%, and the sideshow-worthy, 96-armed octopus at The Pink Tentacle!

by Erin Loury, Ichthyology Lab

Nothing brings grad students together quite like the promise of free food and friendly competition.  The MLML community turned out in fine form on Friday for the first ever MLML Chili Cook-off, the brain-child of Ichthyology student Shaara Ainsley.    Hungry students, faculty, and staff alike poured out of the woodwork in a celebration of sampling that had nothing to do with statistics or experimental design.

Nearly a dozen contestants entered their hearty concoctions, ranging from super-meaty to vegan.  The crowd of appreciative “judges” ranked the chilies based on the judging criteria of the Chili Appreciation Society International: aroma, red color, consistency, taste, and aftertaste.  Once the ballots were cast and tallied, it appeared that the color-blind community eschewed tradition to embrace an outsider: a delicious white chili submitted by Dr. Shannon Bros-Seemann emerged victorious, despite the fact that it didn’t look like the other chilis in the cookbooks, and its unconvential composition, which included chicken.

The only thing that could have made the evening even better (and marine) would have been a cameo by the chilipepper rockfish, Sebastes goodei.  Well, I guess there’s always next year…