{"id":504,"date":"2008-09-14T18:51:59","date_gmt":"2008-09-15T01:51:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=504"},"modified":"2008-09-14T18:51:59","modified_gmt":"2008-09-15T01:51:59","slug":"animal-celebrity-or-cake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2008\/09\/14\/animal-celebrity-or-cake\/","title":{"rendered":"Animal, celebrity, or cake?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Amanda<\/a>
Amanda Kahn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Amanda Kahn<\/a>, Invertebrate Zoology and Molecular Ecology Lab<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’d like to introduce you to my favorite organism!\u00a0 I’m studying these critters for my thesis project, and I think they are one of the weirdest critters in the ocean.\u00a0 Let me explain why they’re so cool, first of all:<\/p>\n

This organism lives in all places where there is water: bays, harbors, freshwater lakes, coastal environments, and the deep ocean.\u00a0 It eats microscopic particles out of the water, yet can grow so large, a person could fit inside of it!\u00a0 To find its microscopic food, it sifts through microscopic particles one by one, to find the edible bits with up to 95% efficiency!\u00a0 As if that’s not cool enough, this organism is the star of a popular cartoon, is present in many people’s homes, and has a delicious dessert named after it.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 Can you figure out what I’m talking about?
\n<\/p>\n

\"Sponge
The most famous sponge in the world: Sponge Bob Squarepants<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m sure you knew the answer immediately – I’m talking about sponges!\u00a0 Sponge Bob is, of course, that famous celebrity I mentioned.\u00a0 Before Sponge Bob started airing his TV show, almost no one knew of sponges.\u00a0 I should mention, however, that Sponge Bob is not like your typical sponge – sponges don’t move (much…I’ll post more about that later!), do not talk, do not have eyeballs, and do not live in a pineapple under the sea.\u00a0 Instead, sea sponges (Phylum Porifera) are more similar to the types of sponges you use in your kitchen or bathroom.\u00a0 Sponges are so useful as cleaning supplies in our homes because they soak up water.\u00a0 Live sponges are also good at absorbing the water around them: they have a series of intricate canals, called an aquiferous system, that are lined with feeding cells, called choanocytes.\u00a0 It is through those canals that sponges move water, and sort all of the particles that move along with the water to find the edible bits.<\/p>\n

One of the most amazing things about sponges is the way they build and support their aquiferous systems.\u00a0 Sponges have internal skeletons, just like us (as opposed to exoskeletons, like insects have).\u00a0 Unlike us, sponge skeletons are not made of bones – they’re made of either glass or calcium carbonate (the same stuff that seashells are made of).\u00a0 Each “bone” in the sponges’ skeletons is called a spicule, and there are millions and millions of spicules that support a single sponge.\u00a0 I am studying glass sponges (Class Hexactinellida), which build their skeletons out of glass.\u00a0 You might wonder where a sponge would find glass in the ocean, but, surprisingly, the elements that make up glass are quite plentiful in the ocean!\u00a0 Humans make glass by melting sand, and the element that is necessary for glass to be made (silicon, Si) ends up in the ocean from sand and other geological sources.\u00a0 Once the silicon dissolves from the sand into the water, sponges can absorb it as water passes through the aquiferous system.<\/p>\n

\"This
This is what a sea sponge looks like<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before you get worried about tiny glass spicules and throw out all of your bath and kitchen sponges, I should mention that there are a handful of sponge species that do not have any spicules at all.\u00a0 These species are the ones sold as “natural bath sponges,” or “sea sponges,” and are raised in ocean farms (called aquacultures).\u00a0 In addition, most of those colorful pink, blue, or green rectangular sponges you use in your kitchen are not actually sea sponges at all – they are synthetic (man-made)!<\/p>\n

I hope you’re now a little more familiar with this phylum.\u00a0 Even though they don’t move much, and definitely aren’t as charismatic as an otter or as brawny as a shark, sponges have some evolutionary traits that I’m sure will knock your socks off!\u00a0 I’ll write more about those amazing traits in future posts, but if you have any specific questions or things you’d like to know about sponges, send me an email or write a comment, and I’ll make sure to focus on your questions in my next posts!<\/p>\n

\"Sponge
Sponge cakes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I know I’m not alone in my love of Phylum Porifera – someone else liked sponges so much, they named a dessert after them!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’d like to introduce you to my favorite organism! I’m studying these critters for my thesis project, and I think they are one of the weirdest critters in the ocean. Let me explain why they’re so cool, first of all:<\/p>\n

This organism lives in all places where there is water: bays, harbors, freshwater lakes, coastal environments, and the deep ocean. It eats microscopic particles out of the water, yet can grow so large, a person could fit inside of it! To find its microscopic food, it sifts through microscopic particles one by one, to find the edible bits with up to 95% efficiency! As if that’s not cool enough, this organism is the star of a popular cartoon, is present in many people’s homes, and has a delicious dessert named after it. Wow! Can you figure out what I’m talking about?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"MLML Student Life","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}