By Anders, Colette, and Julia
The creation of life is certainly an interesting process…
While Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein presents a shocking inception, (pun intended) Dr. Billie Swalla showed us today that things are often far simpler. With some elbow grease and a pair of tweezers, Dr. Swalla set out to create some ascidian zygotes. After harvesting a few sacrificial Sea Squirts, Dr. Swalla then surgically removed both male and female gametes from the adult ascidians.
Dr. Swalla showed off her stylish nails as she gathered some Ascidian sperm and egg cells.
We later had the excellent opportunity to see these rapidly growing ascidians up close using one of the marine lab’s microscopes.
Even without the microscope, the ascidian zygotes are still barely visible… 
As one might guess, under the microscope, the cells become far more clear!
As easy as it may be to create life, Morgan Eisenlord’s work with eelgrass wasting disease shows how life can also be taken away just as swiftly. Today, we devoted much of our time to helping Morgan with her data analysis. By crowdsourcing some work to us, we’ve been able to lighten the load. As they say, “teamwork makes the dream work”!
Eelgrass wasting disease has wreaked havoc on eelgrass beds worldwide. Scientists like Morgan are working diligently to help this species and document the effects of the eelgrass plague.
Unlike the disappointing outlook for the eelgrass, this afternoon brought us plenty of excitement. Yesterday, Derek went out on a limb and contacted Daniel Pauly, a world leader in fisheries science and conservation, to ask if he’d be interested in speaking with us this week. To everyone’s astonishment, Dr. Pauly responded… and he loved the opportunity to share! At that moment, more than a few jaws dropped. Or in Derek’s case, his jaw practically fell off.
With project deadlines growing ever closer, Derek and Kay showcased a handful of previous projects to get our gears turning. By discussing past posters, we’ve gained a better understanding of scientific media.
We quickly recognized that, regardless of how much we have to say, fitting everything on a small poster is simply not realistic. Nevertheless, excluding pieces of our projects seems unimaginable. But, just like the conclusion of this blog, the end is ultimately inevitable.