Lab meeting 2008.11.12

Present: MO, TF, YI, ES, YM, YS, MH, YH, CA, JDR
Absent: FS (Europe)

Not too much again today - everyone is busy with seminar preparation etc.

1. Money from Hedo and/or JCRS flights: YM and YH.
2. CA - trip to Osaka? Check with Intl. Student Office.
3. Friday a.m., go to the beach depending on weather for YH's research. YH, JDR, CA, ES, TF.
4. Jisshu: Friday night - Odo Beach during low tide... YM and JDR, TF will come along.
5. Tank this week: YS.
6. Makeman shopping: lights for TF and MH; salinity meter, blank DVDs, tissue. JDR will go Thursday p.m.
7. Part-time job: JDR needs transcription of Japanese interviews - TF will do it.
8. Pictures: Oops, YI and JDR mixed up, JDR showed pictures of Australia, next week is YI.
9. Computer (Windows XP with PAUP, net, Adobe Illustrator, etc.) now in lab, microscopes are moved to center table. Dissecting scope and mount ready to go but waiting for digital camera to arrive.
10. We have 36 l of tax-free ethanol (99%) = not for molecular but good for preserving etc. When you use it please fill out the paperwork in the lab by the formalin paperwork. If you have questions ask MO.

Today's picture is from the soft coral gardens during Friday's dive in Sunabe...

Sunabe Daiving

Today, we ( jamie and Catalina ,Takuma, Hibino,Eriko) dived at Sunabe.

After the diving, we ate burger in the restaurant (looks like Cafe..)

Burger is not big,a little expensive for the student, but it is very good !!!

And I order tortilla. delicious too!!

Let's go again !!

New book

Here is the first draft of very great book on chilean underwater fauna, with a particularly interesting zoanthid chapter ;o)

The main authors of the book, Vreni and Gunther, with me in the middle...

News from Europe

Takuma was definitively the most successful in histology!

After obtaining successful results withTakuma and Yanagi-san in Chiba, I had a wonderful flight over snowy Siberia (now I really want to go there!) and finally landed in Geneva before heading to the World Marine Biodiversity Conference in Valencia (Spain).

La Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, the conference site with great architecture

European way of moving around

The conference is great, unfortunately I would need some help as there is three session running in parallel and I still did not find a non lethal way to divide myself in three parts.

Two thumbs up for the auditorium with an aquarium background, when in some very rare cases the talks get boring it is fun to watch the fishes.

Lab meeting 2008.11.5

Short and sweet today.
Present: YM, YI, MH, YS, YH, CA
Absent: FS, TF (Chiba), MO (Tokyo), ES (Yokohama)

1. Internet - no illegal downloading please! Big Brother is evidently watching.
2. Car accident last weekend on the university loop - be careful, especially after rain.
3. Tank manager this week is YI.
4. Any lab things needed? Pincettes (ES and YM), light (MH), waterproof notes (all), specimen labels (how much?).
5. Taiwan/Aus collaboration potentail - check www.koryo.or.jp, and also discuss at JCRS.
6. Two 2nd year students are interested in our lab, so please invite them as buddies for trips to the ocean, and they can help while learning about our lab.
7. YM - presentation on glitter orchids - great! Thanks.
8. JDR back from Aus, great time!

Next week YI and Churaumi pix.

Today's picture is a giant giant clam (70 kg maybe) at the GBR, taken by JDR last week.

Histology

Here are some pics of Chiba, where TF and I (FS) are learning histology with Yanagi-sensei who is a very good professor. We are both totally enthusiastic with histology and nematocysts studies as we can see "immediate" results and it's quite fun to do.

Takuma concentrated on the selection of the polyps to cut.
In counterpart we showed Yanagi-san DNA extractions, and we will show him PCRs in the next days.
We enjoyed to go get some samples while the polyps were getting embedded.

Smily happy fish in the collection of the Chiba Museum
Smily fishes in my plate, in the menu: blue marlin, katsuo (the one on the way back to south, supposed to be different than the one from spring) and some other delicious fishes.

Now the polyps are embedded, the paraffin is hard so we need to trim our paraffin block and fix them so tomorrow we can start cutting, it looks easy but it is real art and f.....g difficult (at least for me and my two left hands).
Tomorrow will be a very long day slicing polyps and hoping that the sand will not mess everything...

In the news

Our Corallizoanthus work made the Okinawa newspapers, front page in one. Here are the links on the net (in Japanese - be warned):

http://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/storyid-137736-storytopic-1.html
http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/news/2008-11-02-M_1-021-1_002.html

Nice to have get some publicity on the lesser-known organisms!