Month: June 2018

[Lab news] Video of Mumford Cove probe swap

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14 June 2018. Members of the Baumann and Mason lab went on a trip to Mumford Cove, today, and Chris Tsang went along with his GoPro. Thanks to Charlie, the skipper, the ride was smooth and a pleasure, a swapping our pH, Temperature, oxygen, and salinity sensor was successfully swapped with a new one recording for the next weeks in 30 minute intervals. Wes Hoffman from the Mason lab, collected zooplankton with a Bongo-net. Sydney Stark, our NSF-REU student this summer, came along just for the fun.

See the fun for yourself!

[Research news] A day at Harvards MCZ

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Friday, 8 June 2018. Hannes and Maria traveled to Boston’s Harvard University to meet with Valentina di Santo from the Lauder Lab at the Museum for Comparative Zoology. Thanks to our collaborators there, we were able to use a 2D-digital X-ray machine there, which we needed to complete the next big step in our Menidia Gene project.
Vials
Genetic & body samples went in different vials
Maria-vials
Maria Akopyan processing the fish after x-raying
Maria-Valentina
Maria and Valentina in the shark section of the collection
A few weeks ago, Maria had already measured each individual fish's length, weight, shape, routine metabolism, and maximum sustained swim speed. The next trait we're keen on mapping quantitatively to the silverside genome is the number of vertebrae, which we know increases in wild populations from south to north. What will our South/North hybrid F2 generation show?
Lunch-with-George-Lauder-and-lab
At the Lauder lab, ‘lunch together’ is common thing
Hannes-Latimeria
The famous Latimeria from the collection
Thanks to Valentina's excellent help, the work went without a hitch. At the end, we even had some spare time to enjoy the great atmosphere int the Lauder Lab during lunchtime, the tour through various lab installations, the experimental fish, and even the adjacent Harvard Zoological museum. Thank you all for the fun day at Harvard!
x-ray-settings
Settings used for x-raying juvenile silversides
Hannes-Valentina
Hannes and Valentina in the x-ray room
George-Lauder-swim-lab
George Lauder adjusting equipment in the swim lab

The 282 fish are now split in a DNA sample for extraction and a body sample for further trait measurements.

X-ray-fish