New Pets

[mogurnda]

Because there are impending changes here in the lab, it's time to try something new. Although I have worked on insect nervous systems for about 25 years, for the past few years I have been looking around at other organisms, and have become especially fond of cnidarians (surprise!). At about the same time, these little critters, Nematostella, have become increasingly popular as a model organism. They are easy to grow and will spawn fairly regularly (for the developmental biologists in the crowd). As a geneticist, the most cool thing of all is that their genome has been sequenced, allowing a lot of questions to be asked and tools to be generated. There is a ton of work to be done, and I hope to be part of it.

 

These guys arrived yesterday from a lab in Woods Hole. They are small adults, about 1 cm long. They pouted for a while, but perked up enough to have a tasty meal of sea monkeys this afternoon. Compared to coral keeping, husbandry for these guys is a cinch. Just a little brackish water in glass dishes, and a cleaning after each feeding.

 

Photographed with an Olympus dissecting microscope:

 

 

[gizmoody]

That's so awesome! Congrats. How complex are these nervous systems? I miss the MBL.

[mogurnda]

That's so awesome! Congrats. How complex are these nervous systems? I miss the MBL.

They have a few hundred neurons. That gives them the brainpower to dig out of the mud (they live in estuaries) and respond to toucn and food. Not likely to write poetry. Part of the reason they seem so interesting is that one can ask some basic questions about what a simple nervous system can do, and how it does it. I can't count how many times I have heard the cnidarian nervous system dismissed as a "simple nerve net" even though we know so little about the complexity of the circuitry.

 

I love Woods Hole. Spent a lot of summers there working, and try to get up at least once a year. Did you work there? These guys came from the dark side (WHOI), by the way. There is a new hire at MBL who is also working with them.

[gizmoody]

They have a few hundred neurons. That gives them the brainpower to dig out of the mud (they live in estuaries) and respond to toucn and food. Not likely to write poetry. Part of the reason they seem so interesting is that one can ask some basic questions about what a simple nervous system can do, and how it does it. I can't count how many times I have heard the cnidarian nervous system dismissed as a "simple nerve net" even though we know so little about the complexity of the circuitry.

 

I love Woods Hole. Spent a lot of summers there working, and try to get up at least once a year. Did you work there? These guys came from the dark side (WHOI), by the way. There is a new hire at MBL who is also working with them.

 

I spent a few great summers working there in the late 90's with dogfish sharks, clams, squid, sea urchins and horseshoe crabs - mostly cytoskeletal work. Spent a lot of nights at the Captain Kidd. It must be great working with these guys since they reproduce so quickly! Do you rent lab space there during the summer?

[mogurnda]

I spent a few great summers working there in the late 90's with dogfish sharks, clams, squid, sea urchins and horseshoe crabs - mostly cytoskeletal work. Spent a lot of nights at the Captain Kidd. It must be great working with these guys since they reproduce so quickly! Do you rent lab space there during the summer?

Spent too many hours in the Kidd to possibly count. Hard to believe that I could be in the lab from 9a-10p, then close the place. These days I can barely make the 10 o'clock news. Most of my time at mBL was working as a TA for Neural Systems and Behavior off and on from 1990 to 1999. Seems like we must have overlapped. For the past several years I have been going up for East Coast Nerve Net in the spring, and to visit friends nearby. Planning to submit a fellowship for summer of 2012, though.

 

Nematostella is easy to propagate, but you can also collect them around here. They are definitely in the Chesapeake, but the main collection area got paved over some years ago.

[OUsnakebyte]

That's awesome Dave - very cool!

[jason the filter freak]

I mistaked them for jellies at first, really neat looking