NeuroDojo

Hey! A picture!

If this works, I'll be livening this journal with a few more visuals from here on in.

If I've done this right, above this text is a picture of a little baby ascidian tadpole larva. It's not exactly publication quality, but I reckon it's pretty good... considering that I just held up my video camera to the eyepiece of a microscope.

The head is on the left, and you can see the tail on the right. It's about 1 mm long. The clear line running down the middle of the tail is a notochord. In us, the notochord becomes a spinal cord. A notochord lets us know that this little guy is actually a fairly close relative to humans within the animal kingdom.

If you think it's not much to look at... you're right. And that's the whole point. This little guy has about 1,000 cells or so. A thousand is a manageable number for biologists to work with (compared to however many billions in a mouse or cat).

Despite being small, this critter has a big task. In very short order, it has to pick a spot to settle. There, it undergoes metamorphosis, and spends the rest of its life in that spot. Imagine trying to pick the home where you'll spend the rest of your life at the age of 2, say, and you'll start to get an appreciation for what this guy is up against.

;;;;;

I have my first underlings!

Or, if you insist, "Undergraduate research scholars."

Back in September, I had applied for a university program designed to give undergraduates a bit of research experience. I found out today that I got it, and will have a couple of first year undergraduate sudents working with me. These two will be helping me out in the lab, analyzing older videotape and who knows what else. They get a bit of $$$, and so do I. Looking forward to working with them.