Makin' Babies

Yesterday we started our developmental biology class - as if I wasn't swamped enough. On the plus side, apparently this means that the next few days are spent chillaxing and occasionally checking on our "babies", as Dr. B refers to them. This is giving me a bit more time to organize notes, draw diagrams, and fret about the looming research paper that I need to write.... oi vey.

Anywho, we're working with two different species - dendraster excentricus (a sand dollar) and strongylocentrotus purpuratus (a purple sea urchin). We were originally only going to use the sand dollars, because their eggs are so much prettier.

This is a sand dollar egg - notice the pigment cells around the egg in the jelly layer.

And these are the urchin eggs - no pretty dots around, so Dr. B likes them less.

To get the animals to broadcast their gametes, we inject them with KCl. This gets them CRAZY excited. Ever think that an urchin might not be an animal? Check out this clip - watch that sucker dance!

So, I uploaded a picture of each early development stage of both species, but now that I think about it, I doubt y'all are that interested. So I'll just share a few of my favorites.

4-celled sea urchin. See that circle surrounding it? That membrane forms after fertilization

8-celled sand dollar

One reason why we're working with both species is because only two of the groups were able to get their sand dollars to take. My group was one of them, but in the process, many of our cells lost their jelly coats when they were exposed to too much heat. Which is lame, because aside from that, the two species have more or less identical embryos. It means I have to be RIDICULOUSLY meticulous about labeling the pictures and paying attention to when I took samples of which..... blech. Also, while changing out their water, we got a bunch of filter paper in with the eggs, so a lot of our pictures have fibrous nonsense in the way.

BUT, things are a lot less stressful now that things have at least started moving. We spent the first three hours or so of today fretting over these sand dollar eggs that just would not take. Now that things are moving, we can sit back, relax, and watch these babies grow! Tonight my shift is from 10-1 a.m. - not too much later than I'd already be up. I'm not excited for the 1-4 shift, though....

Short and sweet

Nothing too terribly eventful today. Jason gave me a bit of a self-esteem boost at the tidepools, calling me an "Adventure Woman", because I was clambering to hard to get places with him. Helped relieve me of some of my frustration with my own silliness from yesterday.

Speaking of which, remember that crab, the one that took a chunk out of me?

Well, he was delicious. :)

Now I'm off to try and fix the jumbled impossible to understand quandary that is my lecture notes... or maybe Dr. Who. We'll see ;)

In the Land of Giants

Yesterday was fantastic, even though it started far too early. Low tide was at 5:30, so we skipped breakfast, and headed down to the Lighthouse Beach.
At first glance, I was a bit confused. Where was the endless sea of tidepools that I'd been promised? The trick is, they're over on the other side of the light house. It was a fun scampering-over-rocks hike on the way back, but on the way back, when the tide had already.

We stumbled upon a lot of giants out in these pools.

This is pycnopodia helianthoides, also known as a "sun star". I didn't get a good scale in this picture, but to give you an idea, the center part of this star alone is about the width of the span of my hand.

Nice rock, right?

Nope. It's a chiton. Secretly. The whole time. Cryptochiton stelleri, also known as the Gumboot Chiton, was all over these rocks. Side note - whenever we'd find one of these, I'd start humming Come Together.
Ok, this ones a little hard to explain. See the whorl of the shell? The brown part there is the snail, poking out a little bit, and the green part attached to it is called the operculum. When the snail retracts fully, the operculum fits perfectly into the opening of the shell, and wha-bam! It's water tight! It was one thing to hear about it in class, but so fun to see it in action!
This was a crab. I just liked this picture lots. "I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. Demille".
These are the tidepools. That bridge goes right to the island with the lighthouse in it, as was shown in the first picture. However, it's condemned, so no luck there. I loved watching the fog roll in.
Fish heads fish heads, roly poly fish heads!

These are two separate sea anemone clone colonies. That empty space in the middle is where they duke it out and refuse to let the other clone win territory. Sweet, right?

These cormorants were nesting on the plateau above the pools. They made strange barking noises that I kept thinking belonged to a dog or a sea lion. It was fun to watch them bringing back sticks and such for building their nests.

When the tide came in, it brought with it a lonely seal pup. It kept calling out for someone to love it, which was super sad, but we enjoyed showing it some affection. As soon as we got out of sight, the mom came back! We're pretty sure that she left the baby to go feed, then waited until the scary humans had left before she came back to nurse the pup. I didn't get close enough for any especially great pictures, but others in the group did.

So, Jason tried to get close to take a good picture. He was wading through the water, when the mother seal started moving. We all started yelling at him to watch her, and he scrambled to do so. In the tussle, he flooded his boots. See how they're sagging down at his ankles? That isn't supposed to happen. :)

So, this might be my favorite part of this whole trip thusfar. The tide was coming in, and getting back to the beach we'd come from was turning into a rock climbing adventure. The guys who'd already gotten over started a bit of a bucket brigade, passing those of us behind them (mostly girls) from person to person until we were safe on the beach.

I know it's a silly thing to get teary eyed about, but it actually meant a lot to me. I'd been fretting about falling, or getting stuck, and I really felt safe with them. Josh talked me through the best way to get around the bend, Spencer pulled me up from a surge channel, Micheal got me safely down the side of the incline, and Sam led me over rocks through the deep murky water to the beach.

It was kinda like one of those cheesy team-building exercises that they make you do to get to know people in a group, except that this wasn't scripted. These guys are just genuinely good eggs. They're being especially kind about my recent injury (keep reading for details).

Ok, NOW for today. We went to Cape Arago, a couple miles further down the beach. I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I wasn't feeling especially adventurous, so I didn't go to the harder to reach pools, and I missed out on some interesting specimens. Here's a few of my favorites.

These are called Sea Sacs - halosaccion glandiforme. Dr. B refers to them as "fingerlike". I had tons and tons of fun squishing the water out of them.... good entertainment for 6 a.m.
Remember my other post about tidepool johnnys? Here's another one. It's a different color, because the tidepool is a different color. Neat, huh?
Here's another one! See it? It's right next to the close anemone. That anemone is closed because it's eating.
This seastar is called a BATSTAR! I want to write a short novel about a VAMPIRE batstar - a vampire that turns into a batstar instead of a normal bat.

.... it's still in the works.
Ok, MOST RANDOM THING EVER. As we were heading back, I ran into Lettie Young! Lettie is more a friend of Chrysta (my little sister) than myself, but it was still fun to see someone from The Dalles! A bit of a shock though - I'd more or less forgotten that I was in Oregon, as I'm here with all of my Utahn friends, in an area of Oregon that I've never really explored before.

So, Michael caught a dungeness crab, and I decided to be snarky and tell him the gender. I was wrong. So I turned it on its back to prove it to myself, and when I went to turn it back over, I let my finger get in its claws.

So, in case my idiotic, self-righteous behavior wasn't bad enough, I was now stuck with a crab on my finger, that was boring down with more pressure than I knew any crab could. I can't explain how much it hurt, I'm not sure if I've ever really felt that kind of pain. I actually thought for a second that my finger might be pinched off. I felt the pincers right down to the bone, TIGHT, and I felt the skin breaking as the pincers moved back and forth. It would've been better if it had been a sharp blade, but it was a blunt, serrated edge, forcing its way between the bones.

In a word, ouch.

On top of this, I had to keep my mouth shut and not let all the cool guys around me (especially Michael, who I'd just so stupidly tried to impress....ugh) know how much pain I was in. So, I quickly reached down with my other hand to pry off the pincer.

So, of course, the crab grabbed that finger too.

I. Was. Mortified. All I could think was what a blow this was to my pride, and how much I was in need of help. I didn't have the guts to ask, and I was to busy clenching my teeth and trying to not panic anyways.

Luckily, Michael came to the rescue. My second-trapped finger came out easily, but the first one, not so much. It took him a while to get it off too.

Once it was off, I shamefacedly turned to him and said thanks, and he said "you should grab them from behind, like this."

.... yeah..... thanks. UGH I'm dumb.

On the plus side, people have been being really sweet. I've been trying not to whine about it and add to my already tarnished reputation, but I also really wanted to get back and clean out this sand-filled, crab infected cut. I got an Ernie and Bert band-aid out of the deal! And the guys have been really sweet about asking if I'm okay. Which only makes it worse, because I know they must know how DUMB I am...

Even better, we write journal entries about what happens on our field trips. Jason's scramble for safety was the topic of everyone's journals yesterday. Apparently my incident is what was popular today. Who knows what'll happen tomorrow?

Oh! Also, I might've seen a whale today. I'm not totally sure, 'cuz there wasn't a dorsal fin. It was too big to be a seal, but it might have been two swimming tail-to-nose? I'm scared to really stand by that statement, because I definitely made enough of a fool of myself today.

Bandon

Today started with lecture, then lunch at noon, then we sat around and watched Modern Family.

I am falling in love with this show - and I love that I get to share it with all of these guys. I'm so lucky to have ended up with these guys - not to be overly cheesy, but I'm pretty sure I was meant to be here with them. I'm learning so much - especially about myself. I'm not liking everything that I'm finding (i.e. it turns out that in this group, I'm the Debbie Downer. When did I let myself become so critical and pessimistic?), but I'm glad to be around people that are sweet enough to let me learn and grow.

After T.V. time, we spent the rest of our Saturday in Bandon's Old Town. It's a cute little tourist town, fairly similar to Seaside - or really any other small beachside town. The shops were fun, but my favorite part was the boardwalk. It was chock full of wood sculptures.

Me with my favorite carving (big surprise, right?)
One of my new buddies, Kathryn. She put up with my excitement over the sculptures and checked them out with me. Out of the whole group, she's probably the one who best understands my humor.
This is some of the group waiting for food at the restaurant recommended to us by Dr. B. It's called "Fish & Chips", which also happens to be their specialty dish, go figure. I got a shrimp sandwich, which was surprisingly delicious for its simplicity.
This is a monument dedicated to Bandon's 1936 citizens. Apparently there was a fire there that burned down most of the town. The good folks of the 30's rebuilt it, and it looks fantastic!

Dr. B. told us about the fire before we went down to Bandon. He also talked about how, apparently, Bandon used to have a big cheese factory, until Tilamook bought them out. He's now mad that the cheese factory isn't there, because it was a big financial blow to the town. Because of this, he says he doesn't like going to Bandon. I think the opposite makes more sense - wouldn't you want to go and support their small shops? I think he was having a senior moment and just not understanding what he was saying. He does that.
Chinook Salmon. Oh, another thing, ALL of these statues are dedicated to someone (usually as a memorial). In addition, there are a bunch of benches all over the boardwalk - also all dedicated as a memorial. As Spencer pointed out, even the public bathroom was dedicated!
My favorite sculpture, without any faces to distract you from its beauty. I like how from behind this just looks like a cool log. It wasn't until I came and touched it from behind that I realized what was on the front.
Ok, I'm sorry, but I really don't get this one. It was dedicated by some siblings in memory of their mother. The whale looks deflated and miserable. Is it some kind of statement against pollution/whaling/something else that makes whales sad? Or were the kids sad, so they wanted their whale to be sad? I just find the whole thing kinda upsetting.
Crabs! Behind them is the dock from which you can actually go crabbing (there are signs all over the boardwalk saying that you are not to fish or crab from there). I'm excited for my family to come down for Memorial Day weekend. I'm hoping I can convince them to go to Bandon, just 20 minutes away, and we can go crabbing there.
Sea lion and pup - There was a surprising number of seals/sea lions in the little cove. We got to see one catch a fish, and then smack the fish against the surface to kill it. Sadly, the pictures I did get were too far away, and when they were closer, my battery died. Pfft.
THIS TURTLE HAS THE CREEPIEST SMILE. AAAAH TURN IT OFF! Doesn't this thing scare small children?
Jason in a shop - the hat says Diva Party. He was excited to play dressup. This shop also had kites. I meant to grab one and didn't. Ah well. There's stores in Coos Bay too - probably even some in Charleston!

Katherine on an extension of the boardwalk - these seagulls let her get ridiculously close.

Welp, that's about it for Bandon! This is a kinda short post, but we're about to watch Pirates of the Caribbean - we're going to try and watch all of them before the newest one comes out.

Comment! I'd love it!

Catching up

Oops, fell out of the habit again, I let almost a whole week go by! I'll try and catch you up.

Sunday we went to church. We're in the Coos Bay ward. The people there are super friendly - I didn't think anyone could compete with the Hood River ward, but they do a good job! All of the girls got roses for being "potential mothers", a wonderful souvenir. I have mine drying on the windowsill to press into my journal, like a good Molly Mormon. The ward members are kinda funny, they say things like "We're so glad you're back!" and "Good to see you again!" when we've never been here before. They're referring to BYU students of past years, and I'm sure they know internally that we're different people from last year, but to them we're kinda all the same bunch. Luckily they at least like us, considering they're basing their opinions on us on past groups.

Monday's lecture was 4 hours, then a fun field trip - we finally got to use our hip boots!

These are goose barnacles, named such because they look like geese. Can you see it?
I really liked how these bull kelp stipes tangled - not sure if I can use it in my journal though. We'll see.
More zonation stripes!
Bull kelp holdfast - this kelp washed ashore, and brought its substratum with it!

Barnacles will grow anywhere - including on other creatures, like limpets.

Tuesday, we actually got out after only 2 hours! Then, back to the beach.

This is a chiton - you usually see them flatter, but this one was curling up since we'd just pulled it off the rock - it was trying to keep in whatever water it could.

This is the underside of the chiton - not something you get to see a lot!

A cool nudibranch - the first ones we saw. There were also a bunch of their egg sacs around, but I didn't like that picture quite as much.
Nucella eggs - a kind of snail.
Giant green sea anemone. They stick tings onto themselves so that they can retain water.

Wednesday, I was a lazy bum, and sat around after a long lecture. I hate to say it, but sometimes here I feel a bit bored with tidepools. My excitement in marine biology comes from the mammals and larger ecology, and sometimes staring at stationary sponges and sea stars just bores me to tears. But Thursday quickly resolved that dilemma.

We went to a beach that we'd been to before, the one through the tunnel, but we approached from the other side, and at low tide. There were so many things I hadn't seen before! My favorite was a super high tidepool, about ten feet above the tide, where I just lay on my stomach and stared for forever.

There were these super active little copepods zooming around, and rather active snails grazing.They aren't showing up very well in pictures..... oh well.

Right next to it were impressive fossilized sea shell beds.

There were also tube worms, which I didn't know existed in tide pools.

This was also the first time I saw the Tidepool Johnnys, although they were there at other beaches. Can you see it?

How about now?

If you can't see it now... sorry, nothin' I can really do to help you. If you're really curious, I'll highlight it better.

Have you ever seen the bottom of a limpet? From this direction, it's much easier to see how closely they're related to slugs and snails.

Sea lemon! I don't know much about these nudibranchs, but I love their color!

I've been feeling a bit out of place in this group, but I realized that mostly that's because I'm not joining in in the social activities. Yesterday was a big goal accomplishing day for me. I went running (wowwww I'm out of shape.... but you've gotta start somewhere!), I remembered to do everything on my to-do list, and I was part of all the sociallite activities. We had a ton of fun playing volleyball, and a game similar to it called "Jailbreak". We've been watching Modern Family as a group - I love that show! We also went out to a beach called Bassendorf nearby to play. I missed soccer earlier, but when we went in the evening, I was part of the party. A long piece of kelp, in the hands of college students, quickly becomes a jumprope.

These guys are so much fun. I love the group dynamic, and Dr. B puts up with our silliness. He even joined in a bit today, putting Josh's hat on backwards.

The second thing that helped me get my drive back (other than that active tidepool mentioned above) was the washed up dead sea lion on the beach.

WARNING - POSTMORTEM GRODY GROSS PICTURES AHEAD - SKIP TO THE END OF THE POST IF YOU DON'T HAVE A SOMEWHAT STRONG STOMACH!

I'm sorry, I realize that these are definitely going to turn some people off, but I am soooo fascinated by this. The best part was that a wave came and pushed the sea lion over, so we got to see both sides.

The basculum - a penile bone present in most mammals, but not in humans.
Thick layer of fat on top of the skin!
Vertebrae
Vestigial bones! Before my own eyes! Proof that they really have these! AAAaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

The whole sea lion.

I have like a million more of these pictures.... I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

Today has been uneventful thusfar, we got the afternoon off to work on our pictures.... I feel like I have like a million pictures (okay, actually, there's more like 250), but only like.... 10 good ones. Out of the 100 that I need. But I've only been here a week, and apparently we haven't even gone to the really interesting places, so hopefully I'll be able to make it all up.

Y'all should comment on stuff and... stuff.