Birthday month

December is a party month, not only the year-end parties are approaching but we have two birthdays in the lab. Last week was Van and today is Camille. Happy Birthday Camille!
In the last meeting we enjoyed some chocolate cake (and apple for Camille) to celebrate these.

We all look forward already for the Christmas party and for some well-deserved holidays as everybody worked hard to prepare their presentation for the Japan Coral Reef Society annual meeting, or simply to progress with their research projects.

Friday Nov 8 2013 Lab meeting

Friday is lab meeting, last week Taiga gave a presentation on the paper :

While the talk was in Japanese the slides where nicely done in English  and made for an interesting presentation.

Aiptasia from Churaumi Aquarium

           I do some of my research on the sea anemone Aiptasia, it is offed the glass anemone and considerd by most as pest that they want to get ride of.  We see them in a different light they are cnidarians, same as corals but have no sceleton that gets in the way for experiments when you want to investage whats happening at the cellular level. Which is what i plan to do with these! As my numbers of Aiptasia where getting low i need to collect some more. Their difficult to find in the ocean but fortunitly they love to grow in aquirum, and one of the best in Japan, Churaumi Aquarium, is just a short drive from here. I am very fourtnnat and thankful that they allow me to come collect the Aiptasia i need for my experiments.

News from the Cruise Day 10 (final)

Finally arrived in Auckland on Saturday, Sunday and Monday are outreach days with politicians and general public visiting the ship and learning about our research. It is nice to share our experience with the public and it is fun to see what is the most attracting the attention of the people. Sometimes it can be surprising, but it is always to discover how "innocent" eyes look at our work.
Now it is time for me to fly back for Japan and get ready to board on the next research cruise later this week.

Everything is ready for the press, politicians and public to come.

Even Shinkai "wears" its transparent outfit.

Finally public arrives in different groups.

America's cup is very present in Auckland, although after the outcome of the recent edition (NZ lost against USA after being so close from winning), this topic was a bit "taboo" on board of the ship.

News from the Cruise Day 9

On our way back to Auckland, before packing our samples and equipments, the crew of the ship organised a big barbecue on the deck to celebrate the end of the cruise. Then it takes two days to sail back to the port, during this time we summarise the results obtained, and plan our experiments. Our New Zealand colleagues need to tag and catalogue all the samples and take care of the various import and export permits. And once all this is done, then both the crew and scientists prepare the outreach even in Auckland.

Barbecue in front of the Shinkai submersible

The fancy food that the kitchen staff prepared

The "Lab No 1" where we actually spend most of our time during the cruise (when not working with samples or lying in bed because of seasickness).

Again a meal picture, but this last dinner on board with delicious sushis really deserved a picture. Eating was an important part of this cruise (and of every cruise), and now beside science objectives, scientists need to work hard to loose the weight gained on board...

The enemy

I started to work on tiny enemies of corals. This species of aeolid nudibranch mollusk feeds on corals. It's like an old Chinese saying, know your enemy and yourself...
最近、サンゴの小さな「敵」を調べています。このミノウミウシはサンゴを食べることが報告されていますが、まだまだ色んな発見がありそうです。敵を調べる、というのはさながら孫子の兵法のようです。

Body length = ca. 3 mm: a challenge for photographers!
そういうわけで、上手くピントが合いません。。

News from the Cruise Day 8

Our prayers were heard and we could have a full dive for our last chance to dive during this cruise. The dive started pretty well with several very interesting biological samples, as we were progressing through the dive, we could see more and more signs of hydrothermal activity, but we could still not find the exact venting sites (where the hot water full of sulphur and other minerals comes out of the seafloor). And the main objective of the dive where to find this exact point. As we were progressing towards the top of the volcano, not knowing how shallow Shinkai submersible could go, things started to get more complicated. Indeed, we were getting closer to the vents, but at the same time the Shinkai was caught in the plume of white water, charged with mineral particles, emitted by the vent and it was impossible to see anything further than 3-4 cm. At least we know we were getting closer. Finally with less than one hour remaining (and this is very short for a submersible dive) the Shinkai could get out of the plume and by chance find one of the vents. It was really exciting to see for the first time the hot hydrothermal fluid coming out of the Earth and sulphur "dripping" out of the stone. And what is really exciting for us biologists, is that in this extremely unfriendly environment there is a lot of life going on, with some fishes, crabs and mussels around the place. Probably if we would be swimming around, beside being burned by the hot water and intoxicated by so many poisonous chemicals, we would also get badly burned by the extreme acidity of the water. So it is amazing that so many animals could evolve ways to transform such toxic environments into a source of energy far from the light of the sun.

On a more technical perspective, this dive was was also the record of the shallowest dive of the Shinkai submersible. The Shinkai is made to dive at over 6000 meter depth, so taking it at less than 400 m depth was a challenge, especially with the strong current there was on the site.

Now we are on our way back to Auckland were we will have some outreach activity. And this is our new challenge, summarising all the exciting information we could obtain and transform the frustration of the cancelled dives into motivation to come here again and finish exploring these interesting places.

Shinkai goes in the water for the last time in this cruise

Happy scientists excited to see all the different samples collected

One of the most important thing for a successful cruise is the kitchen. If the food is good, everyhting is easier and the mood is higher. The only issue is that with the little exercise we make, the weight also gets "higher"...