Thursday, 3 April 2014

Preparation for next spawn season

次のサンゴの産卵、研究に備えて、サンゴの幼生を定着させるためのタイルを瀬底研究所前に沈めてきました。
2ヶ月ほど沈めると、サンゴの幼生が定着しやすくなるそうです。
新年度の研究準備が徐々に始まった感じです。

For the next spawning season and experiment, we put 300 tiles in the ocean in front of Sesoko station.
New fiscal year has started.

潜る前まであいにくの雨。
unfortunately not good weather...

浅瀬にブロックで括り付けて300枚のタイルを沈めました。
in the shallows 300 tiles fixed with blocks.



Friday, 14 March 2014

Coral reef week2014

少し前のお話になるのですが、沖縄県では3/1-3/9の間がおきなわサンゴ礁ウィーク2014でした。
慶良間諸島が3/5(さんご)の日に国立公園に指定されたり、その他にも様々な団体によってイベントが盛りだくさんの1週間でした。

その期間中に日本サンゴ礁学会 若手の会有志によって
サンゴ礁がもっと知りたくなる週末~研究者に会いに行こう!~が3/1,2に行われ、私も参加してきました。

会場の中はこんな感じでした!
顕微鏡も設置してあり実際にサンゴの観察を行う事が出来ました。
We have microscope to observe living coral.

サンゴ礁に関連する書籍を紹介する図書コーナー
Coral book library. 

たくさんの人が来てくださいました!
Thank you everyone for coming 

両日ともサンゴ礁座談会と研究発表が行われました。
座談会では高校生から来る質問に答えたり。
例えば
「サンゴの移植ってなに?」
「地球温暖化はサンゴの白化とどのような関係があるの?」
なんて質問が来ました。
サンゴに関心があり色んなことを知りたい!という思いを感じ、私自身もとても勉強になった楽しい会でした。
座談会の様子が琉球新報に掲載されました。
The news paper article(Picture is Coral reef discussion meeting)
その後の研究紹介では、今自分がやっている研究を一般のお客さんに紹介しました。
学会発表とは違い、相手が一般の人なので様々な工夫をしました。
専門用語を分かりやすく図解したり…
難しい言葉を違う言い回しで使ったり…
研究の苦労話をしたり…
その甲斐あって当日は多くの人に聞いてもらうことができました。
研究発表の様子(写真はこちらのブログからお借りしました。)
My research presentation(Picture from THIS BLOG).

今回のイベントでは子供から大人まで様々な人が足を運んでくれました。
子供たちには海の生物の面白さや身近さ、大人の方々にはサンゴの不思議に対する好奇心やそれを知りたい!と思う私たちの探求心なんかが伝わったんじゃないかなぁ。と思います。

サンゴの大切さや研究の面白さなどをこれからもイベントなどを通して伝えていけたらいいですね。


There were Okinawa sangosho week2014(Okinawan coral reef week2014) during 1-9th March.
This week had many kinds of events and excited!
For example,Kerama island was designated as National park at 5th March.(that day is coral day of Okinawa)

During this term,the events that is “The weekend of a coral reef wants to know more~let’s go to meet researcher!~”was performed by a Young researchers society for coral reef science volunteer,I joined.

Both 2 days they held coral reef discussion meeting with young researchers and research presentation.
At,coral reef discussion meeting,we answered question from high school students.
For example,
“What is the coral transplantation?”
“What is the relationship between coral bleaching and global warming?”
They are interested in coral and want to know many! I felt from them,I also learn many things from another researchers and that was very interesting discussion meeting.

Research presentation after discussion meeting,I introduced my research to general people.
The research presentation was different from conference presentation so,I have to think out because of the listener is not researcher.
I made picture for introduce technical words..
I changed words difficult to understand to words easy to understand..
Because that 2 days many people came to my poster!

Many people from children to adult had been come to the event.
For children,we could tell them interest of marine animals and for adult,could tell them curiosity for a coral mystery and an our inquiring mind to want to know our own answer of curiosity,I think.

I hope we can keep moving for telling importance of coral and interest of research to everyone through our event.


Written by Ayako

Friday, 28 February 2014

Ocean Science Meeting 2014


5400 participants, over 3000 posters, 17 oral sessions in parallel, this Ocean Science Meeting is huge. But it is a great opportunity to learn on progresses in marine research in various fields from geology, physical oceanography to ecology and molecular biology.


The poster sessions, although huge, were great to exchange ideas and perspectives and discover so many different research, sometimes very related to our own research but in a completely different field of science.


Keeping the best for the end, the last oral session on this meeting (well one of them) will be the mesophotic coral session, and after seeing the exciting posters at the poster session yesterday, I am really looking forward to hear the last updates in the field.


Thursday, 20 February 2014

Otsukaresama and Sensei's birthday party

Yesterday (Feb 19th), we had a cheerful otsukaresama party with delicious foods and drinks. Congrats to our hard work this semester especially to Taiga, Kaito, and Yu who have finished their final defense. Wishing you all the best in your next study / career.

At the end of the party we were surprised Sensei with a small-nice birthday cake. We were celebrated her birthday although it was 1 day earlier. Happy birthday Sensei!! We wish you a wonderful day and may all your wishes comes true.

Friday, 13 December 2013

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.

Sunday, 10 November 2013

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.