Fish and Top Gun

It's been a fair bit since I have updated this blog. Work, work, work is all I have been doing in the meantime. My project is coming along, albeit slowly. Science is always slower and harder in practice than in theory.
It's been a fair bit since I have updated this blog. Work, work, work is all I have been doing in the meantime. My project is coming along, albeit slowly. Science is always slower and harder in practice than in theory.
This summarizes my last few weeks. I have been imaging (with a confocal microscope) the developing olfactory system of zebrafish larvae. It's quite remarkable how sturdy these fish are - I have imaged the same fish 16 times already (imaging them involves taking them out of water, placing them in gel and keeping them immobilized under a microscope for ~ 40 minutes) and they are still alive! The image of the top shows the olfactory bulbs of 3 different fish (left to right) imaged repeatedly for a couple of days (top to bottom). The fish that you see above was developed by Sato et al., 2005. J. Neuroscience (25): 4889ff.


What else?
I have not gotten out much until this weekend (updates to follow) and when I get home (always late) I watch old cheesy movies on YouTube that don't require much thinking. The latest very enjoyable choice was Top Gun (embarrassing?). My favourite part of the movie is (and has always been) the 'high fives' that Maverick and Goose give each other while playing volleyball. I have always tried to be that cool when I played sports but somehow always missed the other person's hand on the backstroke. Maybe I should practice this in the lab with my fish......