29 April 2011 Welcome to my Laboratory

You're supposed to say that with an accent like Vincent Price (Labore - a - tory) Some of us know Vincent Price from the old horror films. My younger audience will know him as the voice and evil laughter from Michael Jackson's Thriller song. Anyway, down to business...We are getting all the equipment in place, calibrating all the gadgets, finished our trials on temperature and oxygen control in the tanks and we are just about ready to rock for real.

The blue machine on the left is a water bath that maintains the water at a set temperature. The machine next to the water bath is used to calibrate (good word!) the system. The actual electrode apparatus is next to that. Finally, the small white box with a green screen is the readout of the oxygen percentage of the blood sample.

You should keep in mind that all of this requires a lot of work, precision, and patience. It's taking some time to get the oxygen electrode working properly and insuring that it is calibrating correctly. This requires taking blood from aortas and veins. What's the difference? Think back to our homeostasis unit. What vessels carry oxygenated blood? Deoxygenated blood? We also will test blood with no oxygen in it. Then as we run it through the electrode, we will hopefully see the results correspond to what is expected. If not? Well, go back and keep working on it - which frequently is exactly what we do.

This week we are doing the experiments on red blooded Antarctic fishes, N. coriiceps. We will have two tanks going at a time at this point. They will acclimate to the tanks and then the temperature will slowly be increased at equal rates in each tank. One tank will also have oxygen pumped into it. Did I hear someone ask why? Remember, as temperature increases, dissolved oxygen decreases. So in these hyperoxic (ooooh, another good word - break it down into word roots.) experiments we will see if the fishes in the warmer waters survive better with a steady flow of oxygen. We'll be doing the same experiments on the Antarctic icefishes - the fish with no hemoglobin.

We had to hang the black curtains to keep out the light in the part of the aquarium where our fish will be. Palmer Station is not real big and we share lab space with other science groups. Which reminds me, I have some blogs coming up on Palmer Station (I've gotten questions about it) and on some of the other really cool science going on down here.

So don't go far for long - we've got a lot going on down at this end of the world. Word from up north is that the winch is under repair which is great. They are going to do a quick fishing stop on the way down and hopefully arrive with the long awaited icefishes. Then some of us will head out on the ship for a 4 day fishing trip. But that is not until at least May 6 or 7. The ship is still up in Punta Arenas, Chile.

I will leave you with the answers to previous questions - the Sheathbill, aka Antarctic Chicken, is not considered a seabird as it exists solely on land, including it's food source which is seal poop. As for the % of red blood cells in the icefishes...well now, that was a trick question. They have no red blood cells -- duh! They are white blooded fishes. The human hematocrit is very close to the N. coriiceps - it is about 38%. My next question - did anybody try to figure any of these out??