charismaticmicrofauna

Before flying out to Mexico on October 30th, equipment and chemicals had to be shipped to the research vessel Atlantis which was docked in San Francisco before sailing to meet the science group in Manzanillo. When preparing for a research cruise every experiment to be preformed must be walked through meticulously, and everything that could conceivably be required for the experiments must be packed to go onto the ship. If you are on a ship that stays in the ocean fro the duration of the research cruise, and you forget a key item then your grant funding has been wasted. There are other research teams on the ship, but do you really want to risk being unprepared when you could be networking with other people for research collaboration? Checking lists and then walking through your research again and again is important to put it lightly. In addition, since mass scales do not work on ships due to the constant movement, all powder chemicals must be pre measured and packed for each experiment that is to be conducted.

We arrived in Manzanillo in time for Dias de Los Muertos festivities. My first task as a researcher was to go to the central market early in the morning to buy chicken livers. I had specific instructions, the livers needed to have been pulled from the chickens that morning and they could not have been frozen so that thesubctance that we needed it for was present and in tact. I needed the chicken livers because an enzyme that I am using in my experiments to measure the rate of one of the pathways I am studying is also present in livers although, it is used as an intermediate molecule for a different purpose in livers. I obtained the  product from a poultry stand in the market using Spanish that a colleague from campus taught me. Tienes higados des pollos? I found a poultry stand in the market and obtained the livers. The women offered me a kilogram, but I only needed 3-5 grams. They gave the livers to me for free and allowed me to take their picture.

The remaining two days of our stay in Manzanillo were spent securing our equipment onto the ship with ratchets and bungee cables. All equipment and supplies need to be tied to the ship counters and floors in the event that a sea storm is encountered. Nobody wants a centrifuge flying across a laboratory at them while trying to science in the ocean. (My agenda to make the use of “science” as a verb has begun.) We also spent our free time drinking beers and stockpiling margaritas in our stomachs in preparation for the 3 1/2 weeks that we would spend at sea on a “no tolerance alcohol or drug policy” Navy Ship in the East Pacific. Once our equipment was secured and our hangovers sufficient we said goodbye to Mexico and our armed guards at the Manzanillo Port Authority. We had three days transit to our research station at 9 Degrees North from the Manzanillo harbor, and then the real adventure would began.

I had the opportunity yesterday to speak to six high school biology and marine biology classes about my research cruise. I went full on Wednesday Addams on them, although I’m not sure if they would have gotten the reference because many of the teenagers did not know about or had seen the movie Carrie when I asked. I presume from this observation, that they would not have known about the Addams Family either. I explained to them about the preparations that I needed to make to embark on the research cruise, what my research is focused on, the experiments that I conducted at sea, and what it’s like to be at sea for a month. My favorite question from the students came from a freshman biology student, “How did you find a job where you kill worms?” I could talk to freshman all day.