BioEYES+at+Mishawaka+High+School

I and my fish were just out for the week of January 26-30 at Mishawaka High School. I had a great week. Alicia Harkins was wonderful to work with! The students were great.

Two noteworthy events:

1. We are working at increasing the temperature in our light boxes. During these winter months, we have not been able to reach the range of 79-87 degrees Farenheit. With the suggestion of Mike McKenna back in the QuarkNet physics lab, we stacked our boxes and added 2 emergency thermal blankets. They reflect up to 90% of "body heat". They worked so well that we EXCEEDED our temperature and managed to get the mating tanks up to 90°F. Was it TOO warm?? Well, my "Zebrafish" book gives a range from 77-87.8° range. Our egg production was very low-an estimated 5% on average.

Now, I can actually set the thermostat to 83°F and it will reach it, and turn off! I will let you know how it goes at my next school.

2. We had a famous mutant- a set of conjoined twin zebrafish. Photos to follow!! I am finding out specifics from Travis Bailey- a post doctoral zebrafish researcher at N.D.

Here is info. from Travis:

Some zebrafish will, like in all animals, develop abnormally. It is uncommon, although not extremely rare, and is not a case of fused chorions. This results from a mistake in what was called the organizer by Nobel prize winner Hans Spemann. In this case there develops two head organizers instead of one. Although surgery in the embryos of amphibians works when they are at an early stage of development it doesn't work very well once they have two heads. They might have two heads and hearts, but they only have one stomach, gut, anus. It is doomed to die soon. Sure send me a picture. I'll trade you with a picture of one I found a couple of months ago when I was screening a transgenic line: 'Glad to hear they're having fun. Best wishes, 101K [|View] [|Download] || A big "thank you" to Travis for taking the time to inform us on our mutant!!!
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