Alison Campbell • Feb 07, 2016 •
By now many of you have probably seen images of green-glowing zebrafish, or pigs whose snout & trotters glow in the dark. In both cases the animals are genetically modified and are expressing a fluorescent protein originally sourced from a jellyfish. (The body form of a jellyfish is a medusa, while that of sea anemones & their freshwater relative, … Read More
Alison Campbell • Jan 14, 2016 •
In 2012 the world was introduced to some of the smallest-known vertebrates: tiny chameleons. My good friend Grant wrote about them at the time, & I set an essay assignment for my first-years on these tiny beasties. How tiny is tiny? The following images are from the original paper, published in PLoS one by Glaw, Kohler, Townsend & … Read More
Alison Campbell • Mar 23, 2015 •
I've always liked frogs. I remember, when I was probably around 4 years old, being fascinated by the tadpoles that Dad brought home in a big jar from a farm pond. Mum explained about how they'd gradually metamorphose (thought... Read More
Alison Campbell • Feb 28, 2015 •
So, which is it? A mantis? Or a fly? (Image by kind permission of Daniel Llavaneras) In fact, the creature shown in this gorgeous image by Daniel Llavaneras is neither mantis nor true (Dipteran) fly, although its common name is ‘mantisfly’. Instead, it belongs to the insect family Mantispidae (a group that includes lacewings and antlions). Like real praying mantids, matisflies walk on … Read More
Alison Campbell • Jun 11, 2012 •
(And once again, I found this via PZ Myers.) Although it looks like a flower , this is an image of a limpet embryo, stained to show 4 different proteins and viewed (& photographed) using a confocal microscope. There are several other stunning images at the Node, which is an on-line community site for developmental … Read More
Alison Campbell • Jan 03, 2012 •
The intrepid reporters from Number 8 Network e-mailed the other day. "What are you reading?" they asked; "after all, it's the holidays & you must have heaps of time to put your nose in a book." Which is sort of... Read More
Alison Campbell • Dec 15, 2011 •
And yes, punctuation & grammar skillz, I has them :-) That apostrophe really is in the right place - read on to find out why.The tale of the panda's thumb is well-known, & an excellent example of how the action... Read More
Alison Campbell • Nov 21, 2011 •
As a distraction (or should that be 'procrastination'?) from what's currently filling up my diary (ie processing student enrolments), I've decided to look at another of those 'science' statements from the school documents I linked to in my last post.... Read More
Alison Campbell • Nov 06, 2011 •
My post about zeolite & the supposedly 'chemical-free' nature of various dietary supplements containing the stuff led to some interesting comments, & generated a few 'I wonder if...' moments. After all, as Krebiozen said (in the comments thread to that... Read More
Alison Campbell • Oct 07, 2011 •
It wasn't all koala-spotting on our trip across the ditch (the Tasman Sea, for those readers not familiar with New Zild as it is spoken, lol). Apart from the glories of Melbourne (lovely old buildings, the stunning King Tut exhibition... Read More