Wonders of plankton tows..

Dec 14, 2015 • 9:03 AM UTC

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Microorganisms

Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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Just finished running a series of workshops for high school students participating in the ASCB2015 high school program. Had a fantastic time (although I was not ready for 150-200 students). Just wanted to thank all the volunteers who made this possible. Thank you so much..
I wish I had taken pictures – if some of you did; please attach a link in comments below. This is the only picture I have. Many of you are not in this picture – so please attach pictures if you participated.

Here are the volunteers and all the participants in action. We spent most time building microscopes – and everyone got a Foldscope to take home.

So now I have a surprise for you – Saad and I did a quick plankton tow in the morning just before the workshop at ASCB in San Diego. Saad was kind enough to record some of our goofing off at the water front – with a simple plankton tow net. I had some fun throwing out the net. We got some curious fisherman coming and talking to us; but overall nobody seemed to care.. they are just wondering what are we collecting.. Including this big fella.

https://vimeo.com/148736004
But, here comes the surprise. I just took a drop of ocean water – and to my surprise; I think I caught an acantharian (I think). Can someone help me identify the same.

In the same sample; I also saw radial structures with a chloroplast like architecture. I was intrigued if it’s passive or active (almost nothing in biology is passive); so using a lapse it app – I did setup a time lapse (15sec per picture;30 min total). Watch for yourself – you should see some kind of radial flux going around inside this giant cell?

I will write a detailed post with a time lapse – but I am rushing to get to the airport.. India workshops starting in 24 hours (www.foldscope.com/workshops) so maybe we will see some of you very soon.
cheers
manu