Now presenting....

Creatures of the deep....



The science journal, Marine Biotechnology picked my image of a Labiodocera sp. copepod for its cover for next month! Last June, a colleague here at U. of Hawaii, Gabor Macz asked my boss, Petra, if any of the local copepods expressed green fluorescent protein (GFP). Petra, who was in Maine at the time, asked me to take a look. We discovered that the local species, like some of the other Labidocera, likely contain (a previously undescribed!) GFP in the female sex organs.

Here is the caption for the image:

Confocal microscopic image of the Pacific copepod Labidocera muridae with green fluorescent protein-like fluorescence. Colorful fluorescent proteins (FPs) occur in hydrozoan, anthozoan, and copepodan species, and are the source of exciting research opportunities and technological development. Copepodan FPs are among the brightest FPs in general which lends special value to this class of proteins. FPs have been used to address questions relevant to evolutionary and developmental biology and aquaculture. Photograph by Dr. Caroline Wilson, University of Hawaii, 2006. See the article by Mocz, pp. 000-000.

Isn't science fun?