As usual, I had a pretty uneventful week. Just the usual work in lab, plus GRE prep, and three different seminars. Wednesday we had a graduate student panel, in which Amgen alum who are now at Berkeley for school came to talk to us about their experiences and grad school in general - application process, academic and social life, etc. We got to talk to them afterwards and ask questions, which was definitely helpful in calming fears or getting reassurance about things. Thursday we had a faculty seminar about stem cells, and current research on how to get cells to differentiate specifically into neurons. Finally on Friday, we had a faculty networking lunch, in which professors from different departments were invited to lunch with us, and we got to choose who to chat with and had an open conversation. I naturally chose the neuroscience table, and after long introductions for both students and the two professors, the professors told us their backgrounds and what paths they took to get where they are today, and that was pretty much it. Regardless of not getting to talk very much beyond our personal backgrounds and what we're doing here at Berkeley, it was good to network with different faculty than those we see in our research labs every day (though in my case, the neuroscience prof happens to be in the lab next door to mine so I see her sometimes anyway).
Fortunately, my life in California does not only consist of my boring weeks. Before I get into my weekend, I would like to address one thing that I haven't been devoting much blog space to - the actual nature of my research. I believe that I've mentioned I'm studying the function of primary somatosensory cortex, don't remember exactly how much detail I've gone into. The reason for that is, like much scientific research, especially in neuroscience, I'm working with a mammalian animal model. This is bound to bring up many ethical questions about using animal models in research. Even I am still uncomfortable with a lot of the things I observe/have to do on a regular basis to obtain what is necessary for my research. I would prefer not to get into details here where I could cause controversy, which is why I haven't mentioned my research much at all and have more been focusing on my life outside the lab. My current view is that it is an unfortunate necessary evil to use animal models to answer core questions in science, but I'm still in the process of getting used to it because I've never been exposed to it at a level that I'm seeing in my lab here.
Now onto the beginnings of my weekend! Today was one of the huge trips of the summer,
Monterey Bay Aquarium + Santa Cruz boardwalk. I was actually fortunate enough to visit Monterey Bay Aquarium for the first time when I was in CA in January, but you can never go there too many times, because it is an AMAZING place. Because of this I actually don't have too many pictures from today's trip, because I was more enjoying than making sure I got a picture of every single thing. There was one new thing for me though - the new jellies exhibit opened after my January visit to the aquarium! Jellies are one of my favorite marine creatures! (like cuttlefish, otters, dolphins, leafy seadragons, and the infinitely long list of favorites I can't pick between).
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On the drive to Monterey. The Pacific Ocean is starting
to peek out as we enter Monterey Bay! |
Our first top at the aquarium was the seahorse exhibit. Greeting us at first were the seadragons, which I've been lucky to see many times at the
New England Aquarium. Like I mentioned above, seadragons are one of my favorite marine animals!!! They are not seahorses, but are closely related! You really have to see one in action to understand how absolutely beautiful they are.
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| Woody seadragons! |
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| Baby seahorse |
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| Leafy seadragons! |
The next stop was the new jellies exhibit. I REALLY liked the way they put it together. It was mostly dark with sparkling jelly decorations all over the walls/ceiling. Many fun jellies were featured here and in the other jelly exhibit, in a different section of the aquarium. One thing that we saw which I wish I got a picture of was the section on jelly fluorescent proteins! As a neuroscientist, these are an extremely important discovery which helps us to do cool things like visualize neurons!!! (and that's not even the tip of the iceberg! Basically, fluorescent proteins which we've stolen from marine creatures are now essential to science).
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| Really awesome jellies :) |
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| Ceiling decorations! |
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| More fun jellies! |
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They had a giant walk through statue of the rainbow
pattern some jellies make when moving through
the water. Which is my favorite thing to watch
jellies do! |
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| Here's a jelly making those rainbows! |
Our next stop was the amazing open ocean exhibit. All blue, also in the dark, with several sharks, two turtles, many types of tuna, and various other fish, it gives viewers a stunning view of what life is like in the pelagic zone of the ocean.
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Stolen photo from my Jan trip which gives a good
view of the exhibit |
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| The turtles were hanging out together! |
The aquarium has many walkways outside from which you can see all of the hills/mountains across the bay and the beautiful Pacific Ocean. There is also an enormous diversity of seabirds which live in the area. We were actually lucky enough to see an otter swim by when we were walking around outside, but unfortunately I was not able to pull out my camera to get a photo of it. Not only are the view and wildlife incredible, but the ocean itself is just beautiful. Here's a picture I took looking down from the deck. Look at the rich diversity of life! And the patterns the light is making in the water! It's absolutely beautiful.
In between those sections somewhere we also saw the plankton exhibit and the puffin exhibit, but my photos of those are either nonexistant from today or didn't turn out that well.
Next stop: kelp forest! This is a habitat unique to the west coast, and I think one of the reasons I love Monterey Bay Aquarium so much, besides the fact that it's inherently awesome, is because I am able to be exposed to types of habitats I never really saw growing up, like giant kelp forests. Of course I'd heard of them and seen them in books, but it's so nice to be able to go to an aquarium and see these types of habitats in person.
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| Shark swimming by a kelp |
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| TALL! |
Our next stop was the touch pool area and other small kelp areas. The touch pools, besides having kelp, are pretty standard - starfish, crabs, etc. But the one cool thing they did have were shark egg cases! They're actually a very familiar sight, but most people probably don't actually know what they are. This next photo wasn't one we were allowed to touch, it was separated, because if you look closely, there's actually a baby shark growing inside! We could see it moving!
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| Han and I at the giant kelp forest! |
In the Splash Zone, in addition to there being penguins (which I have no photos of), and besides the other animals like eels and cuttlefish, there are other fun generally kiddy things to do/play with. I do not consider this one of them. It is absolutely age appropriate for us.
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Bonnie, me, and Alisa in the giant clam shell.
We barely fit! |
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I forced Han to squeeze into the penguin
egg with me. Jacob is playing the role
of crazy parent. |
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| This is the view from the penguin area!!!!! |
The next destination was the octopus area (the aquarium has TWO Giant Pacific Octopus!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Adjacent to the octopus area is a section on Monterey specific habitats as well as a deep reef. We didn't spend too much time here as we were at that point running very low on time and mostly rushed this area. We did however see one of my favorite things in the aquarium (I know, I have too many favorite things!). One area has an open pool with lots of anemones, tunicates, and other fun colorful things, with floating magnifying glasses you can look at the organisms with. Here's an example of how rich one small section of the pool can be:
This next bunch is stolen from my visit in January, just because I love this exhibit so much and wanted to share it with everyone!
We did also have a small bit of time to go to the nature center / aviary. There were lots of beautiful species of seabirds there, of which I only have one photo, because its head looked the fluffiest out of all the birds we saw.
After exiting the aviary is a ray touch pool, but the rays weren't being cooperative today so we didn't get to pet any. In this area is also a bit on tide pools, mangroves, and I believe salmon.
And of course, despite how late we had gotten, we couldn't leave the aquarium without stopping to say hello to the sea otters :)
After a wonderful time at the aquarium, we headed back north and went to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk for a few hours. Somehow I was too busy having a good time and stuffing my face with funnel cake to remember to take any photos (not a huge deal since I feel like it's pretty ordinary for a boardwalk/amusement park), but here are the ones I do have -
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Beautiful view of the ocean. Actually taken from the
peak height of the pirate ship swing ride. I'm a rebel! |
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| View of the boardwalk from outside arcade |
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| Boardwalk entrance |
One of the highlights of Santa Cruz Boardwalk though was getting to go to an attraction I'd never been to before or even seen before! It's called the
Vault Laser Maze. When convincing my friends to do it with me (I'd looked up the attractions online beforehand and REALLY wanted to do this one), I described it as "you're like a spy in a movie, where the spy has to get through a complicated set of lasers to get to the end of a long hallway to accomplish some goal." Which is basically the goal - you go into a dark room and they activate a set of lasers, and you have to make it to the vault at the end of the room without touching any of the lasers. I as well as 3 other scholars tried it, and let me say that it was AWESOME. Despite it only being a 20-30 ft distance we had to cross (and my choosing the "medium" difficulty level to not be a wimp about choosing easy and being too afraid to choose hard or expert), it was SO MUCH FUN! I think I was actually the only person in my group to not touch a laser on my whole trek across! I had to do ridiculous things like position my head in weird ways while I climbed over lasers, or get flat on my back and limbo my way under a laser super close to the ground, or the reverse and get on my tummy and slowly inch forward under a laser. They actually have a TV set outside hooked up to a video camera, so all your friends can cheer you on while you're in the maze. I heard many a giggle when I would almost hit a laser I didn't see but realize it at the last second, or have to resort to doing funny things like crawl in weird ways, or yell out "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PASS THIS PART????"
By the way, in case anyone was wondering, yes, I did step foot in the Pacific Ocean (I don't believe it was my first time), and didn't stay in for more than a few seconds as it's FREEZING. Blame the California Current for that (and also for the completely different marine habitats than the east coast!).
That's essentially it for my updates! Tomorrow, in addition to getting some work done (hopefully!), I hope to explore some of the area a bit, and will be meeting a friend for dinner in the evening so will hopefully get to try a delicious new restaurant!
