cwcasey's blog

       Yesterday started bright and early at 6:30 in the morning when I woke up and went to the bathroom where I brushed my teeth and showered. I followed my standard morning routine of getting dressed, packing my bag, and grabbing a pop tart and water for breakfast before leaving to go to the bus stop. Over the course of the day I walked a lot, whether it be to the bus stop at 7:45 am or to class at 8:25 and 10:00, and even to get lunch at 11 am. The majority of my morning time was spent in class. From 8:30 to 9:45 I was in the ILC before leaving at 9:45 to get to Morrill II for a 10:00 class. Once class was over, I walked to Bluewall o get lunch. Here I waited in line to order food, proceeded to get my lunch and then spent some time finding a table. Once one was found, I sat down and ate my lunch while simultaneously doing homework.

Google itself is not a reference. It should not be cited nor used as a credible delivery service of information. However, it does serve as a resource to provide reputable information. The problem is that it can also provide incorrect information or non accredited sources. It is necessary to individually vet each source of information from whatever source is providing it. Google does not provide information, it only provides sources that it programmatically thinks will be relevant and/or credible.

             Now that there is a general understanding of the symplesiomorphies of the vertebrates, it will now be easier to identify the characteristics that are unique to each family. To start, we will look at the Myxiniformes, also known as hagfish. Hagfish are unique in that they have remanence of Hemal arches which indicate a linkage to the vertebrates. However, this trait was lost in the species so while it is not actively in hagfish, the presence of the ancestral trait is what links them to the rest of the taxon. Aside from this, Hagfish have no paired fins, a slight caudal tail, a linear brain on a cartilaginous plate (brain case), and a protruding jaw used for tunneling and burrowing into food. Hagfish also have either 5 or 8 gill slits, there is no in between. These characteristics are unique to hagfish and are therefore referred to as apomorphic characteristics.

            Next, we will conclude by look at the apomorphic characteristics of Petromysontiformes. This too is a Latin name which can be loosely translated into “stone sucking fish” or as we call them, lampreys. Lampreys are one of the more unique vertebral fishes in that they were the first to develop a lateral line system. This system is used as a sensory mechanism to detect pressure changes in the water which could indicate the presence of a predator or prey. This system is now common in fishes but was first seen in the lamprey. Other characteristics of lampreys include, three eyes (two lateral and image forming, one dorsal), one dorsal nostril, seven gill slits, and a dorsal and tail fin. Like the hagfish, lampreys don’t have any bones or paired fins. However, lampreys do have the ability to survive in both marine and freshwater systems. Fishes with such capabilities are referred to as anadromous fish. Similar to the lateral line system, lampreys were the first to adopt this style of living.

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        To identify differences across families, it is important to have a general idea of the ancestral characteristics that each family share. For example, Myxiniformes, Petromysontiformes, and the rest of the vertebrates all have a braincase, neural crest cells, a tripartite brain and cranial nerves. They also each have an inner ear with at least one semicircular duct, an optic tectum, a muscularized gut tube, and respiratory gills with hemoglobin. Other shared characteristics include a pituitary gland that is divided into an adenohypophysis and a neurohypophysis portion as well as the use of water for respiration and feeding behaviors. These shared ancestral characteristics that are carried out throughout a taxon are referred to as symplesiomorphies.

            When looking back to the phylogenetic tree from which all species stem from, one of the groups that is often over looked is the Cyclostomata. This group is one of the earliest members of the vertebrates who’s name literally translates to “circle mouth” thus referring to their circular jaws. This group breaks down further into two families, Myxiniformes (hagfish) and Petromysontiformes (lampreys). This passage will serve to discuss the similarities and differences between Myxiniformes, Petromysontiformes, and the rest of the vertebrates.

            To start, it is important to have a general idea of the ancestral characteristics that each family share. For example, all three of the above families have a braincase, neural crest cells, a tripartite brain and cranial nerves. They also have an inner ear with at least one semicircular duct, and optic tectum, a muscularized gut tube, and respiratory gills with hemoglobin. These shared ancestral characteristics are referred to as symplesiomorphies and can be seen in every vertebrate living today.

Edward Drinker Cope is name that may be unfamiliar to most people. I myself have only just recently learned about him. This man was a paleontologist from a very wealthy family in the Americas who has spent most of his time focusing on the reptilians in North America specifically. Cope also dabbled in ichthyology and comparative anatomy where he made a name for himself after publishing over 1500 pieces of literature and scientific journals. It was in my very own Comparative Anatomy class that I learned about the workings of Cope and he was truly a remarkable scientist. It was said that he had a photographic memory and would often observe procedures of fellow herpetologists, run back to his lab, and draw the whole organism from memory and publish his work to beat out the competition and take credit for it. Cope’s most famous competitor was a man by the name of Othniel Charles Marsh. Now these two men worked out of different labs. Cope was based at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia where as Marsh was based out of Yale. These two paleontologists were rumored to steal each other’s fossils and findings and use it for their own good. The best story my professor told me was of a whale carcass that drifted ashore off Cape Cod. Now, being that it is the 1800’s, they only method of rapid transportation was train and so Marsh was at an advantage. In fact, Marsh did get to the whale first, broke it down and boxed the remains for shipping to Yale. When Cope finally arrived, all be it a little too late, he switched the shipping labels on the box and so the remains of the whale were sent to his lab instead! Say what you will about Cope but he was a tenacious man who would do anything to be the best. Unfortunately, he died in his fifties and had his remains stored away that the Academy in Philadelphia for scientific purposes.

This isn’t the end of Cope’s story though. Every species on earth, but one, has a type organism that is the baseline for comparison in order to classify and define new organisms. The one and only species without a type organism is us, Homo sapiens. That changed for about four years when Edward Drinker Cope himself, now dead for hundreds of years, was named the type organism for humans. Unfortunately, this was overturned shortly after the work was published as it was found in a European science journal that it was impossible to have a type organism for humans as we are all so different and unique to begin with thus ending the reign of Cope once and for all. As you can see, Edward Cope was an extremely capable scientist. He published more records than anyone else in his time, he classified all the reptilians and amphibians in North America, and he was a renowned paleontologist. He lived on even after his death and redefined the way we look at the fields of herpetology and ichthyology.

Being only the second week of school, I often find myself still reminiscing over this summer’s activities. The major thing I did was land an internship at MilliporeSigma. For those of you who may not have heard of this company, it is a biopharmaceutical research and development lab. While I cant get too in depth about the work I did (got to love an NDA), I would like to briefly talk about the over-arching theme of handling myself as a true scientist.  During my ten week period with this company I learned a lot about project management, attention to detail, and the pure fun that science really is. Every day I would wake up ready to go tend to my cell cultures, bioreactors, and daily routines that I regularly found myself falling into. The knowledge I gained working hands on in the lab was second to none and an over all great experience.

As mentioned previously, this job helped me deal with time and project management. At any given time I had three maybe even four projects to take care of over the course of an eight hour work day. At first it was a daunting task to juggle what seemed like an overwhelming work load until I realized that this is what I loved doing, I loved being in the lab and bouncing between projects, working with different coworkers and building bonds with some extraordinary people who helped me out along the way. Going in to the internship, if you had asked me to set up a planar cell culture in triplicate for transfer into a 50L bioreactor, I would have looked at you like you had five heads. Now, looking back, I know I can get that done in 45 minutes to an hour and move onto the next project. Needless to say, I loved my job at MilliporeSigma and the skills that I came away with are almost invaluable and ones that I will use everyday.

   As all spiders do, the specimen presented to me had eight legs around its body. However, this particular spider's front two legs were longer than the remaining six. From observing its mannerisms, I believe the spider used these legs as "feelers" in order to guide it around its environment. Furthermore, each leg had three distinct joints which are able to bend at or near 90 degree angles. In terms of coloration, the legs were mostly black with grey spots on its joints. Given that the legs were almost as thin as hairs, it was hard to distinguish the true color of each of them. With that being said, the spider was unique in the sense that its legs were different sizes, used for different purposes, and seem to have had specific markings at different locations on the leg.

           At first glance, the spider presented to me in the plastic cup appeared to be a "daddy-long-legs," but after further observations I'm not so sure what it is. As all spiders do, this one has eight legs. However, the front two legs on either side of the spider are longer than the remaining six. The spider seems to uses these legs the most and appears to feel its way around the cup using its two front legs. The torso ove the spider is mostly off-grey with black flecks on its back. The under belly is a transleucent, almost whiteish color from head to trunk. When looking at the spider's head, there are two small mandibles with what look like little hands above them. these "hands" are constantly running over the mandibles like the spider is wiping its mouth. From what I can see, there are only 4 eyes on this spiders head. As far as behavior, the spider appears to be pretty docile.When i lift the cup, all movement stops completely until I place the spider back onto the desk. This behavior lasted a few minutes until the spider began to spin a web. Once this happened, the behavior became frantic and its legs were moving wildy back and forth all around the cup.