100th Entry, And I Can Tell You About Enrique's Western Blots

Yeah, this is my 100th entry, pretty good considering that I haven't updated for a week. The big news is that Enrique seems to be rolling with running Western blots of proteins isolated from scarlet shiner brains. We're trying to identify concentrations of the NMDA receptors in male vs. female brains, and trying to pinpoint where in the brain they're found. The blot Enrique ran yesterday clearly showed that the forebrain (telencephalon) of a male fish had significantly more of these protein complexes than the forebrain of a female fish. This is kinda what we expected, since research on a very distantly fish species showed that male brains have a steady, high concentration of these proteins and female brains are variable with more of this complex present when the fish is ready to spawn. These complexes are also related to learning processes, at least in other vertebrates.

We went out on Wednesday and collected about 20 scarlets from Limestone Creek upcounty, so we have a new stock to work with. We'll probably sacrifice several of them tomorrow so that Enrique can work with very fresh brains, and we can relate NMDA receptor number to size and reproductive status as well as to sex.

Tomorrow my main business is going to Hurricane Creek with the telescope shiner research group for our monthly allotment of telescopes. We're in the middle of a cold snap, so it'll be freezing tomorrow as we rendezvous and head out to the Walls of Jericho. At least the creek level should be normal and easier to work with for our seining. I still have the prejudice of thinking that temperatures around freezing aren't so bad for field work; it's much worse if there's rain. I'll tell you what we find.....