Lauren
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The Syringe Sprinkler System – one of many cue delivery devices
A large part of my research involves the need to stimulate various sensory systems in animals to determine how contaminants impair those systems. Delivering these stimuli (often also called cues) to organisms without the delivery mode itself causing an apparent reaction is a constant battle. My research question necessitated a cue delivery system that would…
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(S)nail Polish: A calcium carbonate canvas
Animal identification is a major barrier in designing large scale experiments. Especially when looking at things like growth or behaviour, we have to be able to continuously identify each individual throughout the experiment. Many tools have been developed for this – things like tagging of fish gills or lobsters, microchip identifiers, injected fluorescent elastomer tags;…
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The secret fieldwork tool: a dog rescue harness
During my PhD, I collaborated on a project involving the need to assess water quality and take water samples – one would think this seems simple enough, and in theory it should have been. Where the issues arose were: 1) everything looks flat on a non-descript map, and 2) our lab had field gear designed…
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Establishing the leech beach – keeping them on the sand instead of in it!
I am a firm believer that for each scientific inquiry, there is an ideal species to test it. I refrain from saying “perfect species” because there will always be one facet or one characteristic of that species that will throw a wrench into the plan. I had a beautiful experimental system to answer a very…
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How an origami hobby and some meddlesome minnows led to a unique experimental tank design
In doing work with mixtures of very different contaminants, managing their intricacies can be a challenge. I needed to create a system in which I could quantify the amount of a metal that was bound to a plastic versus the amount of metal that was in the water versus the amount of metal being taken…