Category Archives: Biology

Scientists are using AI to study bee behavior, zebra movement, and insects on treadmills – GeekWire

January 19, 2024 medical

A bumblebee labelled for tracking by computer vision. (James Crall Photo)

The halls at a recent meeting of biologists in Seattle were buzzing with more than just the usual excitement about spiders, bats, bees, elephants and other creatures.

Researchers were also talking about the increased use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, at the the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.

Such methods have life science applications beyond biomedical fields such as protein design, a more well-known use case. Researchers are leveraging AI to study how animals move their bodies, migrate, sense their environment, behave, and more.

AI and machine learning methods are being used in diverse sub-disciplines in biology from neuroscience, molecular biology, to animal behavior, Jeff Riffell, a professor in the Biology Department at the University of Washington, told GeekWire.

RELATED: AI could make us conversant with critters, unlocking conservation tools and serious risks

Riffell and his colleagues presented an AI-powered system to study how insects detect odors in their environment. Their machine learning model predicts how moth neurons respond to different mixtures of smelly chemicals.

Shir Bar, who studies the intersection of biology and computer vision at Tel Aviv University, told GeekWire that shes seeing more studies using AI for animal detection, tracking and behavioral classification, as well as in biomechanics for pose estimation (detecting position using computer vision methods).

Bar spoke at the meeting about how scientists can leverage AI, noting that entering the arena and finding the right tools for the task can be daunting. We asked Bar to identify some of the more outstanding AI/ML studies at the meeting, held earlier this month.

When the weather gets hot, bees keep the colony cool by fanning their wings. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin study this behavior by labeling individual bumblebees and tracking them with an automated imaging system while exposing them to high temperatures that simulate a three-day heatwave. The scientists integrate the tracking of individual bees with deep learning-based identification of fanning behavior. They are now using the system to test how bees respond to heat under different nutrient conditions. The research may help scientists understand how bees respond to climate change.

Researchers at Imperial College London place insects on small treadmills to measure how they move. At the meeting they also presented a synthetic dataset on such movement using three-dimensional models of insects, generated by a gaming engine, said Bar. According to the presenters, insects inspire researchers developing six-legged walking robots. After all, many insects can walk on ceilings and walls keep on going even if they lose limbs.

This is a really innovative way to tackle the lack of training data thats so prevalent in our field, especially since they are building a general system that is meant to work on diverse species of insects, said Bar of the presentation.

An open-source tool to help capture animal behavior in the wild was showcased at the meeting by researchers at the University of Stuttgart and Princeton University. Smarter-labelme labels data used to train machine learning models, reducing the need to manually annotate datasets on animal movement. The researchers used the tool to quantify the activity of zebras from drone footage over large swaths of the savannah.

Scientists routinely label cellular molecules using green fluorescent protein (GFP), a laboratory tool originally derived from a jellyfish. Different color variants can arise from mutations in GFP, but exactly how has been unclear. Researchers have now developed a neural network model to predict the intensity of fluorescence from the underlying mutations in GFP, using protein folding parameters and other inputs. The approach could lead to the development of improved ways to visualize cellular molecules. This study was undertaken at the University of Maryland and the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

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Scientists are using AI to study bee behavior, zebra movement, and insects on treadmills - GeekWire

Biology

APSU biology major balances cheerleading, STEM studies and service – Main Street Media of Tennessee

January 19, 2024 medical

When Gracey Suggs came to Austin Peay State University, she brought along an impressive set of credentials. The Clarksville native and Montgomery Central graduate graduated a year early and came in with most of her general education requirements already completed through high school dual-enrollment courses. Now a junior - despite just being in her second year on campus - majoring []

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APSU biology major balances cheerleading, STEM studies and service - Main Street Media of Tennessee

Biology

UTSW Professor to Receive O’Donnell Award in Biological Sciences – dallasinnovates.com

January 19, 2024 medical

Vincent Tagliabracci, PhD [Photo: UTSWMC]

A professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center has been named the recipient of a prestigious biological sciences award.

Vincent Tagliabracci, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular biology, will receive the 2024 Edith and Peter ODonnell Award in Biological Sciences from the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology (TAMEST) for broadening the understanding of pseudokinases, a family of enzymes that play key roles in many physiological and pathological processes. UTSW announced.

TAMEST presents annual awards to recognize the achievements of early-career Texas investigators in the fields of science, medicine, engineering, and technology innovation.

UTSW said the ODonnell Award comes with a $25,000 honorarium and an invitation to make a presentation before hundreds of TAMEST members. Tagliabracci is the 17th scientist at UT Southwestern to receive an ODonnell Award since TAMEST initiated the program in 2006.

Im honored to be recognized by TAMEST and humbled to join the group of recipients from past years who are all elite scientists, said Tagliabracci, who also is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Its an unbelievable feeling.

UTSW said that pseudokinases are different from canonical kinases molecules that catalyze the transfer of phosphate onto proteins, altering their function such that they were originally thought to be inactive enzymes.

They are nicknamed zombie enzymes because they were first believed to be dead, UTSW said.

Tagliabraccis work has shown, however, that these enzymes are alive and perform completely different kinds of chemical reactions than classical kinases. These include adenylylation (AMPylation), a process in which some pseudokinases transfer adenosine monophosphate, one of the nucleotides that makes up RNA, to proteins and glutamylation, in which pseudokinases transfer the amino acid glutamate to proteins.

Recently, Tagliabracci led a study that identified a pseudokinase necessary for capping viral RNAs, a process thats key for the function of coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. UTSW said that inhibiting this process could offer a new way to treat COVID-19, which has killed nearly 7 million people globally, according to the World Health Organization.

Dr. Tagliabraccis discoveries of unexpected activities of atypical kinases in diverse clades of life have expanded the boundaries of the kinome and unveiled new biology with a broad range of therapeutic applications, said Eric Olson, Ph.D., chair and professor of molecular biology at UTSW, who nominated Tagliabracci for the ODonnell Award.

UTSW said that the Edith and Peter ODonnell Awards recognize rising star Texas researchers addressing science and technologys essential role in society and whose work meets the highest standards of professional performance, creativity, and resourcefulness.

The Edith and Peter ODonnell Awards are made possible by the ODonnell Awards Endowment Fund, established in 2005 with support from several individuals and organizations.

This years recipients will be honored at the 2024 Edith and Peter ODonnell Awards Ceremony on Feb. 6. They will present their research preceding the awards ceremony at the TAMEST 2024 Annual Conference: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center in Austin.

The Edith and Peter ODonnell Awards bring together a broad group of disciplines and expertise and create the space to talk about cross-disciplinary approaches to future solutions and we couldnt be prouder of this years group of innovative recipients, said Edith and Peter ODonnell Awards Committee Chair Oliver Mullins, Ph.D., SLB Fellow for global technology company SLB, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. These researchers are transforming the future of science and innovation in our state, and these awards are an important mechanism for maintaining a link between academia and industry and moving the research needle forward for our society.

Tagliabracci is a Michael L. Rosenberg Scholar in Medical Research. Olson holds The Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Science, the Pogue Distinguished Chair in Research on Cardiac Birth Defects, and the Annie and Willie Nelson Professorship in Stem Cell Research.

Elevating SMUs standing as a premier global research institution, the gift will create 10 endowed academic positions in engineering and data science and support research in those fields as well. SMU President R. Gerald Turner said the gift will be evenly split between SMU's newly named ODonnell Data Science and Research Computing Institute and an initiative for digital innovation in engineering and computer science in the Lyle School of Engineering.

From Johns Hopkins academic to biotech powerhouse, Robinson's career is a mix of innovation and influence.It is just a wonderful ride, she said.

Expanding a collaboration they announced in January, the two companies aim to drive "the future of cancer care" with the new platform, enabling novel insights for precision medicine, therapeutic development, and clinical trials management for academic and biopharma researchers.

Supported by 35 issued patents, Dallas-based MeshTek builds next-gen lighting systems that turn buildings into show-stoppers. "Their patented, long-range Bluetooth mesh is the brilliance behind the solution and the future of outdoor device connectivity," says investor Mark Cuban.

The $110 million, 135,000 square-foot expansion at Pegasus Parka regional hub for life sciences and biotechnology in North Texaswill offer prebuilt lab suites with the tools and flexible space needed for growth-stage life sciences entrepreneurs and companies. Demolition is underway and construction on Bridge Labs is set to begin soon, developers said.

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UTSW Professor to Receive O'Donnell Award in Biological Sciences - dallasinnovates.com

Biology

Climate change threatens global forest carbon sequestration, study finds – University of Florida

January 19, 2024 medical

Climate change is reshaping forests differently across the United States, according to a new analysis of U.S. Forest Service data. With rising temperatures, escalating droughts, wildfires, and disease outbreaks taking a toll on trees, researchers warn that forests across the American West are bearing the brunt of the consequences.

The study, led by UF Biology researchersJ. Aaron Hoganand Jeremy W. Lichsteinwas published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study reveals a pronounced regional imbalance in forest productivity, a key barometer of forest health that gauges tree growth and biomass accumulation. Over the past two decades, the Western U.S., grappling with more severe climate change impacts, has exhibited a notable slowdown in productivity, while the Eastern U.S., experiencing milder climate effects, has seen slightly accelerated growth.

Forests play a critical role in regulating the Earths climate, acting as carbon sinks that sequester approximately 25% of human carbon emissions annually. However, their ability to store carbon hinges on the delicate balance between the positive and negative effects of climate change. The study, using national-scale forest inventory data, models trends from 1999 to 2020, analyzing 113,806 measurements in non-plantation forests.

We are witnessing changes in forest functioning as forest ecosystems respond to global change drivers, such as carbon-dioxide-fertilization and climate change, said Hogan. It is the future balance of these drivers which will determine the functioning of forests in the coming years to decades.

Pacific kelp forests are far older that we thought – EurekAlert

January 19, 2024 medical

image:

An X-rayreconstruction of a 32-million-year-old fossil kelp holdfast colored to show the base(orange),holdfast (yellow) and the bivalve shell to which it attached (blue).

Credit: Dula Parkinson/Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The unique underwater kelp forests that line the Pacific Coast support a varied ecosystem that was thought to have evolved along with the kelp over the past 14 million years.

But a new study shows that kelp flourished off the Northwest Coast more than 32 million years ago, long before the appearance of modern groups of marine mammals, sea urchins, birds and bivalves that today call the forests home.

The much greater age of these coastal kelp forests, which today are a rich ecosystem supporting otters, sea lions, seals, and many birds, fish and crustaceans, means that they likely were a main source of food for an ancient, now-extinct mammal called a desmostylian. The hippopotamus-sized grazer is thought to be related to today's sea cows, manatees and their terrestrial relatives, the elephants.

"People initially said, We don't think the kelps were there before 14 million years ago because the organisms associated with the modern kelp forest were not there yet," said paleobotanist Cindy Looy, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. "Now, we show the kelps were there, it's just that all the organisms that you expect to be associated with them were not. Which is not that strange, because you first need the foundation for the whole system before everything else can show up."

Evidence for the greater antiquity of kelp forests, reported this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, comes from newly discovered fossils of the kelps holdfast the root-like part of the kelp that anchors it to rocks or rock-bound organisms on the seafloor. The stipe, or stem, attaches to the holdfast and supports the blades, which typically float in the water, thanks to air bladders.

Looy's colleague, Steffen Kiel, dated these fossilized holdfasts, which still grasp clams and envelop barnacles and snails, to 32.1 million years ago, in the middle of the Cenozoic Era, which stretches from 66 million years ago to the present. The oldest previously known kelp fossil, consisting of one air bladder and a blade similar to that of today's bull kelp, dates from 14 million years ago and is in the collection of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (UCMP).

"Our holdfasts provide good evidence for kelp being the food source for an enigmatic group of marine mammals, the desmostylia," said Kiel, lead author of the paper and a senior curator at the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm. "This is the only order of Cenozoic mammals that actually went extinct during the Cenozoic. Kelp had long been suggested as a food source for these hippo-sized marine mammals, but actual evidence was lacking. Our holdfasts indicate that kelp is a likely candidate."

According to Kiel and Looy, who is the senior author of the paper and UCMP curator of paleobotany, these early kelp forests were likely not as complex as the forests that evolved by about 14 million years ago. Fossils from the late Cenozoic along the Pacific Coast indicate an abundance of bivalves clams, oysters and mussels birds and sea mammals, including sirenians related to manatees and extinct, bear-like predecessors of the sea otter, called Kolponomos. Such diversity is not found in the fossil record from 32 million years ago.

"Another implication is that the fossil record has, once again, shown that the evolution of life in this case, of kelp forests was more complex than estimated from biological data alone," Kiel said. "The fossil record shows that numerous animals appeared in, and disappeared from, kelp forests during the past 32 million years, and that the kelp forest ecosystems that we know today have only evolved during the past few million years."

The value of fossil hunting amateurs

The fossils were discovered by James Goedert, an amateur fossil collector who has worked with Kiel in the past. When Goedert broke open four stone nodules he found along the beach near Jansen Creek on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington, he saw what looked like the holdfasts of kelp and other macroalgae common along the coast today.

Kiel, who specializes in invertebrate evolution, agreed and subsequently dated the rocks based on the ratio of strontium isotopes. He also analyzed oxygen isotope levels in the bivalve shells to determine that the holdfasts lived in slightly warmer water than today, at the upper range of temperatures found in modern kelp forests.

Looy reached out to co-author Dula Parkinson, a staff scientist with the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, for help obtaining a 3D X-ray scan of one of the holdfast fossils using Synchrotron Radiation X-ray Tomographic Microscopy (SRXTM). When she reviewed the detailed X-ray slices through the fossil, she was amazed to see a barnacle, a snail, a mussel and tiny, single-celled foraminifera hidden within the holdfast, in addition to the bivalve on which it sat.

Looy noted, however, that the diversity of invertebrates found within the 32-million-year-old fossilized holdfast was not as high as would be found inside a kelp holdfast today.

"The holdfasts are definitely not as rich as they would be if you would go to a kelp ecosystem right now," Looy said. "The diversifying of organisms living in these ecosystems hadn't started yet."

Kiel and Looy plan further studies of the fossils to see what they reveal about the evolution of the kelp ecosystem in the North Pacific and how that relates to changes in the ocean-climate system.

Other co-authors of the paper are Rosemary Romero, a specialist in algae who obtained her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2018 and is now an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife; paleobotanist Michael Krings at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt in Munich, Germany; and former UC Berkeley undergraduate Tony Huynh. Goedert is a research associate at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Animals

Early Oligocene kelp holdfasts and stepwise evolution of the kelp ecosystem in the North Pacific

16-Jan-2024

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

Pacific kelp forests are far older that we thought - EurekAlert

Biology

Ants evade harmful food by active abandonment | Communications Biology – Nature.com

January 19, 2024 medical

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Ants evade harmful food by active abandonment | Communications Biology - Nature.com

Biology

Key moment in the evolution of life on Earth captured in fossils – EurekAlert

January 19, 2024 medical

image:

The Welsh countryside near the Coed Cochion Quarry, where the fossils were found.

Credit: Curtin University

Curtin-led research has for the first time precisely dated some of the oldest fossils of complex multicellular life in the world, helping to track a pivotal moment in the history of Earth when the seas began teeming with new lifeforms - after four billion years of containing only single-celled microbes.

Lead author PhD student Anthony Clarke, from the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group within Curtins School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said to determine the age of the fossils, researchers used volcanic ash layers like bookmarks in the geological sequence.

Located in the Coed Cochion Quarry in Wales, which contains the richest occurrence of shallow marine life in Britain, we used outfall from an ancient volcano that blanketed the animals as a time marker to accurately date the fossils to 565 million years, accurate down to 0.1 per cent, Mr Clarke said.

With similar Ediacaran fossils found at sites around the world including in Australia, dating the fossils identifies them as being part of an ancient living community that developed as Earth thawed out from a global ice age.

These creatures would in some ways resemble modern day marine species such as jellyfish, yet in other ways be bizarre and unfamiliar. Some appear fern-like, others like cabbages, whereas others resembled sea pens.

Study co-author Professor Chris Kirkland, also from the Timescales of Mineral Systems Group at Curtin, said the fossils are named after the Ediacara Hills in South Australias Flinders Ranges, where they were first discovered, leading to the first new geological period established in over a century.

These Welsh fossils appear directly comparable to the famous fossils of Ediacara in South Australia, Professor Kirkland said.

The fossils, including creatures like the disc-shaped Aspidella terranovica, showcase some of the earliest evidence of large-scale multicellular organisms, marking a transformative moment in Earths biological history.

Ediacaran fossils record the response of life to the thaw out from a global glaciation, which shows the deep connection between geological processes and biology.

Our study underscores the importance of understanding these ancient ecosystems in order to unravel the mysteries of Earths past and shape our comprehension of lifes evolution.

Available online here once published, the full research paper, UPb zircon-rutile dating of the Llangynog Inlier, Wales: constraints on an Ediacaran shallow 1 marine fossil assemblage from East Avalonia will appear in the.Journal of the Geological Society (JGS), which is owned and published by the Geological Society of London. JGS publishes topical, innovative and interdisciplinary research with global reach across the full range of Earth and planetary sciences.

Journal of the Geological Society

Imaging analysis

Animals

UPb zircon-rutile dating of the Llangynog Inlier, Wales: constraints on an Ediacaran shallow 1 marine fossil assemblage from East Avalonia

15-Jan-2024

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Key moment in the evolution of life on Earth captured in fossils - EurekAlert

Biology

Temporally Multiplexed Imaging (TMI) – A Breakthrough Technique in Cell Biology Research – Medriva

January 19, 2024 medical

The world of cell biology is abuzz with a groundbreaking technique that is set to revolutionize the study of cellular processes Temporally Multiplexed Imaging (TMI). A recent study published in Cell uses TMI to visualize multiple signaling dynamics within a cell using a conventional microscope. This technique surpasses previous methods by allowing the imaging of multiple reporters without requiring specific hardware.

TMI is a novel imaging technique that allows for high-throughput imaging of cellular dynamics. Unlike traditional imaging techniques that focus on one specific process or component at a time, TMI enables simultaneous imaging of multiple cellular processes by temporally separating the signals from different fluorophores. This means that scientists can study several different proteins or cellular processes at the same time, in the same cell.

Traditional imaging techniques often require specialized hardware and can only capture one process at a time. This can be limiting, especially when studying complex cellular processes that involve multiple components or occur simultaneously. TMI, on the other hand, does not require specific hardware and allows for the simultaneous study of multiple processes.

Moreover, TMI can provide high-speed, high-resolution imaging of dynamic cellular processes. This characteristic of TMI is particularly beneficial in studying cell behavior and interactions in real-time, providing valuable insights into cell function and behavior that were previously impossible to obtain.

The advent of TMI has the potential to significantly impact the field of cell biology. The ability to observe multiple cellular processes in real-time opens up new possibilities for understanding cell behavior, tracking protein organization and movement, and studying response to stimuli. This could potentially lead to breakthroughs in understanding disease mechanisms, drug development, and more.

Moreover, TMIs high-speed and high-resolution capabilities make it ideal for studying dynamic cellular processes. This could be particularly beneficial in fields such as neurobiology, where understanding the dynamic interactions between neurons is crucial.

In conclusion, TMI is a promising new technique in cell biology research. Its ability to capture dynamic cellular processes in real time, without the need for specific hardware, makes it a versatile tool for scientists. As we continue to uncover its full potential, we can expect TMI to pave the way for significant advancements in our understanding of cellular processes and mechanisms.

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Temporally Multiplexed Imaging (TMI) - A Breakthrough Technique in Cell Biology Research - Medriva

Biology

A biological signature of desire helps explain the selective nature of pair bonds – News-Medical.Net

January 19, 2024 medical

Hop in the car to meet your lover for dinner and a flood of dopamine-; the same hormone underlying cravings for sugar, nicotine and cocaine -; likely infuses your brain's reward center, motivating you to brave the traffic to keep that unique bond alive. But if that dinner is with a mere work acquaintance, that flood might look more like a trickle, suggests new research by University of Colorado Boulder neuroscientists.

What we have found, essentially, is a biological signature of desire that helps us explain why we want to be with some people more than other people."

Zoe Donaldson, senior author, associate professor of behavioral neuroscience at CU Boulder

The study, published Jan. 12 in the journal Current Biology, centers around prairie voles, which have the distinction of being among the 3% to 5% of mammals that form monogamous pair bonds.

Like humans, these fuzzy, wide-eyed rodents tend to couple up long-term, share a home, raise offspring together, and experience something akin to grief when they lose their partner.

By studying them, Donaldson seeks to gain new insight into what goes on inside the human brain to make intimate relationships possible and how we get over it, neurochemically speaking, when those bonds are severed.

The new study gets at both questions, showing for the first time that the neurotransmitter dopamine plays a critical role in keeping love alive.

"As humans, our entire social world is basically defined by different degrees of selective desire to interact with different people, whether it's your romantic partner or your close friends," said Donaldson. "This research suggests that certain people leave a unique chemical imprint on our brain that drives us to maintain these bonds over time."

For the study, Donaldson and her colleagues used state-of-the art neuroimaging technology to measure, in real time, what happens in the brain as a vole tries to get to its partner. In one scenario, the vole had to press a lever to open a door to the room where her partner was. In another, she had to climb over a fence for that reunion.

Meanwhile a tiny fiber-optic sensor tracked activity, millisecond by millisecond, in the animal's nucleus accumbens, a brain region responsible for motivating humans to seek rewarding things, from water and food to drugs of abuse. (Human neuroimaging studies have shown it is the nucleus accumbens that lights up when we hold our partner's hand).

Each time the sensor detects a spurt of dopamine, it "lights up like a glow stick," explained first-author Anne Pierce, who worked on the study as a graduate student in Donaldson's lab. When the voles pushed the lever or climbed over the wall to see their life partner, the fiber "lit up like a rave," she said. And the party continued as they snuggled and sniffed one another.

In contrast, when a random vole is on the other side of that door or wall, the glow stick dims.

"This suggests that not only is dopamine really important for motivating us to seek out our partner, but there's actually more dopamine coursing through our reward center when we are with our partner than when we are with a stranger," said Pierce.

In another experiment, the vole couple was kept apart for four weeks-;an eternity in the life of a rodent -; and long enough for voles in the wild to find another partner.

When reunited, they remembered one another, but their signature dopamine surge had almost vanished. In essence, that fingerprint of desire was gone. As far as their brains were concerned, their former partner was indistinguishable from any other vole.

"We think of this as sort of a reset within the brain that allows the animal to now go on and potentially form a new bond," Donaldson said.

This could be good news for humans who have undergone a painful break-up, or even lost a spouse, suggesting that the brain has an inherent mechanism to protect us from endless unrequited love.

The authors stress that more research is necessary to determine how well results in voles translate to their bigger-brained, two-legged counterparts. But they believe their work could ultimately have important implications for people who either have trouble forming close relationships or those who struggle to get over loss a condition known as Prolonged Grief Disorder.

"The hope is that by understanding what healthy bonds look like within the brain, we can begin to identify new therapies to help the many people with mental illnesses that affect their social world," said Donaldson.

Source:

Journal reference:

Pierce, F. B., et al. (2024) Nucleus accumbens dopamine release reflects the selective nature of pair bonds. Current Biology. doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.041.

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A biological signature of desire helps explain the selective nature of pair bonds - News-Medical.Net

Biology

Some wild misadventures of a college biology instructor – The Boston Globe

January 8, 2024 medical

While teaching a field lab for a class of ecology students in the woods behind the Merrimack campus, I was telling them that if you flip over logs and rocks, sometimes you can find snakes, salamanders, and other interesting animals.

As I stooped down and turned over a small log, I was promptly stung on my finger by a centipede. The pain was pretty intense, like that of a bee sting, and the next thing the students heard me say was [bleep]! I looked up to see 15 shocked, wide-eyed students staring at me. Embarrassed by my involuntary outburst of profanity, I quickly apologized to the group of stunned students, who laughed when they realized what had happened.

For one of our lab exercises, we waded into a small man-made pond behind the science building at Merrimack to catch crawfish and goldfish and do population estimates. I put on my rubber chest waders and told my students they had to enter the water carefully because the plastic lining on the bottom of the pond was very slippery. I sat down at the edge of the pond, lowered my legs into the water, and as soon as I stood up, I slipped and fell in. In addition to being embarrassed, I had to walk around in cold wet clothes for the remainder of the day.

While co-leading a college biology trip to the Galapagos Islands, I was snorkeling with several students. I was floating at the surface a few feet from the rocky shoreline and decided to take a photo of a small, bright orange anemone that was attached to an underwater rock. I took several photos and when I was through, the students swam over to me and excitedly asked if I had seen the giant manta ray.

What manta ray? I asked.

It was about 10 feet wide, one of the students told me. It swam right behind you!

Manta rays are the largest rays in the world, and one of the species I had hoped to see on our trip. Apparently, it swam within a few feet of me, and I missed it because I was preoccupied with photographing an anemone? Arrrggghhh!

On a college biology trip to Australia, after a 20-hour-plus flight, we landed at the Cairns Airport in Queensland at around 2 in the morning. Half asleep, we all had to go through customs before heading to our hotel. The two head professors were leading the group at the front of the line, so I decided Id take up the rear to make sure everyone got through OK.

The last student in line was an affable young man named Lou. The customs agent asked Lou to open his duffle bag, and then began to ask him some questions.

You did fill out the customs declaration form on the plane, didnt you?

Yes, I did, Lou replied.

And you read it carefully?

Yes, I did, said Lou.

And you do know youre not supposed to bring any meat or agricultural products into the country, right?

At this point I thought, uh-oh, somethings wrong.

The customs agent reached into Lous duffle bag and pulled out a plastic bag that contained about half a pound of pork fat.

Whats this, mate? asked the customs agent.

Its pork fat, sir, Lou replied. I brought it to use for fishing bait.

Fishing bait? I interjected.

Ya, Lou responded. I didnt know if Id be able to get any bait down here, and I wanted to go fishing.

Lou, I said, First of all, Australia is surrounded by ocean. Its a gigantic island. Im sure theyve got fishing bait. Secondly, I dont think any self-respecting fish would even eat pork fat!

The customs agent just smiled, gave Lou a warning, and confiscated his fishing bait.

On the Belize trip I mentioned earlier, a group of us were standing outside the general store in a village. Tropical developing countries always seem to have mangy stray dogs hanging around human settlements, and Belize was no exception.

A group of three or four skinny, sickly-looking dogs were milling around near the general store. Im always afraid of stray dogs because they could carry diseases, including rabies. Suddenly the dogs started to fight with each other, and the snarling, snapping pack rapidly moved toward us. Instinctively, I grabbed the person closest to me who happened to be one of our students and put her in front of me as protection. She screamed and said, What are you doing?

Thankfully, no one was bitten.

I still get teased about that one.

Don Lyman can be reached at donlymannature@gmail.com.

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Some wild misadventures of a college biology instructor - The Boston Globe