012 - Natural history collections with James Maclaine and Andrew Stewart

Natural history collections, huge archives of carefully curated specimens, are an invaluable tool for the scientific community. They are also a place where the public get to interact with active research and meet scientists. Forget what you’d imagine working in a museum to be like, no two days are the same and both the collections and the talented people who work with them are in constant demand. One day your helping design new swimwear based on shark skin, the next settling an argument at a fishing competition.

If you’re wondering what jobs are out there in science or just curious to know what goes on behind the scenes at a museum, this episode has some surprises for you.

Alan is still away at sea, so Thom is joined again by Dr Heather Ritchie to tacked some deep-sea news, seabed mapping, secrets revealed by snailfish genes and wandering sponges are all hot off the presses. Don also drops in with an example of when you don’t want to collect biology, on the hull of your vessel as biofouling.

Feel free to get in touch with us with questions or you own tales from the high seas on:

[email protected]

Read the show notes and find out more about us at:

www.armatusoceanic.com

Links

𝐸𝑢𝑟𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑠 description

Bathymetry from The Five Deeps Published

The Yap Trench snailfish

Wandering sponges

James taking care of the beetles during lockdown

Microplastics in deep-sea fish

James talking about deep-sea fish.

CT scanning reveals anglerfish meal

Shark nostril research

Cookie-cutter shark bites

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa – deep sea video

The Fishes of New Zealand

Glossary

Authority – The scientist who describes a species

Snailfish – Members of the Liparidae, the deepest living fishes

TMAO - Trimethylamine N-oxide, a molecule that is involved in pressure adaptation

Taxonomy – The science of classifying living things

Type – A specimen that is formally associated with the scientific name

Holotype – The singular definitive example of a species

CT scanning – Computerised Tomography Scanning. Basically, a 3D x-ray

Sequence – A part of the genetic code that we can compare between samples

Isotopes – When atoms of the same element vary in their mass

Otolith – The ear bones of fishes