Scientists ID ‘tap out’ molecule that tells a loser when to leave a fight

Scientists have identified the molecular mechanism that causes a losing zebrafish to withdraw from a battle. While fighting fish in general may not spark a lot of interest, the fact that zebrafish and humans have very similar neurobiology means this di… Continue reading Scientists ID ‘tap out’ molecule that tells a loser when to leave a fight

Optogenetics for 100 Euros

Larval zebrafish, Drosophila (fruit fly), and Caenorhabditis elegans (roundworm) have become key model organisms in modern neuroscience due to their low maintenance costs and easy sharing of genetic strains across labs. However, the purchase of a commercial solution for experiments using these organisms can be quite costly. Enter FlyPi: a low-cost and modular open-source alternative to commercially available options for optogenetic experimentation.

One of the things that larval zebrafish, fruit flies, and roundworms have in common is that scientists can monitor them individually or in groups in a behavioural arena while controlling the activity of select neurons using optogenetic (light-based) …read more

Continue reading Optogenetics for 100 Euros

Optogenetics for 100 Euros

Larval zebrafish, Drosophila (fruit fly), and Caenorhabditis elegans (roundworm) have become key model organisms in modern neuroscience due to their low maintenance costs and easy sharing of genetic strains across labs. However, the purchase of a commercial solution for experiments using these organisms can be quite costly. Enter FlyPi: a low-cost and modular open-source alternative to commercially available options for optogenetic experimentation.

One of the things that larval zebrafish, fruit flies, and roundworms have in common is that scientists can monitor them individually or in groups in a behavioural arena while controlling the activity of select neurons using optogenetic (light-based) …read more

Continue reading Optogenetics for 100 Euros

Measuring Tiny Masses Acoustically

How do you measure the mass of something really, really tiny? Like fish-embryo tiny. There aren’t many scales with the sensitivity and the resolution to make meaningful measurements in the nanogram range, so you’ve got to turn to other methods, like measuring changes in the resonant frequency of a glass tube. And that turns out to be cheap and easy for the home gamer to reproduce.

In a recent scholarly paper, [William Grover] et al from the University of California Riverside outline the surprisingly simple and clever method of weighing zebrafish embryos, an important model organism used in all sorts …read more

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Scientists Are Furious Over Canada’s Bizarre Ban on Importing Zebrafish

Research into Alzheimer’s, blindness, heart disease, and arthritis has been killed. Continue reading Scientists Are Furious Over Canada’s Bizarre Ban on Importing Zebrafish