UV Mutations and Ecology...
Also, clearly there can be mutation caused by the UV. So we're going to look at some of these things. The pigment issues and mutation, possibly ecosystem dynamics. This is something that just got funded in the last few months but we've doing a low level for several and I'm hoping to really start to hit many of these issues and we're hoping that this will be a project that will go for quite awhile. --I'm not quite sure where the secret code came from on the slide. Sadly, there's no time to rename the slide. This is the word "institute" --So, the purpose of the slide is just to mention that we measure the annual variation and response to the plankton to UV. And what we're doing is we're using remote sensing data, data that's collected from aircraft to select sites in the Bay. You can get some idea with remote sensing data where the patches of algae are. We use students to collect the samples on a boat. We analyze the samples back in my lab and for UV screening pigments. We also measure DNA damage, again we're hoping to expand this way up into all sorts of other issues as well.
The output from this is very interesting, I think. What we're providing is teaching materials for MSI, both on the boat and web-based. We're hoping in a year that we will have this available on the web so that even if your students aren't able to go to MSI, you can take them through a virtual cruise and there will be data there for them to play with and so on. If they do go, they'll be able to reinforce this back in the classroom. I'm responsible for publishing the data in the scientific literature because this is a science project, as well. It's a student/science collaboration and I just sort of sprung this on the California Academy, right before I got up here so you didn't have a chance to shut me up but I'm hoping that ultimately we have exhibit displays like here where students can also log in and get a feel for the sorts of things we're doing on the cruise. That's my little plug for MSI. A wonderful place. Check it out even before I've done any serious damage to the program.
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