Shirahama Marine Biology Field Trip 2017

At the end of the first year, we have an optional (used to be compulsory) trip to Shirahama. If you don't know what Shirahama is, it is basically a beach in Southern Wakayama which is located South of Osaka. There, we went and stayed at a marine station owned by Kyoto University called Seto marine station or 瀬戸臨海実験所, complete with their own aquarium.


During the trip, we had several tasks, first was Sea Urchin Development, behavioural studies of wharf roaches, decapod dissection, and finally the main was sample collecting for online database.

Our first task was the sea urchin development. Here, we fertilize sea urchins and observe them under the microscope for the whole course of our trip. We had to visit the lab every now and then to observe the development of the baby sea urchins and recording them by drawing on paper.


Next was behavioural studies of wharf roaches. What we did was basically set up a maze and make a report on how they move through the maze. Trials were also conducted to observe the behaviour of the roaches with the antennae are removed and eyes disabled.

The last "trivial" task was to dissect decapods, basically shrimps and crabs which were later eaten in the barbecue session! It was rather difficult for several teams as some of the specimens' anatomy was not clearly documented on the textbooks but we managed to finished it either way. Picture below is my group with the crabs! (Credits to pak bos Clement)


Our group was assigned to the "other phyla", which means all other phyla that are not assigned to other groups comprising of more than 30 phyla.

However, we were only able to collect some 3 to 4 phyla. This group was considerably the hardest because frankly, all worms look the same don't they? Also, they're really small and move really quickly, making observation under the microscope really hard.


The trip wouldn't have been completed without the barbecue and going to karaoke with Kubota Sensei though! Right, I forgot to mention that apparently this Professor sings really well and had an album about animal phyla. Look here: http://amzn.asia/eeGNRve

Image may contain: 4 people, people smiling, people sitting, table and indoor

If you're interested in looking at our findings, feel free to see for yourself here:
http://bioinf.bio.sci.osaka-u.ac.jp/cbcmp-bio/



If you have any questions feel free to message me anytime! Cheers! 

2023

Scuba diving in Okinawa Part 1

Ever since my childhood, I’ve harbored a deep love for the sea and its myriad marine creatures. However, living far from the coast meant that my experiences ...

Back to top ↑

2022

Publishing my first research paper

After a year long review, my first paper finally got published: Link. The paper went through 3 rounds of revision, where I believe that the 3rd round was not...

Landing a PhD position

Hi there, I haven’t updated this blog for so long! I have been busy with research and the whole pandemic did not help with the current situation. But, to rec...

Back to top ↑

2021

What happened to my research?

So COVID struck while it’s been like about a year since my last post. A lot of things happened this year, I learnt new experimental techniques, got an award ...

Back to top ↑

2020

Back to top ↑

2019

My research projects

Hi, haven’t updated my blog in a very very long time but here I am lol. Happy new year to everyone! How was 2018? 2018 was a rather productive year for me, I...

Back to top ↑

2017

Shirahama Marine Biology Field Trip 2017

At the end of the first year, we have an optional (used to be compulsory) trip to Shirahama. If you don’t know what Shirahama is, it is basically a beach in ...

2nd Semester: Labs

Hello there, different from 1st semester, we have labs on our 2nd semester. A rather good thing knowing that we almost never had any lab experience during th...

2nd Semester in CBCMP: Circles and Clubs

I haven’t updated this blog in a while lol… A lot of stuff happened in the 2nd semester honestly. Firstly I joined circles. For those of you who don’t know...

First Semester in the CBCMP

Haven't posted in a while, first sem was really hectic... Let me sum up my first sem in the CBCMP then.. First time I came for the orientation I wasn’t real...

Reaching Osaka University

Usually it takes about some 7-8 hours to get from Indonesia to Japan. However, MEXT somehow managed to book a ticket with a layover at Denpasar (Bali) and so...

Back to top ↑

2016

About Month After Announcement Of

About a month after the announcement of passing into the university, I was asked to choose among 4 departments: Department of Biological sciences (School of ...

The Next Step to 阪大

So, I’m gonna save the language school post for later and the Osaka University post for today.<div></div><div>Some of you might think that ...

Why Japan?

Out of the countries that I could have chosen to go to, why Japan?The answer is simple: the people.So what’s with the people? How are they different?Well let...

How I managed to get into Japan

So I went to this University fair about 2 years ago and got some info regarding this Osaka University Global 30 program, however I didn’t really look further...

Why this blog and who am I

Maybe a little too late to make a blog, but maybe not too late to share stories.<div></div><div>So let me introduce myself, my name is Joha...

Back to top ↑