Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution by Holly Tucker is a book that I first read almost 10 years ago. I got it as a gift from a dear friend, for my birthday during the time I was a student at School of Medicine (as you can guess, I decided to start anew and switch to Biology). However, this book has always stayed with me, not only because it was the first book of this genre I’ve read – I loved it because I thought it was the perfect mix of history, medicine, and macabre.
Blood Work follows a fascinating tale of the history of human transfusion, something what in today’s world we almost take for granted. Back in high school, we learned all about Rh factor and blood types (and how there is a possibility of A and B parent having an O or AB child) and voluntary blood donations are common occurrence in my country. Despite all this, I never wondered when did the actual blood transfusion procedures start and how did physicians know whose blood to use.
In the book, we follow Jean-Baptiste Denis, a 17th century French physician who administrated first documented transfusion. Since this transfusion included using sheep’s blood, it was called a xenotransfusion, which is a term that describes blood transfusion from one species to another. This experiment was successful, probably due to small amount of transfused blood and, I dare say, luck, since at the time, blood groups and agglutination were not known facts. Denis’ last transfusion experiment is, however, the one we learn about in a detail – after trying to treat an illness of psychiatric nature, and transferring a large amount of calf blood, his patient dies, and he is accused of murder. Denis was ultimately acquitted (with a true crime worthy twist in the case), but all further transfusions were banned, first by French government, then by English and even the Pope.
Blood Work doesn’t focus solely on this event – the writer masterfully describes political events of the time, both in France (rivalry with another physician, Henri-Martin de la Martinière, tensions in French Academy of Sciences founded by Louis XIV) and abroad (a competition between French and English Academies), as well as the religious ones (“playing God”, fear that this kind of transfusion could produce some sort of half-human half-animal creature). Furthermore, as Neil Blumberg wrote in his review for Journal of Clinical Investigations, these kinds of experiments were primary conducted due to the belief that transfusion could treat, or even cure, mental illness, sometimes we now know is not possible.
Lastly, it doesn’t actually matter if you have health and/or science background to find this book interesting, as long as your’re interested in history and historical non-fiction. Blood Work offers a captivating look on the beginnings of one of the most important medical procedures in the world and does it so vividly you almost feel like you’re transported to Paris, in the middle of the scientific revolution.
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I would very much liked to hear your opinion – did you read this book, and if yes, did you like it as much as I did? Do you have similar book recommendations? Please let me know in the comments 🙂
Sponges (phylum Porifera) are sessile multicellular organisms that live predominantly in seas and oceans. They don’t have tissues or organs, and therefore, they don’t actually have a nervous system. However, they do have bipolar and multipolar cells that resemble nerve cells, which are found in the middle, “jelly-like”, layer. Sequencing of some sponge species showed the presence of many genes associated with neural cells, such as genes that code enzymes for neurotransmitter synthesis and synaptic transmission. It is important to note that these genes have other functions in the organism. It has also been observed that some sponge larvae can respond to outer stimuli and show various “taxis” behaviour – phototaxis (response to light), geotaxis (response to gravity), rheotaxis (response to water current). Phototaxis has been closely studied in species Amphimedon queenslandica (class Demospongiae), a sponge native to Coral Sea.
Aplysina aerophoba, also of class Demospongiae, which can be found in Adriatic Sea.
Potassium channels have been observed in that same species, as well as glutamate, GABA, and NO systems, which have been investigated in Ephydatia muelleri, another species of class Demospongiae. Electrical signalling has been noted in glass sponges (class Hexactinellida). These sponges have bodies comprised of a syncitial tissue and their skeleton is made of silicon dioxide. The scientists were able to measure the action potential (5s long, with 29s refractory period) and deduce this signal relies on potassium and calcium ions. Some scientists even suggest that sponges used to have a nervous system, but lost it during evolution – they introduced several hypothetical scenarios for this event, proposing that sponges lost their nervous system in order to focus on filtering.
For the next couple of weeks, I would like to write a bit about the evolution of the nervous system, from early nerve cells to the human nervous system and brain evolution. Alongside nervous I will also focus, to a lesser extent, on sensory systems. These posts will be published on my Instagram account, but I decided to publish them on the blog as well.
Mostly, these posts will be about various animals and the nerve systems they have – nerve nets, nerve cords, complete systems. The main process behind this is called cephalization, and it starts with the groupings of nerve cells and ganglia at one end of the body. After some (long) time, this process led to us having a head with sensory organs and a brain inside it.
But when did all of it start? It is kind of hard to say, for even single-celled organisms, such as bacteria, have voltage-gated channels and genes that support the theory of possible synaptic transmission. These channels are potassium (the oldest), calcium, and, rarely, sodium channels as well. Action potentials have been detected in some algae and diatoms, although their function is mostly unclear. In Chlamydomonas (unicellular green algae) on the other hand, potentials were detected in flagellums, which clearly suggest they play the part in the movement of the algae. Action potentials were also recorded in the cilia of some protists, such as Parmecium.
Of course, the exact evolutionary processes are unknown, and there is a possibility that these organisms acquired the mentioned features later than scientists now assume. It is also possible that some more evolved organisms, such as sponges, subsequently lost some of the features discussed here (more about this in the next week’s post).
This week, I would like to write about studying. My studying to be precise, and since I’m at the near of earning my Master’s degree, you would probably guess I know how to study. Well, wrong. Well, maybe a bit wrong. My studying, of literally anything, is greatly affected by my health – without getting into more detail, I have problems with concentration and sometimes memory, which is directly mirrored in my grades and ability to study. However, despite often feeling isolated and defeated, I try my hardest.
I was on my first year of Bachelor’s, when I realized things are not quite right. At first, I thought that it’s just stress and the fact I would rather study neuroscience then General Chemistry, so I casually started couple of courses on Coursera. To my shock and frustration, I soon realized that things are just not working out. Since then, I switched up and changed up my study styles numerous times; places where I study, times when I study, and how I study. One of the first things I did was try the famous pomodoro technique, but I modified it for longer intervals – I found that studying 45 -60 minutes with a break works better for me. This, of course, depends on the subject I’m studying. Have you tried this technique? What did you think about it?
Another thing that I always do, is having my headphones on – I simply focus better than when I have music blasting through normal speakers. Now, many people don’t recommend listening to music, or having a TV working in the background when studying, but to me, it has been proven to be most helpful. I usually like to put some Dick Wolf produced series in the background, no matter how many times I’ve already watched it, and start reading literature or writing notes. However, when I actively learn the material, I only like random noise, for which I use Noisli, a web site where you can make your own mixes of sounds (like fire, wind, thunder, train, rain…). This site saved me many times from my lack of attention. So, here are my top 5 tips for studying:
Writing things down
One of my high school teachers was a big fan of this method, claiming that if we write things down, we tend to remember them better. Whether is simply writing down main phrases & keywords, or making a mental maps, this type of studying and revising proved to be really helpful. Another thing I sometimes do is, instead of writing things down physically, is writing them on the PC, as shorten versions of book chapters, or upgraded versions of PowerPoint lectures (my professors love their PowerPoints). However, sometimes I don’t feel comfortable doing this when I have a large amount of material to study.
Mementos, short notes, and studying out loud
Instead of lengthily texts, I also like to write down phrases or draw illustrations on post-it notes; I use this as a revision method, where I shuffle them and explain the word or process out loud. I prefer this type of studying when I don’t have enough time, or have a lot of things to study. My trick is to use different colored papers for different subjects 🙂
Writing reminders or spelling out first letters for longer definitions and lists
I think this is an old trick, but I wanted to include it nevertheless. Instead of definitions and long lists, it’s a good idea to write down first letters or syllables, in order to remember them easier.
Watching videos
Watching YouTube videos has helped me more than once when struggling with the study materials. Sometimes I just don’t quite comprehend the wording (strictly technically speaking, English is my 3rd language) or I need a reminder of basics, without going through my dusty books from the first year. Videos are here to help and they often include very useful graphics that can help to visualize the material. My go-to channels are JJ Medicine, Crash Course, and Neuroscientifically Challenged. What are your favourite channels? 🙂
Explaining things to a friend/sibling/partner
This is very similar to the second point, studying out loud, but sometimes I require more practice. Studying groups are a good idea but sometimes, I just can’t make myself to get out of the apartment. In those cases, I try to explain the material to someone in my household (and who usually doesn’t listen to me, but that’s okay :)) – I try to do this by myself as well, when I’m preparing for an oral exam.
With time I realized that, before I even start studying, I always have a feeling like everything has to be perfect – I have to clean the room first, finish other assignments, eat lunch… My partner doesn’t. And that’s fine. We all study at different paces & places, and sometimes unforeseen circumstances can affect are studying and also grades. Many people struggle with illness, visible or otherwise, which can affect our performance – anxiety, headaches, insomnia… But the most important thing is to just keep going, give yourself enough breaks, and take care of your health. And since I’m publishing this in the midst of the pandemic, know that it’s perfectly okay if you don’t have any motivation or means to study right now! I know it’s easier said than done, but try not to stress too much and relax, if it’s possible.
I would also very much loved to hear about your studying tips & tricks – share them in the comments below! 🙂
*UPDATE: I was notified by a friend that, recently, Noisli put a daily limit for streaming. Also, I forgot to mention another useful app I use for studying, Forest – it functions in a way that you set a timer, and “grow” your virtual trees. I find it useful because the only way to leave the app is to stop the timer (and stop your tree from growing). It might sound trivial, but it helps me stay focused and not check my social media pages every other second.
Couple of weeks ago, as I was driving to classes, I saw a big billboard that showed couple of people and a word “FORTITUDE”. At first, I thought it was some kind of fantasy drama, but after looking it up, it turned out to be crime related TV show starring actors I like. And as a true crime buff who enjoys all crime related content, I decided to watch it. After all, if it stars Christopher Eccleston (the best Doctor Who) and Stanley Tucci, it must be great, right?
Well, not quite – there are parts of the series that I loved, especially ones regarding biology, despite some of them being naively incorrect. Other parts were not so well executed, but today I want to focus mainly on biology (obviously). Fortitude, the name of the show, is also a name of the imaginary town on an island in polar circle. As it is in small towns, they have a doctor, police force, one hotel, some houses, and many secrets. Oh, and research centre, of course!
In the first episode, we see a scene where hungry polar bear eats a person. Also, we are introduced to an ambitious post-doc whose research focuses on apex predators; he has a theory that due to environmental changes, predators change their behaviour and develop cannibalistic urges (yes, there was some talk about bear eating another bear). Also, they make a point of making fun of him because he researched that in Britain, where badgers are only the predators. I don’t know why was that supposed to be funny, because I’d rather encounter a wolf than a badger, but I decided to let that one slide. Another story-line follows two children, a boy and a girl, who find a mammoth tooth; this boy later develops mumps-like symptoms and frostbite on his feet (he wandered off); there is also a murder of The Ninth Doctor, and we are led to believe that the murderer was father of the girl who found the mammoth tooth. Why, you may ask? Because he didn’t want to surrender the thawed carcass but sell it to The Ninth. And due to global warming, the carcass has already started to thaw.
Now, that immediately rang a bell; old preserved animal, suspicious disease… Despite some lazy writing, I continued to watch the series, despite not being really satisfied with the direction of it; some of the characters were very well characterized, especially Richard Dormer’s Sheriff, but I generally dislike series where everyone is cheating on everyone with anyone – it feels as if writers think that’s the only way to induce tension and drama. Also, Sheriff’s obsession with one female character was a bit too much – this amount of stalking and re-reading her files is not normal and has no place in adult behaviour. And he’s kind off supposed to be a good guy in the end. I digress, because this post is about biology.
The aforementioned boy ends up first in the hospital, and then in the research centre where they are developing a method to treat frostbite. Not a lot has been said about this, so I can’t actually comment on it, apart from the fact that he’s being held sedated, in a tank, where it’s not exactly clear how they feed him (I haven’t noticed any openings for infusion pipes). Also, who’s caring for him in the research centre? Someone has to wash him and change him every day, but they made it a point that he’s not supposed to be woken up, due to frostbite pain. So, not exactly biology, but big mistake anyway.
Also, at one point, their only doctor is almost murdered (by her own daughter who developed symptoms similar to the boy and then died due to heart failure) and they have to preform a lumbar puncture on the boy. Again, why you may ask? Well, during the autopsy of murderous daughter, the post-doc and his veterinary boss discovered some molecules; some anti-bodies and IgE. And immediately they developed the theory that this was some different kind of disease that turns people into murderers. Which wouldn’t been such problems, apart that IgE’s are the common antibodies that could indicated allergy of some sort? And in their research lab, they don’t have electronic microscopes, which are used to see viruses? A mess. That’s the only word I can use to describe this plot jumps, a big headache-inducing mess. However, let’s go back to the lumbar puncture. Doctor, I presume general practitioner, is incapable of helping, since she’s basically on her death-bed. So a post-doc and his boss decide to do the lumbar puncture, because why not? (Hint: NO.) They do it perfectly, but before it, they ask the boy’s mother for permission, because lumbar puncture is painful. (Hint: It’s not! Headache that comes after is painful, but the puncture itself doesn’t actually hurt. Source: been there, done that.) Anyway, boy’s spinal fluid doesn’t show presence of whatever thing they were looking for, which de facto labels him a murderer of The Ninth Doctor (excuse me?), despite having positive anti-bodies in his blood, which indicated that he might have had that mysterious disease. My only comment is, no, it doesn’t work like that, and please everyone stop thinking that you understand immunology, especially when we have specialized doctors who spend their lives learning about our immune system.
Anyway, back to the mammoth carcass, and the rest of mammoths that are thawing on this island. I would just like to say that there are also some Russians involved in the whole story (they work in a mine), the Governor wants to make an ice hotel on a glacier (I’m not kidding – on. a. glacier.), and literally everyone has a secret and/or secret agenda.
Well, before mammoths, let’s talk about one thing they got right, and that’s IgE – it gives us immunity to various parasites. And as it turns out, the mammoths were infected, just not with a virus, but parasitic wasp. Basically, larvae survived in mammoths, and were now making humans their hosts – since they were as old as mammoths, the humans didn’t actually have some real defenses against them. This is also definitely confirmed after post-doc finds some live wasps in the doctor (he then sets the whole room on fire, in order not to get infected or allow the wasps to find new hosts – yes, he survives).
Ichneumonidae, also known as Darwin wasps, are indeed parasitic wasps with 25 000 described species. Honestly, I think they were a very good choice for the main bad guys in the series, and were quite well described. Basically, these wasps reproduce in a bit gruesome way – they lay their eggs into a living host, which is then eaten by newly-formed larvae. Apart from this family, there also exists another similar wasp, called Emerald cockroach wasp (Ampulex compressa). This wasp, of the family Ampulicidae, injects cockroaches with it’s eggs; the peculiarity is that the wasp also injects the cockroach with the toxin directly in thoracic and cerebral ganglia, which prevents cockroach to move, effectively turning it into a zombie. It was explained that this is what happened in the Fortitude as well, the wasp larvae have taken control of human bodies, and they turned on people closest to them, when they felt threatened.
Excuse me Sir, do you have time to help me search for cockroaches? (this is NOT an emerald wasp)
All in all, I wouldn’t call Fortitude’s first season exceptionally bad, but I wouldn’t exactly call it good. They had some excellent moments, and the mammoth-wasp story-line was, in my opinion, on point, but was often overshadowed by multiple story-lines that don’t necessary bring anything to the overall plot. If you want to watch something that doesn’t require a lot of thinking, and can overlook some of the obvious biological mistakes, I would recommend it. However, I think it’s time that filmmakers educate themselves, or ask for help, when tackling topics they don’t quite understand. (I read on Wikipedia that the writer did consult a parasitologist, which is probably why that part of the story functioned well; I don’t know why they didn’t do it for the other aspects of biology in the show.)
So, what do you think? Should we focus more on biology being correctly represented in popular media? Did you watch Fortitude – if yes, what did you think about it? Let me know in the comments below! 🙂
Hello everyone, and welcome to my new post! Yes, I’ve decided to try and write more often, and this time I will do a bit of self-promotion. As you may, or may not, know, I love watching movies – I think they are great past-time and I find them relaxing. Lately, I have had some troubles concentrating for more than an hour, but for now I would like to think that’s because I wasn’t choosing good movies to begin with. What does that have anything to do with neuroscience?
Well, apart from writing this blog, I also write and edit for Gyrus Journal. Gyrus is student journal of neuroscience, where we write review articles about different topics: basic neuroscience, neurology, neurosurgery, and psychiatry. I have written some articles, and if you stumble across them, don’t judge me too hard – they are meant to teach us how to search databases, cite, and write in English, since our mother-tongue is Croatian. I feel very fortunate to be a part of this journal, since it helped me a lot in understanding of many scientific terms in English language, primary language of science; it also helped me to learn how to communicate with my authors, as well as how to dissect a topic I’m supposed to write/edit about. Of course, we also have reviewers, wonderful professors and scientists from University of Zagreb, who do the last editing before publication. (I would just like to say that we didn’t have reviewers from the very beginning, hence why some of the earlier articles perhaps lack in quality.) Lately, we have been struggling a bit with latest editions, but started to publish articles online – you can access them all on the link above. You can also follow us on Facebook page as well as Twitter!
A cover photo of Gyrus Journal
In Gyrus Journal, you will also find shorter articles and movie&book reviews, where title of this post finally comes in play! So far, I have written five movie reviews, with three still waiting to be published. For my first one, I picked the obvious choice: Memento (2000) by Christopher Nolan. Apart from being one of my favourite movies in general, I think it truthfully portrays anterograde amnesia.
In addition to portraying Leonard’s fragile mental state that makes us question not only his current objectives, but also whether his recollections of past are reliable, or simply figments of his imagination and almost fatalistic wishes, Memento is different in comparison with other films of similar genre, simply because it truthfully portrays the slow agony of losing the principal neurobiological process – a human memory.
The second review I did was about movie that might not seem so obvious, but was quite intriguing: Side Effects (2013) starring Rooney Mara and Catherine Zeta-Jones. This movie also has a crime aspects but it deals with the psychiatric illness, for which we don’t know, until the very end, if it’s real or faked.
Although dealing with semi-real thesis, the question still remains how the movie influenced real world cases. Did it help with recognizing the ones feigning the illness, or just put extra strain on the patients dealing with the illness that is already under deep historical stigma? Regardless of being the rather entertaining thriller, we are left wondering whether the movie deepened the negative view of the various psychiatric illnesses in the general public.
Three, still unpublished, reviews are:
100 Minutes of Glory (in Croatian) – a biopic about famous Croatian painter Slava Raškaj, who was born deaf, suffered from depression, and lived her last days in Psychiatric hospital “Vrapče”. In Croatian, title of the movie is also a wordplay on Croatian word “slava”, her name; it’s literal translation to English is “glory”
A Different Brain – famed documentary by Loius Theroux; it follows four patients who suffered through some sort of traumatic brain injury and consequences it brings
Still Alice – movie that earned Julianne Moore an Academy Award for Best Actress, Still Alice is a touching but often times difficult story about a woman with early onset Alzheimer’s Disease
What about you? Do you like watching movies – which ones are your favourite? If you watched any of these, please tell me what you think! I would love to discuss movies with you & I’m really interested what you watch in your free time 🙂
I hope you liked part 1 of my biospeleology field trip in Slovenia, because here is part 2! Here I write about other days & share the rest of my experiences.
Day 5
The day started with making some spreadsheets and entering coordinates for various water springs. After that, we visited the Rivčja jama again, but unfortunately we found no Proteus (or anything else for that matter) in our traps. However, we found a very narrow entrance to the other part of the cave, aaaaand I got stuck. Like properly can’t-move-in-any-direction stuck. Most of you who never visited a cave probably wonder what kind of feeling that was. I don’t have a straight answer for that, since it’s more a range of emotions being experienced all at once; I wouldn’t describe it neither as panic nor fear, although parts of that were present. It was more a desperation that I’m not strong enough to wiggle out, mixed with frustration and adrenaline rush. I didn’t feel claustrophobia, but that feeling might sometimes be present as well. In the end, I managed to drag myself up that hole, and enter another part of the cave. Tjaša went even further, to my amazement, but I stayed back with Ester & Eva and collected as many pieces of another fox skeleton I could. This was was almost hole, but I only took few limb bones, skull, jaw bones, and vertebrate. *expect a video about it soon
After this ordeal, we went back to swimming in beautiful Krka and went back to school for quasi picnic (a barbecue on the school meadow).
Inside of the cave
Day 6
Day six was day off; Bruno, Paula, and me went to Ljubljana and visited huge mall complex. Why? Because they have Whoop!, a trampoline park. In our defense, we were not the only adults there. After an hour, we went on our merry way to Burger King, and then a bit of shopping around. The most important thing I bought were hiking shoes. Paula helped me choose a pair (she specializes in orientation running, so knows a great deal about it), and they are pretty neat. But why Emina, why didn’t you already have ones? Well… That’s a long story, but I never had to walk this much before, and didn’t have to constantly change from my boots to rubber ones. So yes, before buying this pair, made for walking around in the forest, I wore my black combat shoes, with metal caps. One boot weighs almost 1 kg, so you can imagine how easy I suddenly walked everywhere. Just a note, specialized shoes exist for a reason.
Wasp spider, Argiope bruennichi, in the grass
Day 7
On this particular day, I was on duty. I already wrote what that means, and it was exactly like that – preparing breakfast and making lunch&dinner. Nothing interesting happened, after my group returned we talked a little bit where they went, some determination of specimens happened, and we also had another lecture, about climate strike.
It me
If you look closely, you can se Colembola sp.
Day 8
This day was special because we were joined by Teo. I think he was Ester’s mentor for her Master’s thesis, but I’m not sure. In any case, Teo is an achieved biospeleologist and obviously knows a lot. First cave we visited, Jama pod Gradom, was nice, but I honestly don’t remember much, apart from the fact that we were walking around for kilometer or two, before realizing we parked in front of it. The second one, Blatna jama v Šici, was, to me, quite a difficult one. We spent more than 2 hours inside, climbed up, and down, and up and down, we crawled, and had to use the before-installed rope in order to pass some sections (not with equipment, just good old hold-the-rope and walk really closely to the rock). Well, the fact these were old lead to the unfortunate fact that Bruno fell in the water, after part of the rope tore. I wish I caught it on the video, but, by then, my camera was already completely out. We did caught quite a lot of Proteus, and I honestly didn’t realize how big they can sometimes be. *I have to check, but if the footage is salvageable, you can expect some kind of video
In the evening, I did some more determination with Anja & Tjaša.
Did you know spiders can also live in the caves?
Day 9
First cave (Vodna jama pod Zijalom) was flooded, so we were hanging out in the front, trying to catch some more Niphargus (them) or taking videos (me). Then, we went back to Velika jama pod Trebnjem, the first one we visited and where we laid traps for infamous Leptodirus. Unfortunately, we found nothing, every trap was empty. Of course, we went back, and then some of us went looking for bats with bat group. This catch-mark-release activity has taken place a bit further from the school, near the small pond. The pond which also connected to a cave system, but had no entrance big enough for us to go in. So, two wild-life cameras were put up, as the word from the village was that at night, Proteus came out to play, um feed? Swim? Enjoy the moonlight? I’m still not sure, but next day I was told that they were captured on video. All-together, 23 bats were caught, with 10 different species being noted, which is a lot. Like huge, because when we first started, the bat group was optimistic with the estimate of “maybe 10 bats, and maybe 3 species”. I didn’t handle any bat, because 1. I don’t know how and 2. I have a perfectly rational fear of rabies.
Niphargus sp under the microscope
Tick in the tube
Day 10
No caves today! I switched, and spent the day with amphibian group. And since it was the last day, we mostly chilled. We did try to visit one pond, but it turned out it doesn’t exist. The second one was actually really close to the cave I visited previously (Pekel pri Kopanju), and there we found quite a lot of frogs (all stages) and salamanders. Honestly, they looked really cute too! Afterwards, we went to Krka for quite a long time (*and quite a nice footage!). For dinner we actually had a whole dinner&party, but I had to miss that one due to migraine.
Salamanders everywhere!
A blue beauty
Last day was un-adventurous, we packed, ate a lot at McDonalds, and finally arrived home. And I’m looking forward to going again. I would like to say a big thank you to Ester, Tjaša, Anja, Eva, Teo, and Živa, as well as our organizers.
Finally, I write about this astonishing field trip which has taken part from 17th to 27th July this year in Ivančna Gorica, a small town south of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Me and Bruno were part of biospeleology group, and my friend Paula, who was the only other participant from Croatia, was a part of reptile group. Paula has a nice Instagram page about biology as well. This camp, organized by student’s biology group from Ljubljana is very popular with students from the ex-YU countries, and this year there were also colleagues from France. Also, being a biology student is not a must, we had humanities student as well.
A detail from one of the caves
How does the camp work?
First, you have to apply; you can choose between three groups (my choices: biospeleology, reptiles, botany) and with the application you pay the 93€ fee that includes breakfast and dinner every day and driving around during the camp. When there, we sleep in our sleeping bag in the gym of the nearby school. Breakfast is every day 7-8.30am, and dinner was usually 4pm+. There was also one rest day (during which us three went to Ljubljana) and one day when couple of us were on duty – we were cleaning and cooking for that day.
One group usually consisted of 5 members, and every day we went out to field, trying to find caves or catch some cave dwelling insect.
Our place in the school gym
We travelled, you guessed it, by train. I have already mentioned 9€ one-way-ticket from Zagreb to Ljubljana, and then we went to Ivančna Gorica, that ticket was around 3€. The way back was almost the same, with the difference we went by bus to Ljubljana, since there were no trains at that part of the day.
How was my experience?
Honestly, I would really like to go again next year, but honestly I don’t know how I made it. I was not in a shape I should have been, I had migraines, I got stuck, I had very suspicious bruises and I strongly disliked walking around under sun.
How many caves I visited?
Number of caves: 9
Total number of cave visits: 11
Number of water springs visited: 4
I also spent one evening with bat group & one day with amphibians group.
Me, before first cave visit, unaware what was waiting for me
A short summary of my days in Slovenia
Day 1
We met other members of the group: Ester, group leader, Tjaša and Eva. Anja was also part of our group, but she joined us couple of days later. Apart from going to the field, every evening we were supposed to try and determine our specimens we collected in caves, label them, and fill out special documents about our visit (who, when, why, where, what was collected and how).
We also prepared live traps for small insects. The traps we made consisted of putting tuna fish with gorgonzola in small tubes and closing them off with cotton pads. The insect we were trying to catch was Leptodirus hochenwartii, member of Coleoptera, the only beetle that lives in the caves. This species is endemic to Slovenian, Croatian, and Italian caves. For other creatures we had prepared small tubes filled with 70% ethanol which we held in the pockets of our overalls, together with pincers.
One live trap, buried in the ground – it also needs to be covered with a big rock.
Day 2
Frist cave we visited was Velka jama nad Trebnjem. The way up to the cave was steep and exhausting; it was very hot & moist in the forest. However, I took my camera with me, and took many pictures. I was surprised how many invertebrates live there, since Croatian caves I visited were almost completely empty. However, these animals are not usually found in the caves, here they are living kind of opportunistically, since the cave was also filled with garbage. We set up the traps for Leptodirus, and went back. We had a small lunch next to our car, and then went to the cave number two, called Rojska jama 2. We had GPS coordinates, but Ester was sure they are wrong (they were), so we asked a local villager for help. He kindly led us to the cave entrance, where we suited up, and in we went. The cave was quite interesting, we spent an hour or so inside. After we returned, mr. villager welcomed us back with home-baked strudels and soda. It was honestly, very nice. We also visited two water springs, and went back to the school. After dinner, Ester taught us how to fill out the papers I mentioned, and we tried to the best of our ability, determine all the specimens. The most important we had to discern were small freshwater crabs called Niphargus and Gammarus. The main difference is that Gammarus have eyes, and we really wanted to collect the other one.
Caves were usually full of these grasshoppers, and they were scary huge!
Day 3
During day three, we visited one cave, Pekel pri Kopanju. We did find some cool animals, like Colembolas, but our trip was short, since main channel was full of tree branches and garbage. We tried visited the cave number two, but soon realized that we would need a 40m rope to climb down, so we gave up on that. We also visited two water springs, and headed back earlier, since one of the mentors had a lecture about global warming. After that, back to determination. We found some Niphargus (yay!), Gammarus (fine), and rat-tailed maggots. What are those, you wonder? Those are the larvae of certain species of hoverflies. What are hoverflies, you wonder? Those are flies that pretend to be wasps.
The great pretender
Day 4
This day was tough for me, we walked 5-6km on the trails and through the woods, but we also visited three caves! First two (Dolnja vodena jama & Antokov skedenj) were close one to another and extremely spacious inside. I roamed around with my action cam (results were so-so, not enough light) and Bruno and me found a bunch of Niphargus in one puddle. I also saw some fox bones, and Ester was kind enough to fetch them for me! The third cave (Rivčja jama) was the one we visited three times all together and was really interesting. The walk towards it is around 1km on the forest trail, next to beautiful river Krka. The entrance to the cave is enormous – I would use the phrase “you need to be blind not to see it”, but that’s incorrect – even from the trail you can feel temperature drop and the specific smell of cave air.And this cave had bats. Bunch of bats (Myotis myotis), and they were loud, much louder than people would expect. We climbed up, on mountains of their poop, in order to take pictures, and the temperature soared at least 10 degrees there. Afterwards, we went through a narrow passage (here I took neat footage) and tried to catch some Proteus anguinus, the olm (I wrote about them here!). These traps were different, since they live in the water. We also tried to lure them with pet cookies (can’t remember if it was cat or dog food, sorry!).
After all this, we went swimming in Krka, water was around 15 degrees, but it was so nice and relaxing. The river is truly beautiful, and I would like for everyone to experience this kind of nature at least once in their life.
The only not-blurry photo of me in the cave
End of part 1
I hope you liked this not-so-short overview of my time in this summer camp, part two will be up soon. Please tell me what you liked the most and about what would you like me to write more! I would like to thank all of you who read this, thank you for time and attention!
Hi everyone, if you follow me on Twitter and/or Instagram, you have probably already seen my pictures from Vienna this last weekend. However, I would like to share a bit more, and write about it too!
At Saturday at 3.30 in the morning, my sister & me boarded the bus in Varaždin, and started our one-day adventure. Our destination? Vienna, capital of Austria! With the trip we booked through Galileo Travel came scenic sightseeing of the city, and a visit to Schönnbrun castle, but we skipped that and with U4 headed directly to city centre, Schwedenplatz more correctly. After short breakfast in McDonald’s (I know, I know), we headed to Natural History Museum. On the way there, we took some typical tourist pictures, in front of Stephan’s Cathedral, at Hofburg… And then we finally reached NHM.
Me in front of Stephen’s Cathedral
Me next to big cave mineral 😉
I’ve visited the museum two times before, but my enthusiasm was still through the roof. Firstly, the museum is huge. Permanent exhibition spans two floors and numerous specimens. Roughly divided, first floor is mineralogy and second floor is dedicated to zoology. I took some pictures, which I will share with you, but I didn’t take my camera; everything is taken with my Huawei mobile phone.
Student’s entrance fee is only 7€ (~8$), and taking photographs is allowed. The whole museum is, honestly, overwhelming. I have never before seen so many specimens at once place. My sister, who visited it for the first time, often commented that a building itself could be a museum, due to it’s rich, ornate walls. First floor is, like I already mentioned, full of minerals. I don’t have much interest for them, but I made me think about how old our planet is, and what makes it. Also, one of the rooms is completely dedicated to jewellery, both modern and historic.
The floor dedicated to zoology was full of models and real specimens of animals around us, as well as evolutionary artifacts. As is common, first rooms were dedicated to invertebrates, building it’s way up to vertebrate groups. I was particulary amazed by the size of dinosaur bones – no matter how many times I see it on the TV, or visit this museum, I stand in awe in front of them.
Unfortunately, due to morning sun, I wasn’t able to capture nice photographs of invertebrate collections, but trust me when I say those are so beautiful. Everything is o neat and organized that, since then, I’ve been toying with idea of collecting my own specimens. There are also rooms dedicated to fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds… Those are usually held in special containers or stuffed. There are also many skeletons on display on the walls. With dinosaurs, there were also animatronic models, which both excited and frightened children in the museum.
Latimeria chalumnae, a living fossil!
There is also a separate room dedicated to evolution of human. I already posted that interesting picture where an app transformed me into an early human, but in this part of the museum, you can see many different skulls belonging to Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo habilis… I consider this part of the exhibition very important, especially in today’s time, when so much misinformation is present on the Internet.
Another important historic specimen is Venus of Willendorf figurine, which is dated to 30 000 years BC.
Venus of Willendorf
What would you like to see, if you could go to Natural History Museum in Vienna? Would you like me to write about something in more details?
Please let me know in the comments 🙂
Many of you might not know this, but I was (and still am) a big fan of metal music. I included word “heavy” in the title, but I actually prefer doom, melodic death, death, some black metal and also gothic/love metal. What does this have to do with biology? Well, many bands use animal imagery in their music videos or album art, with some of them being really interesting.
Of course, there are many that are obvious (Powerwolf, anyone?), and some animals are used more than others (crows, snakes). However, I wanted to see which animals dominate the heavy metal world, and which bands, that are usually not connected to such artwork, would use it.
Now, I would very much like to include these album covers in this post, but they are copyrighted and I’m not 100% sure I can do that, so if you’re not already familiar with the covers, I would kindly ask you to use a search engine, or links I’ll provide to each cover.
Paradise Lost
A doom/gothic/synth-pop band from the United Kingdom, Paradise Lost often uses biological motifs in their album art (Medusa, 2017; Tragic Illusion 25, 2013; Tragic Idol, 2012), but I would like to focus on the art that dominates the picture – in this case, we have Symbol of Life (released in 2002), its single Erased, and Believe in Nothing (2001).
Symbol of Life and Erased are, at least to me, very interesting album covers. Yes, the animal in question is a snake, but it’s an x-ray of a snake. Now, I don’t know which species, or even a family, but I’m pretty sure it’s a snake. I don’t know how these photos were made, but are really special and distinct. For a better view, you can visit this blog. Erased is done in a very similar way, only with different coloring scheme. The animal theme is also presen in the music video for the single – there are scenes of a cougar and something that I believe is Thompson gazelle (I might be wrong on this one). I don’t know in which ecosystem could these two ever meet, outside of Paradise Lost video.
Believe in Nothing cover is simply straightforward: it’s a picture of bees. To be more precise, it’s a picture of a honey queen bee surrounded with bee workers. I will go out on the limb and say the species is probably Apis mellifera, Western honey bee.
Katatonia
Another one of my favourites, Katatonia and their dark melodies have adopted a bird from the Corvus genus as a motif that often appears on their album artworks (Dead End Kings, 2012; Tonight’s Decision, 1999). They were also the main focus of one of the earliest Katatonia’s albums, Brave Murder Day (1996), and latest, The Fall of Hearts (2016). Just by looking at these, I honestly can’t tell if it’s a crow, raven, or something in-between, but it does compliment Katatonia’s music perfectly.
Insert random lyric about crows, ravens, or E. A. Poe
To me, Opeth always had interesting, dark album covers, but two caught my attention – art for their debut album Orchid (1995) and Sorceress (2016). For Orchid, the artwork is, you guess it, orchids; apparently the pink flowers on the cover were ordered from the Netherlands. Sorceress is a different story – it shows a peacock with blood dripping out of his beak. This might seem odd, since most people, including me, always picture birds as eating seeds, but peafowls (name that includes male and female individuals, and three species) are actually omnivores, and their diet can include insects and even small reptiles.
Satyricon
Satyricon is a black metal band, with different sounds, and with that, different artwork. Some animal species, however, still remain!
On the cover of Nemesis Divina (1996) is a bird of prey, which one, I honestly can say. It could be a falcon, or a hawk, I have to admit that my bird knowledge is weak. Volcano (2002) album cover is kind of simplistic – in the main view, we have a head of a snake. At first, it looked to me like a python, but I actually believe it’s a boa, Boa constrictor even. For their 7th album, The Age of Nero (2008) they went back to their raptor roots and choose… Some kind of eagle?
Gojira is a death/progressive metal band famous for often including environmental themes in their songs. Their album From Mars to Sirius (2005) is completely dedicated to these issues, and as such, has a very nice album art, with the drawing of a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) being a centerpiece.
Slipknot
A heavy metal from Iowa, Slipknot chose a goat for the cover of the 2001 album titles Iowa. These kind of imagery is usually used by black metal bands (see honourable mentions, also Baphomet), but in this case, I think it works nicely.
science-pit.blog 