Neurotoxins In Stranded Squid (With Bonus Rant About Academic Publishing) - Science 2

octobot

Robotic Staff
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Robotic Staff
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Meanwhile, Group #2, consisting of Heather Elizabeth Braid, Jonathan Deeds, Stacey Lea DeGrasse, John James Wilson, Josephine Osborne, and Robert Harland Hanner, were studying a bunch of squid from the other end of the strandings, up on Vancouver Island. Like us, they checked the stomach contents and tested the body tissues for domoic acid, but they also looked for another thing: paralytic shellfish toxin (PST). Actually, there's a whole posse of PSTs, from saxotoxin to gonyautoxin. These folks tested for the lot.

If I am not mistaken, this is OUR Heather, now doing PhD work in NZ
 
Interesting research. Domoic acid poisoning affects sea lions in a variety of ways, it never really occurred to me that it was affecting invertebrates too. Sad that fetal exposure in sea lions affects them as adults. When I worked in rehabilitation, the pregnant females were often the ones that were affected the most. We always tried to save the babies (sometimes we succeeded), but it is sad to think that we could have saved ones that were going to be affected by seizures later in life. Having seizures on land is one thing, but having a seizure while swimming in the ocean can be disastrous.
 

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