Congratulations to Areej Alansari who successfully defended her MSc proposal today.  A big step in her Master’s studying navigation behaviour in freshwater snails.  All the more impressive since both the written proposal and presentation were in her second language.

I am both honoured and excited to have been offered a James Research Chair to start in July 2018.  Two years of halved teaching load will be a big boost to the Wyeth Lab!  I am looking forward to the opportunity to expand existing research projects and hopefully building some collaborations as well.  Most of all I am excited at the chance to involve more students in the Wyeth Lab.

Congratulations to Hannah Stevens and Alexa Nicholson – 2017 Biology award winners for academic achievement.  Alexa was working so hard on her classes, she missed the award banquet!

Welcome to both Alexa, the newest directed study student in the lab, and Theora who has rejoined the lab as a volunteer after graduation.

This one was more than 5 years in the making before publication in the Journal of Comparative Neurology.  Jimmy Thomson got us started, labelling neurotransmitters in the central nervous system of Hermissenda, and then Marissa Webber followed up with tons more labelling and then an amazing effort in cataloging all the labelled neurons.  Highlights were establishing that some neurotransmitters are considerably more variable between animals than others, and that one specific neurotransmitter (GABA) was not where it was supposed to be (it was missing from the statocysts – the balance organs).  You can read the (free) reprint to get our full explanation of that crazy result.  Thanks also to Roger Croll and Johnny Buckland-Nicks for help along the way.
DOI: 10.1002/cne.24286

M.Sc. Position in Toxicology of Lobster Behaviour

IMPORTANT:  THIS POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED

Interested in aquatic animal behaviour or applied research in toxicology or estuarine restoration?  Interested in building expertise in a range of techniques, including field work with SCUBA, semi-automated video analysis of behavioural experiments, and contaminant tissue analyses?

Dr. Russell Wyeth and Dr. Jim Williams in Biology at St. Francis Xavier University (StFX) are accepting applications for an MSc student position to start Jan 1, 2018.  This position is fully funded ($18,000 x 2 years), and tuition support is also possible.

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A new Wyeth Lab group photo, celebrating our new t-shirt and new website!

Great to see so many Wyeth Lab students, current and past, helping put on the truly impressive World Ocean Day program organized by Reg Cozzi and Leah Rogers of the StFX Biology Dept.