by Afishionado | Dec 24, 2024 | Industry
For many years, I have been advocating for local fish stores. They are the backbone of our industry and we need them desperately to get people what they need in a pinch, to see corals, to receive advice and help in emergencies, and to see fish in person before making... by Ellery Wong | Jul 20, 2024 | Reef, Travel
My recent family vacation was to Miami, Florida. As with every family vacation, I added as many aquatic destinations to the itinerary as I could. The Phillip & Patricia Frost Museum of Science has been a place I have wanted to visit, especially because my fellow... by Scott Fellman | May 8, 2023 | Corals
Undescribed fluorescent Palythoa species photographed along the shoreline of PortMiami. We are happy to announce the publication of a scientific paper analyzing the presence and potency of palytoxin (PLTX) in Palythoa spp. and Zoanthus spp. Zoantharians conducted by the Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography and Coral Biome in Marseilles, France. PLTX is one of the most potent toxins known on the planet. It is an extremely large and complex organic compound that has been described by biochemists as the ‘Mt. Everest of organic synthesis’. An organism that naturally produces large amounts of PLTX is of great importance for research scientists to better understand its pharmacology. PLTX has been found to have toxic effects on head and neck tumors, and therefore warrants further pharmaceutical investigation. Initially, this compound was blue-prospected in Hawaii where native Hawaiian people used the the mucous of Palythoa found in a very specific (and taboo) tide pool (known as limu-make-o-Hana, the ‘seaweed of death of Hana’) to coat their spear points before battle. So taboo was this tide pool for outsiders, that when scientists sampled the Palythoa in 1961, they found their lab burned to the ground on the same day. A reminder to scientists to respect native wisdom, culture, and practices when performing science on other cultures’ land! In this paper we found that an undescribed species (Palythoa aff. clavata) we sampled from PortMiami in 2012 was found to have five times the concentration of the notorious Hawaiian species Palythoa toxica. The experiment also tried to determine whether PLTX was produced by symbiotic microbial symbionts / zooxanthellae, or by the organism itself. Highest concentrations of PLTX were found within the tissue itself, and isolated cultures of zooxanthellae from these polyps failed to produce PLTX in the laboratory. This suggests, but does not confirm, that the Palythoa polyps themselves are producing this toxin. While the mechanism of its biosynthesis remains unknown, it highlights how Miami’s urban marine environs hold important scientific discoveries still waiting to be uncovered. Read the paper – ‘Symbiodiniaceae diversity and characterization of palytoxin in various zoantharians (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia)’ – below: Palythoa-Paper-Sawelew-et-al-2022 Tags: Coral Morphologic, Mediterranean Institute of Oceanography, Palythoa, Palytoxin, Zoanthus This entry was posted on Thursday, April 21st, 2022 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Miami, Natural History, Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. by Tony Vargas | May 3, 2022 | Events
Miami aka Coral City. Coral Morphologic will be proudly representing Miami’s underwater denizens at the inaugural Aspen Ideas: Climate conference, May 9-12 with a nightly showing of our film Coral City Fluorotour on the New World Center’s wallcast and speaking on the panel “The Ocean is a Climate Superhero.” The morning of Wednesday, May 11th Colin will join Swati Thiyagarajan and Barton Seaver in conversation on how the ocean is poised to be a hero in the fight against climate change, with natural systems that help undo the damage human activity has caused. Wallcast showings of Coral City Fluorotour follow the evening speaking sessions, beginning at 8pm, and are free and open to the public. For more information, programming, and to obtain passes, please visit www.aspenideasclimate.org A still from Coral City Fluorotour. Fluorescent staghorn coral at the Coral City Camera site. Tags: Aspen Ideas: Climate, Coral City, Coral City Fluorotour, Coral Morphologic, Miami Beach, New World Center, New World Symphony, The Aspen Institute This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 26th, 2022 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Art, Live, Miami, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. by Admin | Nov 10, 2021 | Corals, SPS, Video
We are proud to present Coral City Flourotour, our first short film in 3 years, and our first in-ocean filming project using techniques developed in the CM lab / studio
