Say What?

I survived my first day of class. This is quite an accomplishment considering I haven't been in class for over a year. Not only that, we have one 3-credit course that has been compressed into 6 days of lectures - about 6 hours per day. To top it off, the course is "Marine Ecology of the Gulf of Aqaba." What?! I haven't taken a real science class (chemistry) since my Freshman year of college, and I haven't taken a biology class since my Freshman year of high school...ouch. (Let's just say there's a reason I decided not to go to med school.)

Am I really supposed to know what zooxanthellae is? For all you curious minds: zooxanthellae are unicellular algae living inside the tentacles of corals, and they provide the host (the coral) with energy obtained through photosynthesis. Whew. What have I gotten myself into?

I can't say that I imagined that I would every learn anything more about marine biology than knowing that, say, a dolphin is a mammal, but coral reefs are actually really interesting and their survival has important implications on our future. Don't get me wrong, being talked at for so long can leave one brain dead, but I think I might like what I'm learning.

Not only do we have the laboratory (the Gulf of Aqaba or the Gulf of Eilat) practically in our backyard, but coral reefs are the "sexy" thing to be studying right now as far as marine ecology goes. There is all sorts of new and ongoing research being done in the field. Apparently the journal "Nature" just published an article that some corals have the ability to change sexes - research suggests that a particular coral released sperm at one point and at a later date released eggs. Who would have thought?

One of my favorite parts of class, though, was probably when were told that our final exam would be an "American exam" aka a multiple choice test. It is times like this that make me proud to be an American.

Oh, and if you're interested in other great biology terms, I have a stack of note cards sitting on my desk just waiting to be memorized...

- M