Brigham’s Cultural Corner – Who lives in a pineapple
under the sea?
Education
comes from the strangest sources. My kids and I were watching a Spongebob
Squarepants DVD last night; we learned from one of the show's producers that
you can take a living sponge, put it in a blender, cut it all up so that it is
suspended in the liquid, and it will reconstitute itself into a new, living
sponge. (Something like this happens to Spongebob every now and then.) Doing a
quick check on the Internet confirmed this, to me, amazing fact:
"Sponges
are sedentary aquatic animals that have been the focus of attention for some
time. In 1907 HV Wilson did an experiment famous in immunological circles. He
cut up a sponge and strained the pieces to make a single cell suspension in a
glass bottle. He then observed that as the cells settle onto the bottom of the
bottle, they start to move around and when they come into contact with another
cell they will attach to each other. They eventually clump together and if left
for several days the cells will reconstitute themselves into several new, fully
functioning sponges (Hmm, now which horror movie did I see that happen in?).
Next he took two sponges from different species, mashed them up and mixed the
cells of the two together. Left to their own devices the cells will settle and
migrate around looking for other cells. However, the cells will only attach to
other cells from the same individual. If two cells, one from each sponge come
into contact with each other they are immediately repelled and move away from
each other. The eventual result is lots of little sponges, some entirely
composed of cells from one donor and other sponges composed of cells entirely
from the second donor. The donor cells do not mix and will not function
together. So sponges, like protozoans are able to differentiate between
different species."
As I
said, education comes from the strangest places. You came here expecting to
learn about rugby club logistics and go away knowing something about marine
biology.
I
would be amiss, however, if I didn't liken Wilson's sponge experiment to rugby.
Think about an after-match party. We're all rugby players, but from different
clubs. While there is some fraternization going on, most of the time, like
sponges, we tend to clump and gather into like cells. In this way rugby players
are like single-cell protozoans - a fact which has not escaped the notice of
bar-owners and park administrators.