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.