The journal “Zebrafish” has published an interested how-to article with very practical applications for researchers getting their feet wet using zebrafish as a model organism. The article is titled “Modular, Easy-To-Assemble, Low-Cost Zebrafish Facility”, by Kim et al. (Zebrafish. 2009 September; 6(3): 269–274).

TheThe PubMed entry for this article includes the following abstract from the authors:

“We have constructed a standalone, modular, low-cost water recirculation zebrafish facility in our laboratory. This is easy to maintain and will take only approximately $500 and a half a day to build an 80-tank module. The system described here will be useful to even investigators who are new to zebrafish aquaculture.”

Having worked in a zebrafish facility that started out with, literally, 20 fish or so, I’m excited this article was published. Researchers who want to built their own zebrafish facility shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Find the article directly from the publisher here. Or through pubmed: PMID 19694524

The Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting is being held in Chicago this year, and yesterday it kicked off with over 29.000 attendees. Most likely, the total number of neuroscientists working on all areas of the brain will climb to over 30.000 over the next few days.

The conference kicked off with a wonderful, and rather unexpected dialogue between Neuroscience and Society: “Magic, the Brain, and the Mind”. Real magicians took the stage, and wowed the audience with their extraordinary ability to fool our minds and divert our attention. Apollo Robbins, and Eric Mead took the stage, and our attention, away from some of the excellent “hard science” being discussed at this meeting as well.

An entertaining start for sure, and got us focused on the fact that there is still a lot about the brain, consciousness, and awareness, that we need to explore.

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