Dinoflagellates

Meet Josh Kurz, who you heard featured on the Podcast of Life Dinoflagellates episode. We asked him a few questions about his work. Do you have a question you'd like answered? Submit your question here!

Where do you work?

My work location alternates between sitting in front of my computer and roaming around out in the field (sometimes literally).

What do you study?

I am an independent radio producer and filmmaker. I spend a lot of time asking scientists to repeatedly explain to me what they do so I can then explain it to other people.

What are three titles you would give yourself?

Mediocre singer, want to-be scientist, cilantro disliker

What do you like to do when you are not working?

I trawl the internet looking for interesting things. That or I think about how I should be working.

What do you like most about science?

Asking questions. Why does cilantro taste like soap? How big can lobsters get? Who can change color better chameleons or cuttlefish? My job allows me to ask the people that actually know the answers to these questions. Usually I find out I’m wrong about all sorts of things - which is exciting to me.

About the Higher Mammals Music Troupe

Higher Mammals is a music troupe whose specialty is in the music of science often times manifested as a science musical. Masters of Stercus-taurology they use their opposable thumbs and large neo-cortexes to sing about everything from crustaceans to bio-engineers. The troupe is lead by musical director and composer, Shane Winter, who is also an accomplished biped. More about higher mammals can be found at highermammals.com . Their latest music video on Stochasticity (or randomness) can be found here.

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Here you will find intriguing extras our producers weren't able to fit  into the Dinoflagellates podcast:

Podcast Challenge

Remember our mystery animal from our last podcast? Did you guess it was a dinoflagellate? View our image gallery to see what our listeners drew based on our students’ descriptions.

Pictures courtesey of La Salle Academy in Providence, Rhode Island, USA and the Eliot K-8 School in Boston, Massachusetts, USA

About the Higher Mammals Music Troupe

Higher Mammals is the music troupe featured on our Dinoflagellates podcast. Their specialty is in the music of science often times manifested as a science musical. Masters of Stercus-taurology they use their opposable thumbs and large neo-cortexes to sing about everything from crustaceans to bio-engineers. The troupe is lead by musical director and composer, Shane Winter, who is also an accomplished biped. More about higher mammals can be found at highermammals.com . Their latest music video on Stochasticity (or randomness) can be found here.

Cool facts:

View dozens of dinoflagellate images on the main dinoflagellate page at the Encyclopedia of Life.

Scientists have sequenced the genome of Alexandrium tamarense, the dinoflagellate responsible for red tides and illness in humans.

Links:

The Bioluminescence web page at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has instructions for growing your own glowing dinoflagellates at home. Once your colony is thriving, the site has some simple experiments you can do. Or just shake the jar and enjoy your living night light.

Maria Faust of the National Museum of Natural History has been imaging dinoflagellates with a scanning electron miscroscope.  The text here may be a little technical, but we think the jaw-dropping images are worth a look.

Dinoflagellates don’t fossilize well, but their resting form, called a cyst, does. These microfossils show up in the fossil record way back in the Silurian—400 million years ago, way before the dinosaurs. You can view a gallery of fossil dinoflagellates at paleoportal.org.

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