Zebra Fish

Windows are closed,
the only sounds to hear are
from the open door.

I've never really been the scientific type, but even I found this interesting.
We met a fellow down here by the name of Fabian...

Fabian, of Cuenca-Ecuador, got his Pharmacology PhD. in Belgium.

He never became a pharmacist, though;

opting instead to work at the University in the Chemistry department on a project.

The project is investigating the medicinal properties of tropical plants from the Amazon.
In the past, when drug company scientist would learn something from a shaman they would just "take" it and not bother to compensate the indigenous people who held the secret.

This is an old story, the most infamous of which was the "discovery" of quinine for treating malaria which was stolen from a witch doctor. He received nothing, the scientist is in the history books and the drug company made billions.

(This picture needs to be rotated, as it's a cupboard with shelves full of dried plants.)

Fabian doesn't think this is right and, more importantly, the young people in the Amazon villages aren't interested in learning the tropical medicine trade secrets. They would rather learn how to flash gang signs and dress like the rappers they see on music videos which is not germaine to them alone, but is happening in many, many other places throughout the global village.

But, I digress...

So, Fabian and his team have been collecting, cataloging and analyzing these important beneficial plants and then running tests with them to see if they do in fact work as claimed.

The tests are conducted on "zebra" fish which are small (not big, like I the non-scientist thought) and much less expensive to work with than mice.

You need lots of them and Fabian doesn't have the budget to just keep buying them, so he came up with an aphrodisiac...refracting light off Green Glass Marbles is the equivalent of fish porno movies.

Whenever Fabian starts to get low on testing specimens, he just sprinkles some marbles on the bottom of the aquarium and everybody gets hot and bothered.

The females start squirting eggs out and the guys follow right behind them doing what they do best. Additionally, the now fertilized eggs drift down afterwards into the protective cluster of green marbles where they can't be eaten by the parents and stay there until they can fend for themselves.

I was hoping this might have a similar effect on someone I know, but I'm still waiting and have only succeeded in twisting both my ankles on several occasions.

This is Vern signing off - over & out!