User:Frank A. Oder

From Chaos Communication Camp 2007

Hello to everyone!

I am a biologist and zoologist, very passionate about marine life and underwater travells. Me and my wife, Tante Jannie have done several deep sea ocean explorations, as well as explorations on the long rivers across Europe, like the Rhine, the Spree and the Dommel.

Our last project relates to a very beloved theme for us, me and my wife have started researching years ago: light emitting algae. Thanks to our sponsors (LG4all Inc. from Myanmar), we were able to bring the LEA project to this camp and offer you a bit of our knowledge about the exotic underwater life.

frank a. oder

Light emitting algae. are extreme sensitive life forms growing in carefully monitored environments, and usually require special conditions for both breeding and growing. One of our main concerns was the water temperature and the whole volume of the pond where we would bring our samples. The samples used were imported from Ukichaya Muku Muku, in southern Andes in Chille, a place where humidity and altitude favor the growth of one of the most resistent light emitting algea in the world.

Here at the Chaos Communication Camp we have tried growing the Giant Petri Dish light emitting algea, a species smaller than a 1000th of a toothpick. Seen under the microscope, the algea resembles the Slime cells, organizing itself in colonies of up to 30 000 000 individuals.

At it's mature state, it starts swarming in the search of the ultimate darkness to start the breeding process. The light emitting is the result of the mating between groups of individuals of different Co9 cell terminals, terminals which are mainly responsable for procreation.

Also vital for the growing and breeding are parameters like light intensity over midday hours and water temperature. In it's natural habitat, the Giant Petri Dish growns only in still water of 21,4 C.

In normal conditions, the algea should have covered 80 to 90 % of the pond surface. Unfortunatelly, due to several artificial interventions of laser light, oily smoke, torrential rain and metals that have been dumped into the pond, the evolutuion of the algea was slowed down at the first levels, of Gastrula Morulis, state at which breeding and thus lighting were visibly diminished, covering only 30 % of the whole surface.

I would like to thank my wife, my sponsors and the government of Myanmar, who were very supportive in helping us with the research, the organizers of CCC, and last, but not least, my assistants from the NOP, especially to Maxie Jansan.

We are very confident we will finally succeede and we hope you enjoyed this project as much as we did!