Today’s Ask a Scientist post is a bit of a Carnival of the Animals, with lots of different species represented here! We have also represented several kingdoms and phyla of animal-loving scientist – our marine biology enthusiast is Lizzie Lieschke, is a PhD student, our advisor on all things canine is Research Assistant and Team WEHI walker and runner extraordinaire, Natasha Silke, and our exponent of new species is Doug Hilton, Laboratory Head and Director at WEHI.
How does my dog understand patterns? – Amelia, 11
I have a border terrier called Ziggy and I must admit I have not thought about this, so I had to do a bit of research. I am not sure if you mean “visual” patterns or “day to day” patterns like being fed after a walk.
I will try to answer both. A dog’s vision is about 6/22 compared to ours, which means they can see patterns about 6 m away, and we can see patterns about 22 m away. Also, apparently thin stripes can make them feel a bit anxious. They don’t see as many colours as we do, a bit like a colour-blind person, but their night vision is much better.
Have you heard of Pavlov’s dog study? He would ring a bell as he fed the dogs, and they would start salivating. After a while, he noticed they would salivate when he rang the bell without the food. They were conditioned to do this, their mind and bodies had learnt the pattern.
My Ziggy knows when we take him to certain places, and recognizes the pattern like where the car is going and gets excited. He knows he will be fed after his walk, or after our dinner. – Natasha Silke, Research Assistant
Why do anglerfish glow? – Sienna, Grade 3
Anglerfish are well known for their glowing light that dangles in front of their mouths. We think that they have this light to attract food which can then be easily gobbled up. The light itself comes from bacteria that live in the bulb. These bacteria can make light using chemicals, which helps the fish attract food. In return, the bacteria are protected and get the nutrients they need from the water as the fish swims around. This kind of relationship, where both species benefit from living together but cause no harm, is call a symbiotic relationship. – Lizzie Lieschke, PhD student
How long on average would it take to discover a new species of an animal? – Oscar, 10
My burning question is have you ever discovered a new species? – Estelle, 11
Almost every time you go looking in Australia you can find insect species that are new to science and have never been described in a scientific publication and therefore have no formal scientific name. My hobby is Australian Moths – and I have described more than a dozen new species in a family called Cossidae (Goat Moths or Wood Moths, whose larvae are witchity grubs). These are big moths – and it was amazing that large and common moths found around Melbourne were new to science!
I now work on Heliozelidae (Sun-Loving Moths). These are tiny day-flying moths and we have found hundreds of new species. We are writing papers to describe and give some of these moths names. – Doug Hilton, Laboratory Head and Institute Director
Lizzie Lieschke is a PhD student and scientist studying why people get sick with cancer. She is researching how one of our genes protects our normal cells from becoming cancer. She hopes that by gaining more knowledge into how this gene works, we can make our current treatments for cancer more effective.
Lizzie has always had a passion for learning about the natural world. In Grade 1, her teacher suggested she should become a palaeontologist, and when she came back from a holiday, her sister told her she needed to take more photos of people than of rocks! At university Lizzie had a hard time deciding on which science she liked best, so she tried to do them all, by taking subjects in biology (animal, human and plant), geology, climate science, and chemistry. However, when she had the opportunity to work in a cancer research lab over the summer, she found this was what she was meant to be doing. She loves how as a scientist you are constantly learning, and that what we do aims to benefit others.
Natasha Silke is a Research Assistant working in the Inflammation Division, and has been part of Team WEHI’s relay team since 2018. She used to work mostly doing research on acute myeloid leukemia, but has recently begun working on inflammation in wound studies and oral cancers. This has meant learning a lot of new skills… demonstrating that you can teach an old dog new tricks!
In her spare time, Natasha walks her dog Ziggy a lot. He participated in the Relay for the first time in 2020 and was a very good boy. Ziggy now has a friend called Bowie staying with him. Natasha enjoys performing experiments to test the dogs’ intelligence. Below is a photo of an experiment in progress.
Prof. Doug Hilton is the 6th Director of WEHI and Head of the Department of Medical Biology in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He is best known for his discoveries in the area of cytokine signalling and for his advocacy for health & medical research and gender equity in science. The Hilton lab aims to understand which of the 30,000 genes are important in the production and function of blood cells, and how this information can be used to better prevent, diagnose and treat blood cell diseases such as leukaemia, arthritis and asthma. Prof. Hilton has been awarded numerous prizes for his research into how blood cells communicate and has led major collaborations with industry to translate his discoveries from the bench to the bedside. He is an inventor of more than 20 patent families, most of which have been licensed, and is a co-founder of the biotechnology company MuriGen. He is an Officer of the Order of Australia, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and of Health and Medical Sciences. Prof. Hilton is the inaugural recipient of The Lorenzo and Pamela Galli Chair in Medical Biology.
Team WEHI Relay for Life 