In the News – Cheryl L. Ames

The national university in the northeastern Japan prefecture of Miyagi is set to be formally selected as early as fiscal 2024 as a recipient of annual financial support for up to 25 years from fiscal 2024, starting with around 10 billion yen ($69 million) in the initial year.

Under the new Universities for International Research Excellence program, the grants will be paid out of profits generated from a 10 trillion yen fund.

Tohoku University has been rated highly for its large number of research paper citations, and measures to strengthen its research capabilities and reform its management, the ministry said.

Live Jellyfish Make a Splash in Marine Education

June 8, 2021

“It’s about giving people the confidence to do science and interact with scientists and, then, to also bring the science from the lab to the public,” said Cheryl Ames, a marine invertebrate zoologist at the museum and co-founder of the AquaRoom.

“We’ve used the animals in many ways, like bringing them down to Q?rius and setting up microscopes that people can look in,” said Ames.

Who’s in this Ocean? Tracking Down Species on the Go Using Environmental DNA

May 24, 2021

“My hope is that one day this system is used for sting mitigation, almost like a weather forecast app that also reports ‘jellyfish stings risk’ at certain beaches,” said Ames.

Tracking Down Ocean Species On the Go Using eDNA

April 23, 2021

“The first time we hooked up the Nanopore MinION sequencer to the external battery pack for the laptop computer that was running it, sparks literally began flying from the dongle connecting the two,” said Ames. “Promptly that sequencer stopped running, and we were like ‘Oh no! The data!’ Luckily, when we reinitiated the sequencing run, the data were all still there. Phew.”

You Didn’t Touch These Jellyfish but They Can Sting You With Tiny Grenades

February 13, 2020

These “self-propelling microscopic grenades,” which the researchers have named cassiosomes, also appear to stun and kill prey for the jellyfish, said Cheryl Ames, an associate professor at Tohoku University in Japan and lead author of the study.

These jellyfish can sting without touching you, thanks to ‘mucus grenades’

February 14, 2020

“They were autonomous,” Ames says, “moving around like little Roomba vacuums and bumping into the brine shrimp that we fed them, just killing them on contact, and moving on to the next.”

Upside-down Jellyfish Create ‘Stinging Water’ That Kills Prey by Launching Mucus ‘Grenades’

February 13, 2020

“[This study] began when I and other marine biologists were concerned about the source of ‘stinging water’—an irritating sensation that occurred while in the mangrove forest waters studying upside-down jellyfish, and working together with aquarists at major public aquariums,” Cheryl Ames, an author of the study from Tohoku University, Japan, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, told Newsweek.

“There were several theories exchanged by fellow marine biologists, and comments posted online by people after experiencing stinging water during snorkeling or swimming in those areas. We wanted to find out the scientific explanation behind the long-standing stinging water puzzle,” she said.

Upside-down jellyfish release venom-filled ‘bombs’ in their snot

February 13, 2020

“You start to feel this tingling … More than just itchiness, like when an itch turns into a painful discomfort,” said Cheryl Ames, a museum research associate and an associate professor of applied marine biology at Tohoku University in Japan.

Upside-Down Jellyfish Release Weaponized Goo Packed With Toxic ‘Grenades’

February 13, 2020

“The answer was right under our noses,” said Ames. “We took the mucus and put it under a microscope, and when we saw the tiny, gyrating, self-propelled masses, we knew we were onto something new to science.”