Get to bed early tonight because Sunday morning at 8:00, MLML student Amanda Kahn will be interviewed on Scuba Talk Now, Pirate’s Radio! The interview will air on KNRY AM 1240, and will feature questions about some of the things that Amanda has learned about for her research. Come find out what it’s like doing deep-sea research, what is so great about scientific diving, and learn a ton about the animals that Amanda studies: marine sponges! Check out the posts below for some background info, then listen in and be ready to ask more questions!
Do sponges have the nerve to eat?
Scuba Talk Now (Station KNRY, AM 1240) will feature MLML student Amanda Kahn this Sunday at 8:00 AM.
Instead, what is responsible for filtering food out of the water is a type of cell called a choanocyte (ko-AN-oh-site). It looks like a funny name at first, but it’s named after a group of microscopic single-celled organisms called choanoflagellates. The choanocytes in sponges look just like the free-roaming choanoflagellates, but intsead of being solitary, single-celled organisms, sponge choanocytes are clustered together and work together to get food. As a side note, the strong similarity between the way choanoflagellates and sponge choanocytes is no coincidence. Currently, the favored hypothesis of how animals first evolved from single-celled organisms is that choanoflagellates evolved into sponges (specifically, the choanocytes in sponges). 
