I am a graduate student at UC Berkeley studying the diversity and evolution of whelks. This summer I was sponsored by the NSF (USA) and JSPS (Japan) to work with Dr. Seiji Hayashi at Nagoya University in Japan to collect buccinid gastropod (whelk) tissue samples and examine whelk shell collections at musems throughout Japan. Sugoi! Some of the snails that I study are pictured to the right.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Nagoya University

Nagoya University is one of the Imperial Universities of Japan. Much of the money that has funded it in the last 30 years has been from Toyota Corporation. Yup, the car-maker Toyota. When Japanese is converted to English the letters "t" and "d" are often switched or used interchangeably, so the building below is "Toyoda Auditorium."In 2001, a Nagoya professor won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. My Japanese host told me that in recognition of this accomplishment the university gave him a chemistry BUILDING. I told him that if you win a Nobel Prize while at Berkeley the University gives you a parking space. Hah! And given the theme of this blog...I wonder why the Nobel Prize certificate has two whelks...hmmm, buccinids? maybe.

No comments: