Friday Dial Stopper

Not sure why this song popped into my head today, but it did, so here you go...

Hulkamania?

So, I'm eating breakfast at the hotel in D.C. last week and I see on CNN (or MSNBC or Fox or *insert cable news channel*) that there was going to be an "evangelical rally" on the Mall that day. Turns out The Call was in town. Great.

So, the kids and I take the metro down to the Mall and sure enough we're bombarded by pamphleteers as we leave the metro stop. I managed to fend off the hoard without taking a single "You're going to burn in hell" flyer/newspaper/brochure. As we move away from the crowd I see a monstrosity of a stage set up by the Capitol - it looked like a Def Leppard concert (no offense to Def Leppard) - and we hear someone on stage yelling and carrying on about something. Honestly, I have no idea what the guy was saying, but the tone and rhythm sent chills down my spine - it's hard to explain, but it was some combination of anger, insanity, and overacting (I hate to suggest this, but check out the video on the right side of the Call's website I linked to above to hear what I mean). I suppose, unsurprisingly, evangelical is the best word to describe it. The guy could have been reading directly from Isaac Newton's Principia and it would have sounded just as scary-insane.

Actually, now that I think about it, the whole thing reminded me of something like this

So, what did the kids and I do? Walked straight across the Mall to the Museum of Natural History, of course, and took part in, among many other things, the Mammal Family Reunion.

Run away! Run Away!

Lincoln Memorial

D.C. Vacation

The whole fam damily is headed to D.C. for a few days of vacation before the school year starts up again. Here's a short list of things we'll hopefully be getting to:

National Aquarium in Baltimore

National Zoo

Smithsonian Natural History Museum

various monuments (Emma really wants to see the one with "Abraham Lincoln sitting down")

The White House (as opposed to say, a beach volleyball match in Beijing)

I'm open to other suggestions if you've got them (remember, we'll be dealing with a 4- and 7-year old). Em heard from a friend who heard from a friend that the Spy Museum was fun - anyone have first-hand experience and care to corroborate this?

Big Bugs!

A couple photos from our visit to the Big Bugs exhibit at The Garden in the Woods:

Home grown

Our second (and last) "Sugar Baby" watermelon from the garden. The first was picked too early. This one was excellent even though it could have ripened another couple of days I think - except for the fact that some critter (squirrel? chipmunk?) was starting to nibble on the rind. Better to eat it a bit early than risk losing it completely!

Friday Dial Stopper - Anniversary Edition

Tomorrow is Linda's and my 10-year wedding anniversary. Yes, I said 10 years. We've actually known each other for 16 years - since our first year at Bowdoin. In 16 years, we've helped each other through the good and the bad of our undergraduate years, med/graduate school in Iowa (yes, I said, Iowa), residency, two kids, living on the Hopi Indian Reservation, my numerous "career" changes, two George W. Bush terms (no good, all bad), and countless family crises (large and small, real and imagined) and celebrations (often one and the same depending on your point of view). We drive each other crazy, we keep each other sane. If that makes sense to you, you "get it", much like Billy Idol...

Ti amo, mia lumaca!

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That's a lot of gorillas!

In some exciting conservation news that almost slipped me by (a hearty thanks to "the Naner" for pointing it out to me), researchers have discovered a new population of critically-endangered western lowland gorillas in the Republic of Congo. The estimate of 125,000 individuals (!), based on the number of "nests" observed in the 47,000 km² area, is more than double the previous estimate for the number of these gorillas in the wild.

At first I thought the 125,000 number must be a mistake - I would have thought finding 30 gorillas was a big deal. But then I read that these gorillas were found in the swamps of equatorial Africa in a remote part of the Congo, so I can understand why they hadn't been found before. Just thinking about their location gives me malarial chills...

Read more here...

Watch a video of the gorilla discovery here...

Not your ordinary mollusc

While going through my regular evening ritual of perusing the sites on my blogroll (I always start at the bottom and work my way up for some reason - I don't really know why), I came across the latest post by Emile over at The World We Don't Live In. This post is about the ever-so-rare phenomenon of vertebrates mimicking invertebrates. Now, while that is an interesting topic in its own right, what struck me as absolutely fascinating was the mention of a creature I had no idea even existed - the Indonesian mimic octopus, Thaumoctopus mimicus. (note: the creature is absolutely fascinating, not the fact that I had not heard of it - though I am surprised that such a critter had escaped my attention until now).

The video below does a good job of showing off this incredible quick-change artist. I'm starting to see why so many people think molluscs are so damn cool.

Friday Dial Stopper: Poster Printing Edition

Well, here I sit finishing up the poster printing I started yesterday. Of course, the process isn't frustration-free today either:

1) I met the IT guy at the room so he could let me in and log me onto the computer. He shows up and says "I hope the door isn't locked, that's the one key I don't have". Wah!? Now remember, this is the same guy that let me in yesterday (he had a key then), the same guy I talked to on the phone 15 minutes ago and who told me to meet him here so he could unlock the door for me, and the same guy who called security yesterday to come and lock up the room (oh, just to cover all bases, this is the same room as it was yesterday). Of course the friggin' room is locked. As my grandmother says (surprisingly) "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" I shouldn't be surprised though since this is also the same guy who was "hoping" no one needed the regular printer this summer.

2) The IT guy finds someone with the key. Once inside I realize that the roll of paper I left on the printer is no longer there - it's been swapped out with smaller, cheaper stuff. My roll is nowhere in the room. WTF!! Luckily, the guy with the key had some ideas where it might be and after searching through about 5 different rooms we found it in a storage closet on the other side of the building. So much for being out of here in a couple of hours.

So, today's dial stopper is fitting. Just change the words in the chorus from 'I' to 'IT' (as in Information Technology) and it's perfect:

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Addendum: 1:30pm - Three posters (from the same lab) failed to include a faculty co-author. Guess who's reprinting three posters?

While I'm blogging about sports...

Please, oh, please, let Brett Favre be traded to the Chicago Bears...

...it would so much fun to see Gibbon Jockey's reaction...

Manny Be Gone

Warning: non-Boston sports-fans and those who haven't been following the Manny Ramirez soap opera may want to skip this post.

Thankfully, Manny Ramirez is leaving Boston. I wish it hadn't come to this, but he has become a major pain in the ass over the past few weeks - getting into fights with teammates, knocking down elderly club assistants, refusing to play, making up injuries, saying that Boston doesn't deserve a player like him, etc, etc. All because he really didn't want the Sox to pick up a $20 million option for next year (don't you hate it when someone wants to pay you $20 million a year?). Manny being Manny just went too far.

I always kinda liked the guy - a big goofball who could hit the crap out of a baseball - but with the way he's been acting lately (like one of my kids when they were 2 and were told they couldn't have ice cream) I'm happy to see him go. Looks like the Sox are getting a decent player in Jason Bay in return, but we'll see (and really, at this point, I don't really care). Everyone on the team has to feel better right now - especially Tito (Terry Francona, the team manager).

The only downside to this whole thing is that my 4-year old son, Jack, lost it when he heard the news (we were listening to the radio waiting for Emma to get home from camp). Tears, sobbing, pure uncontrollable (and inconsolable) emotion. I didn't know he was so attached to Manny. I don't even want to think about how he is going to react when the same fate befalls his favorite player, Jason Varitek. He's going to be absolutely crushed. But maybe Manny's departure will help soften the blow - Jack won't be so blindsided by the fact that this happens.

Anyways, I am 100% ready for the Manny-less era to begin. Good luck, LA! Repeat after me, it's just Manny being Manny...

Research poster frustration (take 3)

Here's yet another chapter in the continuing saga of the large format poster printer I have the "privilege" of having access to.

Next Monday there is a conference co-hosted by RI-INBRE and RI-EPSCoR, two federally-funded state programs that, among many other things, provide support to undergraduates to do research. This conference consists of poster presentations for all the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows (SURFs) from both programs throughout the state. As such, I am printing 10 posters for the SURFs here at RWU.

Not too bad, right? Each takes about 15 minutes or so to print, so I block off a few hours and give myself another day just in case anything goes awry. Am I prescient or what...

1) Poster files were due in to me by 10 a.m. this morning. How many did I have by 10 a.m.? Exactly 1. This was expected of course so not too big a deal.

2) The one laptop that is reserved for use with the large-format poster printer is kept in the Dean's office (this way we can maintain strict control over who uses the plotter - we don't want just anyone trying to use it and end up f-ing it up). However, the Dean is not here today. Neither is his secretary. The other secretary in the building doesn't have a key to his office. Luckily, security does and happily opens the door for me (wonder if the Dean knows about this).

3) The printer sits in a little room off the back of a computer lab. I have a key that opens up both the computer lab and the little room in the back. So, I unlock the computer lab and attempt to unlock the room in the back. My key doesn't fit. I try again and again and again, thinking it's just a bit sticky. Nope. No good. My key clearly does not go with this lock. Another call to security...

4) Security shows up. Long story short...their keys don't work either. WTF!?!? Security calls the locksmith. Turns out that the lock has been changed and the only folks with a key are over in IT. Apparently they're using the room for the storage of new PCs until they get a chance to swap out a bunch of old ones. Security bids me adieu and wishes me good luck. Great.

5) I call IT. Finally I get connected to someone with the key. I tell him what I need and he says...nothing. Just silence on the other side. Then I get a "Hmmmm. Huh. Ahhhhh. Can I call you back?" Sure. Why should I have expected a simple, "OK, I'll be right there"?

6) He calls back. I can't get access to the printer. I repeat, I cannot get access to the printer. Turns out the printer has been taken offline, moved to the back of the room and buried behind boxes of new PCs. It is literally inaccessible. Apparently, IT had been (direct quote here) "hoping that no one would need the printer this summer". Wah? Hoping? Other than IT (and the locksmith I guess) no-one knew this was happening. They didn't tell (or better, ask) anyone. They just were hoping it would be OK. Wow.

Everything is not lost however. The guy from IT has given me access to the computer lab in the School of Engineering. There's an older large format printer over here that I am using...once I changed the paper, figured out the proper settings, and fought with the paper loader because the roll I have is too thick so the rollers get jammed. But I'm printing now and, knock-on-wood, everything looks good.

And I remembered rubber bands this time!

The shoe fits...

(Hat tip to Kevin Z)

My Liberal Identity:

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Marine bio Camp - day 6 recap

Well, this year's Marine Biology Camp came to a close with a whale watching excursion with Capt. John Boats out of Plymouth, MA. Although our chances of seeing anything seemed slim with the heavy fog rolling in, our luck was good once we hit Stellwagen Bank and the fog cleared. Highlights from the the trip:

• Saw five humpbacks up close, including two cow-calf pairs, as well as a couple of minke whales and a fin whale off in the distance


• One of the humpback whales we saw was Salt, the first humpback to be given a name some 30+ years ago, and her new calf, Sanchal
.

• Great bubble net feeding beahvior


• Best of all, Sanchal gave us a show with a "spinning head breach" right in front of the bow of the boat. This was the first time I had ever seen a breach and was as amazing as I thought it would be!

Upon our return to campus, we gave the Marine Bio students their final exam. We'd been hyping it up all week long, scaring them into paying attention and taking notes, even offering bonus points for various things throughout the week. In the end though, the "final" was a fun scavenger hunt across campus, complete with a bucket for bringing back samples (e.g. an herbivorous marine gastropod, a piece of flotsam, a member of the phylum Arthropoda). No grades are assigned - everyone had fun, learned some stuff, did some things they never did before, and got a cool RWU Marine Biology t-shirt. A success by all accounts (excepting the one kid that left mid-week).

It was an intense week - I feel like we did an entire semester of a Marine Bio lab/field course in one week. I think I'll go to bed now and sleep for about three days!

Marine bio Camp - day 5 recap

Today's Itinerary:
Morning Session
Trawling on the 54' fishing vessel, the Captain Bert - students got to see the deployment of a smallish otter trawl and learn some fish biology while examining the haul;
Our catch included fluke, flounder, lobstahs, sea robins, scup/porgies, and squid;
Observe fluke dissection - examine internal anatomy and stomach contents (two recently eaten scup);

Afternoon Session
Winkler titrations of light/dark bottles from yesterday;
determine and graph primary productivity (gross and net) and respiration rates for surface and deep water;

Evening Lecture
Marine Mammals, given by yours truly (why me? cause our resident marine mammologist is on sabbatical and I lost the coin flip; thank goodness for wikipedia!)

Marine bio Camp - day 4 recap

Today's Itinerary
Morning session
Take RWU boats out for plankton sampling - one boat deploys a 150μm zooplankton net, the other deploys a 20μm phytoplankton net;
Using Van Dorn bottle, collect water samples and set-up primary productivity analysis (using the light/dark bottle technique);
In lab, use microscopes to examine the plankton samples - sketch and ID five phytoplankton and five zooplankton;
use spectrophotometers to measure chlorophyll concentration in samples filtered yesterday;

Afternoon session
Head to Fogland Beach for some fish seining along the shore and salt marsh;

Evening Lecture
Fish Biology

Highlight of the Day
Catching a 20-inch striped bass in the beach seine

Lowlights of the Day
1) Lion's mane stings
2) For tomorrow's Winkler titrations I wondered if I should use glass or plastic graduated cylinders. Are the high schoolers careful enough for the glass ones? I don't know...they're pretty fragile...and tippy (the cylinders, not the kids!)...oh what the hell, let them use the good stuff. Any bets on what I did while setting up? I decided to go with plastic.

Marine bio Camp - day 3 recap

Today's Itinerary:
Morning session
take RWU's two small boats (a 19' Lema Skiff and a 29' Master Marine) out on the Bay;
on one boat - take CTD and Secchi disk readings from three different stations; collect surface, mid-column, and "deep" water samples using a Van Dorn bottle (for chlorophyll analysis back in the lab);
on 2nd boat - deploy Van Veen Grab and small otter trawl, identify and discuss critters found

Afternoon session
discuss productivity, photosynthesis, and ways of measuring both;
process water samples collected in morning - for each sample, filter 1L through 0.5μ membrane, place membrane filter in 10ml acetone to extract chlorophyll, let sit overnight (will quantify chlorophyll spectrophotometrically tomorrow);
discuss what characteristics make a good graph;
create depth profiles using CTD data from morning (salinity, temperature, and dissolved oxygen vs depth);
interpret depth profiles and relate to the geography of the Bay;

Evening Lecture
Phytoplankton, primary productivity, and marine invertebrates (characteristics of major phyla) - presented by our two senior undergraduate camp assistants

Issue of the Day
Lost a kid. OK, not really, but one kid did decide that he hated the camp so much he didn't want to stay. So, his dad came by this evening, picked him and his stuff up, and took him home. Oh well. Maybe he was expecting dolphins and sharks or something.

Marine bio Camp - day 2 recap

Itinerary:
kayak in Ninigret Pond;
explore the salt marsh, tidal flats, eel grass beds, sandy beach;
search for, find, and identify critters, discuss their ecology/natural history;
discuss sedimentation, local geology, glacial past, anaerobic decomposition, hydrogen sulfide production;
visit rocky intertidal zone at Beavertail State Park;
discuss important physical and biological factors at play here;
examine zonation;
search for, find, and identify critters;
compare and contrast with sandy beach environment;

Problems encountered:
Shuttle bus with students taking the long way around, getting stuck in morning rush-hour traffic;
kayak outfitter unable to unlock kayaks -> go out and rent bolt cutters -> cut lock;
kid from CA forgetting his parent-signed kayaking release form;
RWU shuttle failing to return to pick us up to take us to the rocky intertidal (they didn't see the second destination on the shuttle request form);
hung around kayak center parking lot for a couple of hours waiting for RWU security to "do their best to get someone out to pick us up";
had approximately 40 minutes at rocky intertidal;
one bloody shin and one smashed toe (neither mine);

At least it didn't rain on us. And I didn't lose anyone.