Night music....

....Mumford & Sons.  I like it.

First numbers are in...

..for meiofauna from our sites in oiled/unoiled areas in Alabama coastal marshes.  They're interesting, to say the least, but just a first step.  We leave Monday to collect a second set of samples.  Hoping to see a bit more this month from the ongoing macrofauna collections in our weirs.  Progressively higher tides as we move into the spring should make the weir samples more interesting - not much to see in the first set.  Taking a couple of new victims, including a prospective thesis student, for their first exposure to the salt marsh. Thankfully, it looks like the bitter cold is passing.  Hopefully, our next thermal challenge will be an afternoon sampling in August.

Don't forget your booties...

...cause it's cold out there today.  It's cold out there every day.

It's Science Saturday, boys and girls.  Math version - Kandinsky Did, Can You? Think about it. Then work on the new ecology storage building, and prep for a coast trip. Back later to discuss.

Florida find

Not sure what's more interesting here, the video of the blanket octopus (which may show the greatest size difference betweent the sexes of any large animal), or the "ooh, that's scary" attitude of these so-called newspeople.

Catchy....

Evolution Made Us All from Ben Hillman on Vimeo.

Back on the road...

It's been a long, cold, winter (in multiple senses), and I haven't been very diligent with the morning run.  Bess and I are feeling the effects of our inactivity.  So, it's time for a new leaf.  Hopefully, that carries over to SKTS.  The book now is The Emperor of All Maladies:  A Biograhy of Cancer.  It's not my normal read (probably helping explain my lack of desire to run the Loop in the freezing pre-dawn), but the topic has hit close to home during the long winter.  Better the beast you know.  Add in the fact that most of my advisees see biology as simply an entry into medicine, and this is subject matter that I need to get into.