I'm in the process of practice. Practice, practice, practice. I'm practicing writing. This blog. I re-read my previous entries and believe me, I need the practice.Of course you probably already realize this. Every type of writing increased my communication skills and communication is a skill every scientist needs. So here goes nothing. Err, something. Oh what ever.

I found a great website of science videos. Go check it out. Now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh2MWgfPiPU

          Oh good. You are back. More thoughts on my Plant Ecophysiology project. I'm considering looking into the physiology of semi-deciduous plants, the kind that grow new leaves in the autumn because...I don't know why. So I've got a question. Why do some plants experience new growth when all the others around them are losing their leaves? Is there an evolutionary advantage to this new growth? To the research then.
More on this tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

developing a research project

               In plant ecophysiology we are to develop and carry out an independant research prioject. I developed and wrote up what I thought was a fairly good proposal and my professor approved it. Then came the presentation to the class in order too get feed back prior to starting the project. I failed. Flat on my face failure. I know that I need practice on how to present ideas when standing in front of the class and that I am new to all of this but still... I was horrible, looked unprepared (because I was unprepared), and fumbled through my outline. The professor gave a few ideas, my classmates said nothing.
             One of the grad students gave his project proposal. Polished, concise, clear, with measurable parameters. I want to be at that level. I must have had a defeated look on my face because my professor asked why I looked mad. I said that I was  disappointed in my ability. The grad student was awsome, pointing out that learning how to do research is a learning process. A. Learning. Process. As I am writing this it comes to my mind that some people may think the professor was mean to me or rude. I want to assure my readers that I did not feel singled out, or belittled in anyway. He reminded the whole class that it was why we set aside a class period to discuss eachothers projects. We all have to help eachother get better at research.
             I do enjoy these upper level classes that mix grad and undergrad students. This type of class gives examples of the knowledge and skill level that I want to attain. Fall break started today and I'm starting over, using the things that I learned during the class proposal review I'm off to develop a new project. Wish me luck.

Sunday morning readings....musings

             I love to sift through my google reader feed and my Zite content on Sunday mornings. In days gone by (oh the loss of good newspapers) I would spend the morning with the NYT sunday edition and the local Arkansas papers along with a big pot of coffee. Sprawled out across the living room rug. Never really knew what to expect. What interesting tidbit would jump out at me at this time? Is there a topic I did not even knew existed? With Zite and google reader not so much. Zite's algorithms are too small in the categories it provides. I have used this web app for about a year and now the majority of articles presented for my amusement are science (primarily biology) related. The Google reader is a little better as it doesn't predict anything, just gives me exactly what I ask for. Alas, no surprises. I still miss my Sunday morning papers (they just aren't up to par) and every once in  while I will purchase said papers and settle in on a sunday morning to read. It's just not the same as the content is now 50% of what it was a decade ago.  That said, today's surprises.

             A website called book porn. Just pictures (think pintrest) of book shelves. Amazing pictures of book shelves. There was even a book shelf made of books strategically stacked to create the book shelf without any other structural component.

            A website (i think it is a tumblr account but i don't understand tumblr) titled "Things I Learned as a Field Biologist. I read post after post and laughed. I have one professor this term who refers to students as 'Biologists' After reading this author's small stories I now realize...I am a field biologist! I am a field biologist? WOW That is so cool.

          The intelligent octopus https://vimeo.com/44791802

        The Washington Post has an article with the headline "In Hawaii, fisheries service relaxes bycatch limits on endangered sea turtles"  stating that swordfishermen can catch 26 leatherback and 34 loggerhead turtles before suspending fishing. Appalling, right? If you read the entire article you find that, according to Michael Tosatto (regional administrator for the fisheries service) no turtles were killed this year. All were released alive. If this is true and the bycatch is not resulting in death of turtles and the fishermen are reporting truthfully, then is there a problem here? What a great research opportunity. If a scientist could partner with the swordfish fishermen and geo-tag the turtles caught on the swordfish hooks a wealth of information could be obtained without having to create and implement a large, expensive study. Maybe someone is already doing this, it just doesn't make the news.

The Ozark Hellbender

  Wow, two posts in one week. I can't help it. I'm really having a great time this semester. I've given my first talk (just a couple of minutes on a news item of the day), written my first lab report (plant ecophysiology), already working on my second lab report (also plant eco). That may sound a little crazy that we've done two lab reports but the first report was a short lab study of plasticity in leaf morphology and the second lab is a refresher on plant growth graphing of sigmoid curves and the math that goes with it.

    Friday we'll be visiting the site of our wetland remediation (Practicum)  for the first time which is awesome.
      
  The other major project is in Anthropology of the Ozarks and I have developed the topic for my research project. The current incarnation of my project is a literature review of the research involved in the attempt to save the Ozark Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis bishopi) which was put on the endangered species list in 2011. I say current incarnation because tomorrow in class we present the outline to small groups and get feedback, input ect. After tomorrow's class the outline may change. 

Photo courtesy of the Sierra Club copied from Google Images

As always,
thanks for reading

A new semester has started

      It is the second week in the new semester and I am excited about the work I will be doing this semester. I am part of a team conducting the initial assessment of a piece of property that a local family is putting into a wetlands mitigation bank. I'll be working primarily in the plant population assessment and will also assist the other students working on vertebrate assessment. The first look at the property will take place on Friday and I'll have an update then.
       I have an independent research project my Plant Ecophysiology class that is yet to be determined. Papers to write in Religion and Pop Culture, Cultural Anthropolgy, and Water Resources. I also will be conducting an independent research project in Cultural Anthropology--the Ozarks.

Nature Retaliates

I was reading a blog post http://scienceline.org/2012/04/manhattan-the-next-atlantis/ (in case you want to check it out) and the statement was made; "we are not safe from the retaliation of which nature has already demonstrated itself capable." and I got to thinking. Retaliation? Retaliation! Hmmmm. I really don't think that Nature is going to retaliate against anything or anybody. I don't think Nature notices us. That isn't to say that humans have no effect on nature but this entity that is referred to as Nature is an abstract concept we use to make sense of the world. Using a word like 'retaliate' causes negative emotional responses from readers serving only in creating a frenzy in which people want to fight, against something, anything, each other. We can focus on an issue and discuss solutions without fear mongering. The truth is emotional enough.

The Gulf Oil Spill 2 Years later

       My ichthyology professor, last week, asked us to read articles concerning the newly discovered effects of the BP Oil Spill  over the weekend. Being the over eager student that I am I dove into the subject matter. However I was quickly sidetracked by other articles, studying for finals and cooking for the week ahead. So today I open up my google reader and return to the subject. I happened upon an article discussing the differing approaches taken by McNutt (USGS) and Lubchenco (NOAA) in the weeks and months during attempts at mitigation.http://www.eenews.net/public/Greenwire/2012/04/20/1
The issue that struck me, and I have read this in other places, was the idea that it is a necessity for peer review of the research before findings could be provided to the government or to the public. The article provides the following quote: "We rightfully got a lot of grief from the academic community," McNutt said during a recent interview. "But we had no option to get it peer-reviewed! If there was an action to get it quickly turned around and reviewed, we would've loved to have taken it."
       I stopped reading at this point and realized that 23 years as a police officer made me rebel from this attitude. Just make a decision, take action! A visceral reaction on my part but still, I can't help it. I've been a student now for a couple of years and understand the importance of peer review but not for something this drastic. The BP oil spill required action not peer review. I'm not going to monday-morning-quarterback any of the actions taken by specific people but we as a scientific community should assess honestly what was done, what wasn't done that should have been, and what to do next time.  This is something that we do in police work after every crisis situation. There will be a next time. Drilling continues. The scientific community should be working on a game plan for what to do, how to jump over peer review in situations such as a massive oil spill, and allow the experts to make decisions on the fly.