Eat ice cream with no guilt?

The new Haagen Dazs commercial at least gives some attention to the issue of the decline of honeybees. I think they are making a new flavor (honey I think?) that will fund research to help research the problem.

The commercial is really cute though but I wish it had more information! How do we save the bees? Stop the mysterious wind that is ripping them from the flowers while the two sing to one another? No web address at the end or specific product? Well that's the result of working with the consumer attention span.

While I don't know enough about the issue, it seems sort of an odd mouthpiece for the issue. I guess someone had to do it.

No Gems, just words, words, words

Well I'm beginning to be a bit burnt out from all of this reading. I gave myself Thursday off, as that's my 12- hour-marathon-teaching-responsibilities-day. Friday I was tapped to grade exams unexpectedly, which led right up to happy hour (yes, yes I know I shouldn't go!).

In any case, I had to start up again this morning after a 2-day break, which was hard. I'm still planning this time as the "read every and all background information" and then the second week with each topic being the "current research and how this applies to my proposal" time. I still think it will work OK. I have faith.

I jealously read about a retreat of a friend of mine to a cabin in the woods... while my assignment was ironically to read about how Thoreau contributed to the birth of ecology through his saunterings.

If I could only get to the muskrat level of perception, perhaps all of this will make sense. I'll just commune with nature and it will reveal itself to me, right? .... seriously, right?

Gem of the week- plant perception

This is the photo of the mint plant that I took during the hailstorm a few weeks ago. Have I "psychologically" damaged my poor little plant by using the flash?

Some species of plants use the length of the dark period [i.e. night] to sense the photoperiod, and hence, the proper season to flower, be it spring or fall. Not so much in highly seasonal places, though, where obviously temperature is a better cue.

In a phenomenon summarized by Bernier et al, (in The Physiology of Flowering) a short flash of red light (same effect as white light) during the night was sufficient to "confuse" the plants [read delayed or interfered with flowering]. Using a far-red light after this was sufficient to "undo" the effect.

Does this mean that we mess plants up with our houselights, headlights, flashlights, etc? I guess it would depend on the species, and the location of the plants involved... and it would have to happen over and over again. It would be like telling the plant "no wait it's still summer... no reason to flower and set fruit!"

Intricacies aside, basically, this effect is mediated by a light receiver called phytochrome, which has two forms, absorbing red and far-red respectively, and uses differences in absorption between the two as a signal for various things in the plant (including whether an obstacle is a plant or an opaque object such as a giant rock, how deep a seed is buried under leaf litter, etc.). Incredible!

This week: Physiological Ecology for dummies!

So this segment of my blog can be paperclipped and put in a folder called "L studies for her exams." Hopefully this fun chapter in my life will soon be bound and sent off to the recesses of my memory to reside as a reminder of how smart I can sound to a room full of 5 tenured experts.

For the next two months, I have 2 weeks with each of 4 sets of subjects. They are: physiological ecology, plant ecology [community (1) and ecosystem (2)], and weed ecology. This short time constraint means that, at any given moment that I am not physically teaching a lab, or grading quizzes (or sleeping, perhaps, although that's debatable), I will be studying.

This chapter also might be subtitled: "L has no fun whatsoever." Included might be stories such as "L went to happy hour and now feels very guilty." Sample of type of fun that is now banned:

So I apologize in advance to anyone actually reading this that my thoughts for the next two months may run towards the dramatic, weary, or downright apocalyptic.

If I don't write anything here, don't fear, my advisor has been known to send out search-and-rescue missions [her husband] for students if they have not been heard from in a week or so. Stay tuned for updates...

The Elite:

(not my photo)



And... Elitism... according to Jon Stewart
[To the presidential candidates]:
"The job you're applying for... they might carve your head into a mountain... If you don't think you're better than us, then what the f*** are you doing?"

Teaching - Satisfactory +

Well I've been really busy with my first week as a Teaching Assistant for an intro course. It's actually been pretty fun. It can be so much more satisfying to teach than to do research! It's nice to show or guide someone through something and have them have that "Aha!" moment rather than to sit for hours at my computer re-sorting data or something.

Not that I don't love research. I love it (hear that, dissertation committee?). It's been a nice review and a nice break. The students are actually much more polite and interested than I expected. Give them another week to bare their monstrous selves, right?

It has restored my faith in undergrads!