GO CHIEFS!

One of the greatest things about living in Kansas City is having the opportunity to attend professional sporting events like Chiefs, Royals, and Wizards games. On Sunday Aric and I took the bus to the Chiefs/Chargers game; and, since I'm from SE Texas and not yet acclimated, I thought I might in fact freeze to death in the upper deck of Arrowhead Stadium. The wind was howling up there and I really had no communication at all with my fingers (making it impossible to eat my peanuts), but the view was absolutely spectacular. At half time Aric bought me a fleece Chiefs blanket at the Fan Stand, permitting me to survive the remainder of the game (which the Chiefs unfortunately lost). The experience was awesome and made me feel like a true Kansas Citian.

Last Week/Field Trip

I cannot believe that this is the last week of classes! I just gave one of my last Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy lab practicals and had to say good-bye to my students (at least until January). Finals are next week but labs end this Friday. We will also be meeting with the Freshmen in Science seminar for the last time this Thursday, during which time Dr. Scholes and I will be discussing the Biology Field Trip course that we team-teach in the spring. Last year we took our field trip students to Nicaragua for 11 days in late May (see pictures above). It was an invaluable experience, not only with respect to learning biology but also as an opportunity to immerse ourselves in another culture and to perform community service. Next spring we are planning to make a trip to the desert southwest to do a little desert field biology and see the country. Biology Field Trip is, in my opinion, one of the most beneficial courses we offer, as experiencing biology is the best way to learn it.

TV spot

Just a quick note...

If you'd like to know more about our rattlesnake study, it was on Fox 4 News at 9 the other night.

Today is our annual FISS (Freshmen in Science Seminar) pizza party. FIS is a course required of all freshmen science students and is designed to (to quote the Biology Department website) "increase students' success in the sciences. Some activities are designed to help students become familiar with the faculty and each other; others instruct the student in practical subjects such as course selection, studying science and time management." We also feed the students twice during the fall (once in the form of a spaghetti dinner and the second, the pizza party). Today, while having pizza, students will reflect on their major/career options after having attended presentations by local professionals in numerous fields over the past few weeks. FIS is a great way for students to learn about the university and to get to know their fellow freshmen as well as most of the science faculty. I believe it to be one of the many benefits of Rockhurst, as it better prepares students to survive their first year in college.

On a side note, so that I can include a picture of something cute and fuzzy, this week my research students and I are again trapping mammals at our study site in order to assess the prey diversity for our snakes. This morning we caught 14 rodents, one of which was a prairie vole (Microtus orchogaster). It was pretty exciting for us, since these guys don't occur where I'm from and my students had never seen one before.

Bees and Snakes

First, I would like to draw your attention to the bee story on the ScienceNow link below. I don't know if anyone else has been keeping up with this, but the issue of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) among beehives is incredibly alarming. And I say this not only because this little-known disorder is decreasing biodiversity by systematically wiping out bees, but also because bees pollinate more than one-third of the food we eat. What that means is that if this continues, whether it be from pesticides, viruses, or poor nutrition, bees (and many of our crops) will be lost by the middle of this century. Though we don't always realize it, all organisms are interconnected and interdependent and the loss of one can have cascading effects on vast numbers of others; and humans are no exception.

That then brings me to our research project (the conservation of timber rattlesnakes). This is a species that is also on the decline, like so many others, due to human development and negligence. It is an important predator, a critical component of the ecosystem, and an indicator of the few wild places that are left in the country. This weekend, my research students and I attended the Kansas Herpetological Society meeting, where Sean described this project to a room full of herpetologists (i.e. those people who study amphibians and reptiles). Though these people understood the implications of this research, many people are unaware of the value and significance of these amazing animals.

This weekend was a Halloween-filled blur. Saturday night Aric and I went to a party at a ranch near Leavenworth and yesterday the Biology Department held our second annual Pizza and Pumpkin Party. The biology faculty and their families, along with some outstanding students, very skillfully carved pumpkins (for which awards such as "Most Creative" and "Most Biological" were given) and closed the evening by eating free pizza, homemade cookies, and too much candy. It was so much fun! I'm posting a picture from last year's party, and an awesome picture of my brother, Jeremy, as a vampire. Apparently his weekend was Halloween-filled as well.

Taxidermy

Yesterday afternoon Rebecca, Laura, William, Sean and I "prepped" some small mammals we recently caught in the field. This involves skinning and stuffing said mammals and mounting them until they dry and are ready to be added to the specimen collection. The two mammals you see (beautifully prepped by the above research team), left to right, are a shrew (Blarina brevicauda, in the Order Insectivora) and a white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus, Order Rodentia). We did this in the midst of a room full of General Biology I lab students, most of whom were fascinated by the process. It was exciting to see so many students really get into this. I've done it on so many occasions that I'd forgotten how remarkable it was the first time.

[Note: Google eyes added by Rebecca this afternoon.]

KC Star Article

It has been brought to my attention that our snake project is in the Kansas City Star today, so check it out if you get a chance!

Speaking of Women's Health

I spent my Saturday with my colleague and friend Liz Evans at the Speaking of Women's Health event in Overland Park. Not only did I walk away with more loot than I could carry, I also left with a sense of solidarity and optimism, a heightened knowledge of women's health issues, and the new-found ability to (more or less) belly dance! There were free samples and free health screenings as well as informative speakers and breakout sessions. It was a great experience and I encourage all women to attend next year.

Ig Nobel Awards

You may have noticed on the ScienceNow site a discussion of the recently-awarded Ig Nobel Prizes, a nice complement to the site's coverage of the Nobel Prizes. The former are awards that honor "achievements that first make people LAUGH, and then make them THINK," and they are hysterical. Well, at least to a science geek like myself. At last year's ACUBE meeting, the editor of the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research and founder/host of the Ig Nobel award ceremony, Marc Abrahams, told us about the year's most notable contributions to the magazine. Some of the articles he described discussed things like the pressure produced when penguins pooh, why woodpeckers don't get headaches, the details of an electromechanical teenager repellant, and the levitation of a frog. Though as biologists we read many a scientific article, those in this journal are by far the most amusing.

ACUBE

After my flight late last week, I went to work, set up a lab practical, and headed out with 5 of my colleagues from the Biology Department (3 of whom are pictured above, Drs. Liz Evans, Laura Salem, and Chad Scholes) to a conference in Dubuque, Iowa. The meeting, a function of the Association of College and University Biology Educators, is a terrific forum for generating and conveying ideas about teaching biology at the university level. I presented a talk concerning my undergraduate research students' contributions to our snake conservation project and was exposed to myriad new ideas about presenting concepts to students in novel ways. And since we were right on the Mississippi, we went to the aquarium and took a relaxing boat trip down the river.

Flight of the Ultralight

At dawn on Thursday morning, I had what should've been one of the scariest experiences of my life. I went for an early-morning flight on a powered paraglider, a type of ultralight aircraft that resembles a go-cart with an engine, a giant fan (actually the propeller), and an enormous parachute. The experience was not at all frightening, though, because I was situated behind an experienced pilot and trusted friend (the aforementioned buddy of mine who owns the exotic animal sanctuary) who told me at every step what to expect. Due to fairly stiff winds, we only reached about 1000 feet and actually hovered for a period as our forward momentum was counteracted by the wind. It was AMAZING! We could see everything below, including Aric, who was filming and taking pictures. Now this was not entirely an act of leisure and diversion; it served as a practice run to enable me to become familiar with this type of flight so that we can attempt to find one of my missing research snakes from the sky. Since we will be able to cover a large area from the ultralight, we hope to be able to pick up a radio signal from a snake ("Abuelo") who has disappeared from our study site.

So unless Abuelo returns before the weekend, I may be making another flight within the next few days. I think I could handle that.

Dunk Tank

Last week, I was invited to take part in the homecoming festivities by working a shift in the dunk tank, which raised money for Katrina relief. So I took my place dangling above the water and was immediately dropped by Ryan Biga. Twice. He had been manning the tank all day, perfecting his aim. Then, given his charitable spirit, my fiance (and his co-worker) took a break from work and came over. They each dunked me. And then classes got out and the students started lining up. Even a few of my colleagues took a couple of shots at me. One student that I didn't even know ran by and dunked me manually. For those of you who aren't aware of the rules, the dunking is typically accomplished when a ball, not a hand, hits the target.
So at $1 a turn, I was able to help raise a decent amount of money for hurricane victims.

The Monkey

This entry is an attempt at recreating my monkey entry, which I deem my favorite so far. I have an inordinate fondness for monkeys; so when I gave a talk on Saturday the 22nd to the Kansas Association of Biology Teachers about our snake research, I was elated when I arrived and immediately saw that my friend Jennifer had with her a baby java macaque. She was monkey-sitting for another friend of ours who owns an exotic animal sanctuary just outside of Kansas City. My student, Sean, my field assistant, William, and I all got to hold him (and his duck, to which he was hopelessly attached). So though meeting all of the teachers and sharing our project with them was great, meeting Alfie and his duck was the highlight of the day.

Lost Blog

Unfortunately, late last week my blog was accidentally erased. So, in an effort to reinvent it with this single entry, I am going to make an (undoubtedly futile) attempt to recapitulate what was lost.
First, in looking for inspiration (from the Latin for "breathing in") to start my blog, I decided to go outside and "breathe in" the campus. I didn't get the chance to do so, though, because I was truly motivated by the dedication of two of my research students, Laura and Sean, in their efforts to miraculously produce a grant proposal to fund our snake research in a very short period of time. This act, as well as the next post concerning the computational efficiency of my non-majors students, are the types of things it takes to inspire me. Around here, actively seeking out inspiration is not required.
Another of my entries referenced a really cool bat article (Speech Gene Gone Batty) at the ScienceNow link below. It turns out (though not unexpectedly due to our evolutionary history) that the same gene that regulates bat echolocation (sonar communication) is responsible for the generation of speech in humans. Bats are amazing creatures and fascinating to work with, due in part to the agility and grace that result from their echolocation abilities. Btw, the unidentified bat pictured in the article is Rhinolophus paradoxolophus, meaning "nose crest, marvelous crest." The reason for the name is pretty self-explanatory and goes to show that scientific names really do make sense!