TOMS shoes

Our cat, Angelo, is now famous! I submitted this picture of him laying on my TOMS shoes to the TOMS website and they put it on their photo wall. I love TOMS because, for each pair you buy, the company donates a pair to a child in an undeveloped nation. They're also REALLY cute and comfortable and they even have vegan options now. They visited Rockhurst campus last year because we are a university supporter of their wonderful cause. I know it may be a little late for Christmas, but they make great gifts!

Texas

I have been in Texas A LOT lately visiting my family. I did finally get to meet my brother's new girlfriend, Heather, who is wonderful (that's them in the picture). I also had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with my mom, dad and grandma over the last few weeks and do some relaxing. We are officially on winter break now at Rockhurst but I have quite a bit of work to do. So it looks like I won't be back in TX for Christmas, which makes me even more grateful for the time I was able to spend there recently.

Quick update

For those of you who have read my recent posts, I just wanted to update you on my brother's condition (this is him with my ferret, Pippin, in Texas a few years ago). [In case you haven't read my previous posts, he and his dog were attacked by two pit bulls in late September.] He and Buffy are doing great and have completely recovered, though Jeremy will definitely have some major scars. I will see him for the first time since the "incident" this week over our Thanksgiving break and I can't wait! I will also get to meet his new girlfriend and see the rest of my family so I'm incredibly excited about Thanksgiving this year. I'll let you know how it goes once I've returned from TX. Be safe and have a happy Thanksgiving!

Kansas Herpetological Society Meeting

This past weekend, 4 of my students and I attended the KHS annual meeting, which took place this year at MidAmerica Nazarene University in Olathe, KS. One of my students, Eric Kadlec, who worked in the field with me all summer, presented his field observations at the meeting. He did a great job, especially considering that he was the only undergraduate presenter and he was speaking to many of the "big names" in the discipline of herpetology (the study of amphibians and reptiles). Eric and the other students were able to experience a professional meeting and listen to talks about some of the newest findings in the field of herpetology. I am SO glad they were able to go with me and we all had a lot of fun. As a side note, I was also awarded the KHS Alan H. Kamb grant for the study of Kansas snakes this weekend, which will help me and my research students fund the genetic analysis of our relocated rattlesnakes.

Pumpkin Party!

This past Saturday the Biology Department hosted our traditional Pumpkin Carving party for our students and faculty and their families. We had pizza and candy after the carving was finished, and then we gave awards for the best pumpkins ("Scariest," "Most Boo-tiful," "Dead Last," "1st Place," etc.). The pumpkins were all fantastic, and our overall winner was Kristina Carpenter, who skillfully carved a wolf howling at the moon. If you're interested, the pumpkins will be on display this week in the window of the Science Division conference room (SC202A).

Fall Break/ACUBE 2009

Rockhurst is officially on Fall Break, yet most members of the Biology Department have dedicated much of their break this week to preparing for the annual ACUBE (Association of College and University Biology Educators) meeting. We hosted the meeting here on campus this year and were excited for our colleagues from around the country to spend time with us at Rockhurst. Many people commented about how nice the campus, and particularly our science facilities, are. Attendees were also thrilled to be in Kansas City and took advantage of some of the great things it has to offer. Most members of the Department presented talks or posters, including Dr. Chad Scholes and I, who presented information concerning our Biology Field Trip to Nicaragua. As a bonus, a friend of mine from grad school at Texas A&M (Dr. Andrew Greene) came into town for the meeting from Ashland University in Ashland, OH. It's always fun to catch up with Andrew, as well as all of the other members of this close-knit organization. The preparation was a lot of work (especially for Dr. Salem, who coordinated the meeting), but it certainly paid off.

Rough week

Last week my brother, Jeremy, and his Border Collie, Buffy, were attacked by two pit bulls in a public park near where we grew up. An irresponsible and heartless dog owner had dumped them there the day before, and they had obviously been abused (and/or they were fighting dogs) and were incredibly aggressive.
The pit bulls lunged at Buffy's throat and Jeremy grabbed her and climbed a 5-ft stone wall. The dogs were biting his legs as he was climbing up, so his legs are in bad shape (~25 stitches), but getting better everyday. However, it would've been substantially, perhaps unthinkably, worse if he hadn't had the wherewithal to climb the wall and drag Buffy up with him. They were grabbing her leg and tail as she was trying to get up the wall but thankfully she's okay, too (Border Collies have lots of fur to grab onto). A park employee flagged down a policeman who shot and killed one of the dogs as it was still going after Jeremy, which was also traumatic for all involved. They were able to catch the other one and are still monitoring it. A park employee was able to get the owner's his license plate number and they took him into custody this week. Jeremy is doing okay but still in quite a bit of pain and not able to return to work.
Since I didn't want to include a gross picture of his leg (you can see that at the link below), pictured here is Jeremy, with two good legs, in Dublin, Ireland this summer.

Here's the news story if you're interested in reading more or watching the video:

http://www.kbmt12.com/news/local/60792352.html

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/local/update__police_shoot_pit_bu
ll_at_tyrrell_park.html

RORS

Last Friday we had the pleasure of hosting the first installment of our Rockhurst Outstanding Research Seminar (RORS). We invited a recent RU graduate and research student of mine, Rebecca Benjamin (pictured at our research site with George Pisani), to speak about "Undergraduate Research for the Conservation of Timber Rattlesnakes." She did a PHENOMENAL job (like we expected) and we had a good turnout. The purpose of the seminar is two-fold: to share outstanding research and creative activities with the Rockhurst community as a whole, and to expose students to the benefits and excitement of participating in undergraduate research or creative projects. Rebecca certainly met both of these objectives with her talk.

COA

This afternoon some colleagues and I will be visiting a threatened site along the Blue River in Kansas. The site is contiguous with our local Upper Blue River Conservation Opportunity Area (COA). COAs are areas recognized by the Missouri Department of Conservation as "conservation hotspots," or high priority areas for wildlife and habitat conservation. It just so happens that in KC we have the only urban COA right in our backyards! We hope to protect the site we will visit today from development and further urbanization, as it is important from a natural resource and biodiversity perspective.

New car!

Okay, for those of you who don't know, until yesterday evening I drove an inherited '99 Ford Crown Victoria to class everyday. I'm sure you saw it in the Science Center parking lot - it looked a whole lot like a police cruiser. However, thanks to the Cash for Clunkers program, I will now be sporting a 2009 Honda Fit, which gets more than double the gas mileage of the Crown Vic. As an environmentally-conscious person in every other facet of my life, this finally allows me to resolve that one less-than-environmentally-sound aspect. Now if only I can keep it clean after my students and I have been out in the field...

Hogan Institute

Over the course of the last 2 weeks I have been fortunate to be part of the Hogan Prep/Rockhurst Interdisciplinary Summer Institute. Drs. Annie Lee, Zdenka Guadarrama, Laura Salem, Rob Vigliotti and I, along with a group of wonderful Rockhurst students, hosted 18 students from Hogan Prep High School in Kansas City. We set out to give them the complete college experience by issuing them IDs, having them stay in the dorms and eat on campus the first week, and taking classes during the day, all the while working on a recycling project that they will implement at Hogan. The classes included biology, chemistry, math and philosophy; and more specifically to biology, students conducted molecular biology experiments during the first week with Dr. Salem (including isolating their own DNA!) and then conducted some organismal and field biology with me during the second week. The top picture shows the group who helped me track snakes yesterday while the bottom picture shows our small-mammal trapping team. We all had a blast and I think they learned a lot about science and philosophy, college life, and themselves along the way.

JMIH

I just returned from an outstanding conference, the Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, in Portland, OR. Aside from the informative talks - there were 10 concurrent paper sessions every 15 minutes all day for 5 days and 100s of posters - the city was fantastic and it was great to reconnect with people I hadn't seen since last year or years past. I presented a poster concerning our rattlesnake relocation project and it was very well-received. Everyone was excited to see what we were doing here in KS and MO to conserve our wildlife and to help to preserve these creatures.

Snake Surgery

On Tuesday evening my reseach student, Eric, and I packed up all of my surgical supplies and headed to Johnson Co., KS, to implant some rattlesnakes. Animal Control, supervised by my friend and colleague, Jennifer, had recovered two courting rattlesnakes from a resident's backyard after they became entangled in landscape fabric. We were asked to come out and implant radio-transmitters in these two so that they could be released and their movements tracked by radio-telemetry. This picture shows me suturing up a very large male. Actually, Timber Rattlesnakes aren't NEARLY as huge as people think - he was one of the largest males we've caught and he was only 3.2 feet long and weighed just over 2 pounds! The other snake was a big, pregnant female (rattlesnakes give live birth), so we were extremely careful with her. Both of them recovered well and are doing great. They will be released later this week.

Back from Ireland

Aric and my brother, Jeremy, and I just returned from a week in Ireland. It was AMAZING! We spent several days in Dublin seeing the sites and took the train across the beautiful countryside to the west. We rented a car in Limerick and from there my brother masterfully drove us around on the left side of incredibly narrow roads and round-abouts. We were very fortunate to be able to stay in the childhood village of Dr. Mairead Greene (of the RU Math Dept.) in her grandfather's home. Our time in the west was spent on the beach, at the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher, in picturesque Irish castles, and in the wonderful little town of Ennis. Ireland is a truly remarkable place and I only wish we'd had more time there! Pictured are Jeremy and Aric in front of the High Cross at Dysert O'Dea in Co. Clare, and me and Jeremy under the waterfall at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.

Buck O'Neil Legacy Seat

A while back, Aric nominated me for the honor of sitting in the great Buck O'Neil's Legacy Seat at a KC Royals game. Buck O'Neil was a Kansas City legend and a hero to baseball. He played in the Negro Leagues, was the first African-American coach of a MLB team, and established the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in KC (you should definitely see this museum!). He also performed countless other services for the Kansas City community and has been greatly missed since his death a few years ago. As a tribute to Buck, his seat at Kauffman Stadium is always filled during Royals home games, and the person with the honor of sitting in his seat must first be nominated and then selected. To my surprise I received that honor and yesterday filled his seat, the only red one in a sea of blue at the stadium. Not only did my three guests and I (left to right: Rob, Laura (Dr. Salem), me and Aric) receive VIP treatment, but we got the privilege of watching the Royals from the same spot Buck had watched them from for so many years as a scout and a fan - right behind home plate.

Back from Nicaragua...

It's been a while since my last post because my parents came into town from Texas right after we returned from Nicaragua. I love showing them around this amazing city, but I must say it was difficult to make the transition from a 2-week stay in an impoverished country to the extravagance of American life. We were without electricity or potable water, surrounded by a foreign culture and ecosystem, and quickly became immersed. To return to superfluous gadgets and luxuries was difficult to accept and made all of us feel paradoxically guilty and thankful for what we have.

This picture is of some of the Field Trip students looking out over Lake Nicaragua and Granada from the cloud forest atop Mombacho, an inactive volcano. Like every aspect of this country, it was incredible.

Nicaragua

Bright and early Memorial Day morning, Dr. Scholes, Linda Lehrbaum (of KCWildlands), 10 students and I will be boarding a plane to Nicaragua for our Biology Field Trip Class! Well, we'll actually be boarding 3 consecutive planes and spending a lot of quality time with one another in multiple airports, but by the end of it all we'll be landing in Managua. We will stay at a functional farm outside of Jinotepe, surrounded by tropical forests abounding with biology. Needless to say, we're all very excited. The picture here is from our 2007 trip to this same locality - there will be many more to add upon our return in June!

Evolution presentations

My Evolution students just finished presenting their blogs and did a phenomenal job! I am so proud of them - they took this grid-computing project and absolutely ran with it. Please take a look at their team statistics, indicated at the top of each group's blog. And then consider joining a grid-computing endeavor yourself!

Snake season!

Next week, the rattlesnakes that my students and I monitor during their active season will be emerging from their den. I will have several students working with me this summer, a few from KU and two of our recent graduates as well as two current Rockhurst students. One of these students, Eric Kadlec, just received the Dean's Undergraduate Fellowship for Research, which will fund his summer contribution to the field work. Congratulations, Eric!

I'm so excited to get started tracking snakes again, especially with these fantastic students!

Update on Evolution Blogs

I just wanted to once again refer everyone to the Evolution Service-Learning blogs linked at the bottom of this page. Recently each group added answers to questions concerning scholarly articles about their respective project topic. These articles and associated questions allowed students to connect the concepts they have read about in their textbook (pictured) & discussed in class with the topic of their specific grid-computing project. Their answers show that these connections have in fact been made, as they effectively apply these concepts to topics like disease and global climate change. I am quite proud of these blog entries and hope you get a chance to check them out!

Service Trip

Over spring break last week, Darnell Jones and I led a group of outstanding students on an Alternative Spring Break trip, during which time we dedicated ourselves to the service of others in Baltimore. We could not have asked for a better, more cohesive and passionate group of students (left to right: Annie Hart, Rachel Scheve, Emily Schnelting, Abby Gibbs, Kelsey Evans, Nate Olson and Ken Bevers in front). They were committed to service and leadership and to one another, and their personalities and compassion brightened the days of each person with whom they interacted. From children in urban Head Start programs to adults with developmental disabilities and women & men in need of a hot meal, our group touched the lives of many. This was certainly reciprocated, as the stories of these wonderful people helped us to grow and to find ourselves in them. It was truly a transformative experience for all and I thank Darnell, Fr. Gregg Grovenburg and the University, our amazing students and the people of Baltimore Catholic Charities for this incredible opportunity to live our mission.

a few news items

Some exciting things have happened since my last post, so I will just list them:

1) Last weekend, the letter to the editor of the Kansas City Star that my Evolution students composed was published!

2) The Biology Department decided on a name for our Bichir (pet fish) - The Incredible Mr. Limpet, after the Don Knotts movie from 1964 (see picture). This entry was submitted by Pat Laughlin and won unanimously.

3) The Evolution service learning interviews are now posted on their blogs (below). Please check them out if you get a chance!

Students' Evolution Blogs

Please check out the blogs my Evolution students are maintaining for their service-learning projects (links at the bottom of this page)! They parallel the themes of their Darwin Day posters (pictured here) and, just like their posters, the students have put a lot of work into their blogs as well. Soon they will be posting accounts of interviews they have conducted with experts on their respective project topics, followed by entries concerning scientific literature on their topics and updates about their projects. So please remember to check them regularly!

Darwin's Birthday Celebration!!!

Yesterday, the Biology Department threw a huge bash to celebrate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. In preparation, students from Evolution, Genetics, Invertebrate Zoology, General Biology II and two sections of our non-majors Biology course created informative posters, amazing works of art, a beautiful banner and even dishes made from Mrs. Charles Darwin's cookbook! (The above students are posing next to their fantastic projects.) We had t-shirts made using artwork contributed by J.Q. Sirls, an incredibly creative non-majors student from last semester. The Biology faculty also brought Dodo Dogs, Vestigial Veggies, Cambrian Explosion Candy, Cretaceous Cookies, Finch Fritos, Coprolite Cheese Puffs, Galapagos Grapes and Primordial Punch in honor of Darwin and evolution. We had visitors from across campus who came to admire our students' work. We are so proud of them and of how successful this day turned out to be!

Reptile becomes a dad at 111 years old!

This BBC news story focuses on my favorite reptile, the endangered tuatara. Their reproductive cycle, which is hinted at just in the title of this piece, at least partly explains why they are endangered - some of them aren't reproductive until they're centenarians! There are also other aspects of their biology (reproductive and otherwise), as well as habitat destruction by humans, that have collectively resulted in the threatened status of this group. This status is an absolute shame because they are some of the most primitive and intriguing (and, in my opinion, beautiful) animals in the world.

This week

This week is full of moving events and milestones. Not only did we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., yesterday, but today we swore in a new American President! And on a more local note, we start classes here at Rockhurst tomorrow, which is also pretty exciting. Though not nearly as historically important, earlier this week we were thrilled to set up an aquarium in the biology office suite (Science Center 220) that now houses our bichir. Bichirs (pictured) are primitive fish of the genus Polypterus, which, for obvious reasons, means "many fins." They are from the Congo of Africa and are very unique and endearing fish. He is incredibly active (he's been known to jump out of his previous aquarium - but he was okay because he has a LUNG in addition to his gills!) and can "walk" on the rocks in the bottom of his aquarium using his strong pectoral fins, and even swim backward. He is really cool, and I hope lots of people come by to see him now that he's on display!

Happy 2009!

It's the new year and I am starting to get excited about the coming semester. I will be teaching Evolution, Human Anatomy & Physiology, Cell Basis for A&P, Advanced Principles of Biology, and Biology Field Trip. I LOVE each of these courses, and am especially looking forward to our return trip to Nicaragua in May with the Field Trip class. In Evolution, we'll once again be conducting our service learning projects (please see the links below for last year's), which I am eager to begin. This year we will also be creating art and informational displays for our Darwin Day celebration (Darwin's 200th birthday on February 12th). I will post more info on that when the time draws nearer.

Until the start of the semester, I'll be working on finalizing and submitting a manuscript about the timber rattlesnake project. I'll keep everyone apprised!

So happy new year, and I look forward to seeing everyone on the 21st!