Press time again :)

Thanks to Asian Clams...I am on the internet

I know I am already on the internet with this blog.....but this is different.......I am on the internet because of a NPR radio show!!! That is what is exciting :)

Plus it is semi-related to my work which makes it even more exciting :)

It is a recipe for cooking Asian clams.......Link



You have to scroll down almost to the bottom to see it....

Look for the title "Asian Clams invade Lake Tahoe" with a large clam picture and there it is....

Corbicula fluminea is the newest non-native species in Lake Tahoe. We are doing a lot of work to try to find out more about them. Here is a recent report about them if anyone is interested...Link

You can also hear all about it on the show :).....the link is with the recipe

Now lets start cooking Asian Clams :)

That is SOME field work!!!

Grad Appreciation Night and EEB colloquium

Incomplete Rowe Lab (from left to right): Our Leader Locke, myself, Min and Inga....missing member: Sean on the other side, Cait at the other table, and Jen in BC

Last weekend..... We had our annual two-day departmental colloquium and Grad appreciation night.

The departmental colloquium gave an opportunity for everyone from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology to find out what their fellow researchers are working on. Min proudly represented my current lab and Paul proudly represented my original lab. They both did an excellent job with their presentation!!! Our invited speakers also gave some extremely interesting talks.

I love Dr. Jonathan Shurin (UBC) talk on trophic ecology of freshwater, marine and terrestrial ecosystems. It was interesting to see comparison among these three types of ecosystems. As my friend Meg has perfectly put it "Dr. Shurin is a true community ecologist trying to answer broad scale question"

Dr. Daniel Pauly (UBS) was our Atwood lecture speaker and his topic was " Impact of fisheries and global warming on marine ecosystems and food security". He has published in a number of world renounced top scientific journals (e.g. Nature and Science). In his talk, he suggested that all fishing practices currently found around the world are not sustainable and what we are doing right now to try to raise awareness (e.g. Green labeling, conservation zoning) is too slow and ineffective. He proposed that a social movement is required and we, as global citizens, should push our governments to make drastic changes with current policy.

I can definitely see the need of that, but I also believe good science has to meet with reality in order to get the idea forward.........I think individual efforts should not be discounted and is necessary. Anywaz, I can go on and on about this.........so I should just stop here......


Another highlight of the day was the Grad Appreciation Night where the supervisors (PI) treat their grad students to a nice dinner :)...... and another proud moment was Jen from our lab got the grad student award (i.e. the best PhD student of the year!!!)

Ok this post is getting too too long...... I should just start posting pictures

Min really loves her beer!!!

What is wrong, Min? You don't like my camera?

I am still not sure what Min is up to :)

Incomplete Rodd lab (from left to right): Anna, her leader Helen, and ex-Rodd member Sean with crazy hair (Yeah his life history is complicated :P)

Smart people engaging in serious topic

Proof of Aneil being nice to his student



Locke is shocked!!! About what though?

LIFE IN SCIENCE ~~1: Ladybird Beetle Work

Meet my labmate Inga from Germany


What is she doing over there? Looking serious and all............What is she watching over?

I will give your 5 sec to make a guess

5
4
3
2
1

Times up!

We are actually observation the mating behaviour of two-spotted ladybird beetles (Adalia bipunctata). I can tell you what we are observing but you will have to ask Inga about the details of her experiments (TOP SECRET!!!).

That is a black two-spotted male mating with a red female

This is what we do, we put a male and a female ladybird beetle together in a tiny petri dish in hope that they will mate with each other (Which they do almost all the time and pretty much right away :P)

We record the length of courtship..........and I believe our record time so far was 6 hrs (correct me if I am wrong, Inga)

Can you imagine how painful this task is? Give it a try and you will know............although I have to say those ladybugs are really quite cute




Stay tune for the next posting...............

PREVIEW: FLY WORK (or Drosophila melanogaster work)

What do scientists do?

LIFE IN SCIENCE

I am not sure if I have mentioned this before.........but I am sort of a budding, wannabe scientist.............I just recently finish my MSc in Ecology, but I would not quite call myself a scientist just yet. I will do that when I actually published something (In the science world, publications are everything. The number of publications is a measure of success)...........So yeah I would say I am a working progress

BUT, I am sure people have wondered what does a scientist do on a day to day basis? What is it like to be in research? Even my closest friends whom have know me for years have that question.

Since I have been spending more time in the lab than at home lately, I have decided to take some pictures and record my daily life as a scientist in the Lab............

I have been taking a break from my own research and has been working in an Evolutionary Biology lab. The main interest of our lab is life history (basically like the life story of an animal) and sexual selection (Yes, that's right!!!)............Lets not go too deep into the theory behind before everyone starts to leave me :P

NOW Let's begin the "LIFE IN SCIENCE" series presented by Scented . Love