This past weekend I was in the San Joaquin Valley to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday. On a cold and rainy Saturday morning we gathered at my parents’ house to take care of some last-minute things before the big party later that evening. We were in the backyard when I noticed a tiny lizard on…
Month: December 2015
Wave watching
Last night the moon was new, meaning that we are now in spring tides. The spring tides occur during the new and full phases of the moon and result in the largest swings between high and low tides; in the weeks between the full and new moons we have neap tides, during which the height difference between…
Progress report
My most recent batch of sea urchin larvae continues to do well, having gotten through the dreaded Day 24. I haven’t written about them lately because they’re not doing very differently from the group that I followed last winter/spring. However, I’ve been taking photos of the larvae twice a week and it seems a shame to…
A phobia that I don’t have, and a tiny phurry phriend
This morning I was teaching lab when three of my students in the back corner called me over to where they were working. “We have a problem,” one of them declared. Since they were making posters I assumed that the problem had to do with format or content or something related to the scientific papers…