This past weekend I was trying to manage some concussion headache issues and stayed away from the marine lab for four days. Usually that’s not a big deal. Since I’ve been absent so much of the summer due to the head injury, the lab assistants whose job it is to make sure that everybody has air…
Author: Allison J. Gong
Not-so-happy anniversary
Seeing as today is the third anniversary of the first blog post I wrote about sea star wasting syndrome (SSWS), I thought it would be appropriate to take inventory of my remaining stars and see how they’re doing. Right now I have custody of ~10 bat stars (Patiria miniata), 7 ochre stars (Pisaster ochraceus–collected last…
Camera test-drive: Nikon D7200
For the past several years now I’ve been using various iterations of an Olympus point-and-shoot camera, mostly for field and lab work. My current version, which I’ve had for over a year now, is the TG-4, in which the ‘T’ stands for Tough. This camera really stands up to its name. I routinely clamber over slippery…
Life in a drop of water
Spending the summer trying to heal a concussion brain injury means that not much science has been happening in my life lately. Now three months post-accident, I’m finally able to do a little bit of thinking and am not quite as exhausted as I was, although extended periods of concentration are still taxing and usually…
It’s the little stuff
At the marine lab we have many seawater tanks and tables in various shapes sizes. For my purposes the most useful are the tables. The tables are shallow, about 20 cm deep, but what’s nice about them is that water depth can be managed by varying the height of the stand pipe in the drain. I…
The burning season
Mediterranean climates, such as the one that much of California experiences, are characterized by two distinct seasons: a mild, moderately wet season and a warm/hot dry season. In most of the state the majority of precipitation falls between Thanksgiving and Memorial Day, with very little in the other months. At this time of year the dry season…
Hasta la vista, El Niño!
The strongest El Niño event on record has now been declared officially ended. For the past year and a half or so El Niño and a separate oceanographic phenomenon known as ‘The Blob’ have been battling it out for supremacy over weather and productivity in the northeastern Pacific, particularly in the California Current Ecosystem. It seems…
Homecoming
This week saw the last of the good morning low tides of 2016. By “good” I mean a minus tide that hits during daylight hours. There are two more minus tide series in August, with the lows occurring well before dawn. After that the next minus tides don’t happen until mid-October; these will be late in…
Buy local, bee local
I sort of assume that people appreciate the importance of honey bees. And then, every so often I am forcibly reminded that, even in the fairly ecologically savvy city where I live, there are those who would rather destroy honey bees than live with them. Fortunately, sometimes I am also reminded of the resilience of honey bees and…
My concussion
Some friends have asked what it’s like to have a concussion, and how my recovery is going. I think it’s hard for them to understand why, almost six weeks after the accident, I’m still having so many problems. Since this is my first concussion I don’t really know what to expect, but having consulted with…