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…
The original clone wars
A long time ago in a galaxy called the Milky Way, a great adventure took place. We don’t know exactly when it happened, but it must have been very shortly after the evolution of the first cells. Some small prokaryotic cell walled itself off from its surroundings. Then it learned how to replicate itself and as cells…
Coming back to life
Every year, as early as Memorial Day or as late as Father’s Day, there’s about a week of really lovely low tides. This midsummer tide series usually includes the lowest low tides of the year, and we intertidal ecologists plan our field activities around them. Incidentally, there’s a corresponding low tide series in the midwinter, too….
More about those angry bees
Today’s online version of the San Francisco Chronicle published another follow-up article about last week’s rampage of bees in Concord, CA. The gist is that seven bees sent to the state Department of Food and Agriculture for testing, and the results showed that they did not possess Africanized alleles. This finding has led some to…