a productive day
At home, dirty dishes piled up in the sink means that I'm being lazy. At the lab, dirty dishes piled up in the sink means that I've had a very productive day.
climate change science. baked goods. photos. home videos.
predicting the weather
My lab conducts a lot of research that revolves around rain events in northern California. I study a soil process that only happens when there is no oxygen in the soil. This usually occurs after it rains because the soil fills up with water, pushing out the oxygen from the tiny air pockets in the soil. One of my labmates wants to know how changes in rainfall due to climate change will affect how carbon gets stored in soil. For us, it would be great to be able to predict the weather far in advance so that we can schedule when we do our field work.
Last winter, I remembered that the Old Farmer's Almanac gives long-range weather forecasts for large swaths of the United States. Our lab is hyper aware of every time it rains, so I had a good sense of the historical rain patterns for the past six years (how long I have been a member of the lab). In northern California, we typically only get rain between October and April. That's why the landscape looks brown if you visit during the summer--everything dies without receiving water for months. Since January, the almanac's predictions never missed a rain event and were always correct within a week. The real test came in late May when the almanac predicted a small rain shower. It almost never rains in May, but it did this year. The most important rain event to predict for my lab's research is the first one after the summer dry season. The bacteria that lay asleep in the soil waiting for water can react immediately to the rain and start pumping out carbon dioxide. We are usually scrambling to prepare for our field work when we see a significant chance of rain pop up on the ten-day forecast of typical weather stations. This year, I had my eye on September 11-13, when the almanac predicted--based on their secret formula that includes solar activity--that it would rain. It is now September 14, and the ground is still wet from the rain showers that started two days ago. If you are planning any outdoor activities around September 28-30, you might want to have an alternative indoor plan because that's when it's supposed to rain again.Comments [0]
New niece and nephew video!
I just spent a sweltering weekend in Florida with my family. My niece was her usual very sweet and mature five-year old self (calling herself a "splendid soccer player") while my nephew is at his most adorable age. He speaks only one word at a time right now, but he's very good at letting you know what he wants. For example, when he wanted to spit out some fruit peel from his mouth, he grabbed my hand and put it under his chin. I really do hope my kids will be as cute, smart, kind-hearted, and well-behaved as my niece and nephew. Here's a five minute video compilation from my visit:
Comments [1]
Listen to the little voice in your head
I have learned this lesson over and over again in the lab, and yet it never really sinks in. Today I was in a rush to make a solution that involves heating it to help the chemical crystals to dissolve. (Think of how true sweet iced tea can only be made by dissolving sugar in the tea when it is hot. The sugar just sinks to the bottom when you mix it into iced tea.) The little voice in my head said to just turn the hot plate to medium heat, but I decided to use the max setting. Ten minutes later I walked back to the lab to find the technician standing outside saying that something had exploded in the lab. Luckily the noise was only from the bursting of the parafilm I had used to cover the flask that contained my solution. Unluckily I was making a solution of a corrosive chemical that boiled over and stained the nice white hot plate a metallic, burned brown. Rule 1 that applies to all situations in life: listen to the little voice in your head. Rule 2 for working in the lab: never do anything in a rush because you'll probably mess it up and waste your time. And God forbid, you may injure someone. Breaking both of those rules is how I severely burned my hand with liquid nitrogen a couple years ago. Today is the day that I will take these lessons to heart.
Comments [0]
There is such thing as free dinner!
Growing up, I always had to listen to my dad's cynical "There is no such thing as free lunch" warnings to me to not get duped by seemingly good deals with lots of fine print. Last night I found out that there really is such thing as free dinner. Thanks to the "drug" rep that took out me, Glen, and another resident! I felt a little guilty ordering a cocktail (pomegranate martini), an appetizer (shrimp hushpuppies), an entree (surf n' turf--scallops, foie gras, and pulled pork), a side (mac n' cheese), dessert (chocolate-filled beignets), and a cappuccino with no regard for the prices. I think that is more food than I ate all week, and boy was it tasty! All I had to do was sit through a two-hour dinner that revolved around surprisingly little conversation about the product that the rep was peddling.
This was the first "drug" dinner that Glen and I have attended, and it was so interesting to observe the strategy of the rep: build a relationship, maybe even a friendship, with the doctors. Only a few times did the rep mention how well a new product worked, but there was never any pressure for Glen and his colleague to use the product. Instead, we talked about our backgrounds and interests. As we drove home with full bellies, Glen and I talked about what effect the dinner had on his future decisions about which products to use. I'm glad that Glen is ethical enough to use his brain and not his belly to make medical decisions for his patients, but we could easily imagine how perks like this could sway others.
Comments [2]
hiking to Machu Picchu
When I first announced that Glen and I were going to visit Peru, friends kept asking if we were going to hike the Inca Trail. I didn't want to spend four days of our short trip hiking because I also wanted to visit Lake Titicaca. Thus, we compromised and signed up for the two-day Inca Trail. On the first morning, we would make the three hour train ride from Cusco to the vicinity of Machu Picchu. We would then spend the late morning and the afternoon hiking the last portion of the Inca Trail, which the tour company assured me was very flat. What sold me on doing this particular version of the Inca Trail is that we would reach Machu Picchu at sunset, when the park had already closed and emptied of tourists.
Getting our first glimpse of Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate as the last beams of daylight illuminated the ancient city was as amazing as I had imagined. Getting ourselves to that point was much more difficult.
Our train dropped us off at the trailhead just before noon (an hour later than scheduled), so we knew we had to hurry along on the trail in order to make it to Machu Picchu before dark. When I say the train dropped us off, I mean it stopped for about 30 seconds so that the five of us (Glen, my parents, our guide, and myself) could hop off onto the grass and brush along the railroad tracks. Though there didn't appear to be many mosquitoes swarming around, we heeded our guide's instructions to cover ourselves in repellent. (The next day I opted out of deet and subsequently received a few bites that caused my leg to swell so much that I no longer had a left ankle. Painful!) As we were spraying ourselves with repellent, my parents didn't see--and I pretended that I didn't see--our guide point to the top of the mountain and declare that our destination for lunch.
Stair after stair. Switchback after switchback. We just kept our heads down and trodded upwards, hoping that the top of the mountain was just around the corner. My mom is a nearly 60 year old gym rat who is not athletic, and I worried that she would not have the mental stamina to push through the pain. We stopped often for her to catch her breath, and our guide used all of his peppiness to encourage her to keep moving. My favorite way of passing time when running on a treadmill is calculating what percentage of my workout I had already completed. After an hour of struggling under the blazing hot sun, I asked our guide if we had passed the halfway point of our pre-lunch hike. Nope! Keep going! After another hour, our guide finally announced that we only had to turn three more corners before we reached the top. In the end, we scaled about 2300 feet over 3 miles in 2.3 hours (in the landscape photo I took after lunch, you can see the river by the train tracks where we started). I was so proud of my mom for making it to the top and so quickly too!
Our pre-lunch hike that the tour company conveniently didn't mention put us at the trailhead for the last portion of the Inca Trail. Fortunately, this portion was as flat as advertised. However, it was lined with uneven stones, so we had to be careful as we raced to cover the last 4.5 miles of our hike in 2 hours. We had made it so far on our trip without any huge mishaps, and we crossed our fingers that no one would twist an ankle on the uneven footing before we reached Machu Picchu. And after scrambling up one more set up stone steps, we finally reached the Sun Gate, framing a view of Machu Picchu in the distance. My mom immediately declared that she had just completed the last hike she would ever do. Not a bad one to end on.
There aren't words to describe the beauty and majesty of the area surrounding Machu Picchu, so I'll let my photos do the talking. We returned the next morning at sunrise to explore the grounds before the hoards of day tourists from Cusco arrived on the train and before the sun sent us looking for shade to hide under. Glen wants creative credit for the morning photos because he said to me, "Quick, Wendy! Take some more photos of Machu Picchu before the sun comes up all the way!"
Comments [0]
research woes
When I first started doing science research in college, I never understood why science had to proceed at such a slow pace. Many of the studies I read about weren't published until three to five years after they were conducted. Now that I am entering my sixth year of graduate school I understand completely. I have a project that has produced results so new and exciting that my advisor and I have received a substantial grant to expand the work. We first started the project almost two years ago, and yet we still can't publish the results. We have repeated the experiment six times with various modifications to improve our technique or to answer slightly different questions. We have managed to get every possible result in each experiment--the treatment stimulates the process, the treatment inhibits the process, and there is no effect. Moreover, we've gotten this range of results for a variety of variables that we measured. Of course I can come up with reasonable guesses as to why we got so many different results, but dang it, I would love for my soil bacteria to behave.
We are presenting this work for the first time at a national conference in August. Next week we have our last shot at getting it right before the conference. Keep your fingers crossed!
Comments [1]
Impressions of Arequipa
After spending the night in Lima, we caught an early morning flight to Arequipa, a Spanish colonial city at 5000 ft. Our plan was to spend one night in Arequipa to adjust to the altitude before heading to Puno, which is at over 12000 ft. Since we were gaining altitude quickly, we all decided to take Diomox to help ward off altitude sickness. While I appreciated not getting sick, Diomox made my feet, knees, and hands tingly and slightly numb at random times during the day and night--very annoying!
My parents hadn't given much thought to the Spanish conquest of the New World since they didn't grow up in this hemisphere. Their first impression of Arequipa was that it reminded them of Mexico. Yes! Conquered by the same people. Good observation. It reminded me of Merida in particular, with its narrow streets, abundant plazas, and colonial architecture.
We stayed at La Casa de Melgar, a fascinating hotel that was an old colonial home. The rooms had high vaulted ceilings, thick stone walls, and windows overlooking a beautiful garden. The grounds were so beautiful that we were very excited to just stay at the hotel instead of wandering around town. Part of the allure for me was that the gardens were an oasis from the clouds of dust and diesel exhaust emanating from cars careening down the narrow streets that trapped the air pollution.
Out of everything about our trip, my dad was most excited to indulge in ceviche. Thus, for our first lunch in Peru, we found a restaurant that my guidebook recommended. We ordered mixtos ceviche, meaning that it included lots of unidentified but very tasty seafood. Unfortunately, it turns out that Glen was allergic to something in the ceviche. He spent the rest of the day in bed, hoping that the Benadryl I happened to bring from home would help his eyelid swelling go down quickly. We stayed away from ceviche for the rest of the trip.
We also visited a museum that houses the mummy of a girl named Juanita sacrified by the Incas about 500 years ago. Apparently the Incas raised specially selected children who were sacrificed to appease the gods when volcanoes became active. The child would make the journey to a nearby volcano, be killed (by a blow to the head in this case), and then buried with offerings to the gods. The Incas didn't actually mummify the children, but this girl's body happened to be well-preserved. It was amazing to see!
In getting directions to the museum, I got to try out my terrible Spanish for the first time. I mumbled "El museo? Juanita?" with a confused look on my face before Glen took over to receive the directions with his fluent Spanish. By the end of our trip, I had graduated to speaking up to five word full sentences. Sometimes the person I was speaking to would have to stare at me for a long time waiting for me to compose my sentence, but I'd eventually get something intelligible out.
Comments [0]
Photo #9999
I long ago decided that I would post the 10,000th photo that I took with my digital SLR regardless of the photo quality and subject. I just hoped that it would be something worth sharing. I passed this milestone in April without even realizing it. Since my camera starts counting from one again after reaching 9,999, here is photo #9999.
Comments [1]
crab with a hat
My cousin recently complained to me that I haven't been blogging regularly enough for her to bother checking my blog for new posts. Hopefully this flurry of posts will be enough to satiate her for the next couple weeks while I am out of the country. I didn't take a photo of her during her recent visit, but I did subject her lunch to a prolonged photo shoot. Who knew that a soft-shell crab sandwich would really come as a soft-shell crab on a bun? I can't decide if a sandwich with legs looks scary or if a crab wearing a large bread beret looks cute.
Comments [0]
Comments [0]