A Long Long Time Ago...

     So it has been a while... It's the start of a new school year, without any word from me as to my life of the past 6 or so months. Too bad, get over it, I'm back on; at least for this one time. I feel like I'm just going to skip over most of the past few months and get to the more interesting parts.

     The relentless grind of school work has begun again as another year of my life is spent towards the precious activity of acquiring information. Chemistry is continuing to ruin many young lives including my own. I am now in a class taught by the infamous Dorte Madsen; more commonly known as the chemistry witch. After hearing numerous horror stories of this woman I have decided that the best course of action is to completely avoid lectures and study at my apartment (information soon to come). With that I now only go to campus at noon, except for Tuesdays. Tuesdays are my Hell days. Nothing good can ever come from a Tuesday this quarter. Chem lab 8 to noon, then comp sci lecture for an hour and a half, and finishing up with Bio lab 2-5. Nothing good can ever come of this!!! Back to classes now. Bio 2B is going to be a rather simplistic course I feel; it has to deal with Evolution and Ecology... this is my major... I haven't learned much at all from lectures so far. Finishing up my classes there is the second in the computer science minor courses, ECS 40. This class is all about programming in C++, so you know it's getting serious now!

   That's all for now, don't feel like writing that much this time.

To Begin a New

Auburn, California

As I write this I make my way back to Davis, my home away from home. As I look out the window in the car I watch as familiar sites pass me by, things I have watched change during the last 15 years every day of school. I look back on those days and reflect on nostalgic memories of high school and middle school, teachers of the past, and friends that have been lost to time. During this last break, I was again busy doing other things in preparations for the future, applying to internships and research opportunities, but I am glad I was still able to find some time to go back to at least one of these people for lunch. Sadly,  I fear that this won’t occur as much as I would like it to, there are so many people to catch up with, and time keeps getting eaten away at as I aim towards my future goals.

Why I’m in this mood I’m not entirely sure, perhaps it’s because of the events of this break, or more likely just a realization of all the time that has passed.  What makes it even more impactful is knowing that I may be gone all of Summer as well, unable to visit those of my past as I continue my life experiences doing some research internship away from home. Naturally I want to go through with an internship; it’s just unfortunate that I won’t be seeing many people, if any.

Chytrid fungus has caused the extinctions of numerous
anurans throughout the world. Current theory is that the
 fungushardens the skin making respiration more difficult.

Some other time I may write about the past when in another reminiscing mood, but as for now I’m excited to get back to my classes and anxious to hear back about the applications I have sent out. As many know the main one I look forward to is the possible opportunity in Yosemite working on a herpetology survey program. Over this break though I applied to many more; there is one on butterflies with a professor from Davis, a fly research project, and my second favorite one working with Jonah Piovia-Scott in the field dealing with the chytrid fungus that are endangering anurans (frogs and toads). In the beginning of the year I had talked to Jonah to help with his project, but he then led me to Christopher Searcy who is in charge of the Tiger Salamander research. So I look forward to helping Jonah this time around. These are about half of the research projects I applied to, but they are my top choices currently.

SO CUTE!!!

On to the classes I look forward to for this last quarter. Mostly biology based classes, so that makes this already the best quarter yet. Earlier today I also found out that I will have my introduction bio class with my orientation roommate Kent. This will be the first time I see him since orientation, and I look forward to talking to him again, I had a good time with him. It’s fun to look at the people whom you will share a class with. I also found out that my old chemistry lab partner will be in my Wildlife class. Another fun thing about this class concerns the essays that we have to write. Each essay is about a field trip we take to some local environmental site. One has to be to the Davis arboretum, easy, already have walked through it completely. The second one is cool though. We have 5 options, one of which is Jepson Prairie where I do salamander research. I already know all I need for that essay and more. As for the Life in the Oceans class, I already sent out a message in the chat room (first message) to find more EEB majors in that class (it is an EVE class after all). I do know that there are least three of us EEBers; Charlie, Tyler, and I. If we can find more, we shall be able to build the EEB clan and triumph in the glory of evolution and ecology!

And now I arrive back in Davis at the end of it all. So here is the end of this entry. Good bye!    

Out and About

So these past few days in Bodega Bay have been enjoyable, some more so than others. Amazingly it's been fairly good weather during the day allowing us to venture out to the bay, nights have been brutal though. Every night so far I've been woken up by the rain, and sometimes by weird dreams. Now to expand on these days in full.

Very unfriendly cliffs

It Feels Like the Very First Time (By Foreigner), oyster sucking

So Monday we just went for a nice little walk, maybe around 3 miles along a small peninsula. Very sheer cliffs, I was rather terrified of going over them to be honest (I kept inching my way towards the edge to look over, what a fall that would have been). Checked around for some herps, but didn't see any on that day, just a lot of birds. Afterwards we went down to a small little pool nearby the peninsula, it was roped off to cars but we could still walk around. One of th first things I saw when we arrived was a mouse skeleton. The vertebral column was broken in half, so not too bad, the skull though was shredded so it wasn't very appealing to take. The pond was fenced off so we just looked over it. Not too much else to say about it. Finally we went to the UC Davis Bodega Bay research lab. ... It wasn't open to the public... So just a quick look around through the car and we left. Might look into having an internship there sometime, but the housing was not so great though. As we drove away we saw the wind battered buildings solemnly sitting on the hillside. So very decrepit. This day I experimented with a new seafood as well; oysters. I had never had an oyster before, but they weren't too bad. Rather slimy as one might think, but a very light taste to them. The one issue I have with them is the amount of salt, which is to be expected. Given that I would eat oysters again, but more of an appetizer instead of a full entrée. Along with those we got some small additions to the experiment, limpets. Limpets are those little cone shells you see everywhere along the beach or along river banks. They are a type of snail and they are edible. Note: cook them and then cut off the intestines. They taste like calamari and have the similar chewiness about them, but get a bit of the intestine and the taste turns to a very strong bitterness. The next day was soon to come.

This certainly looks welcoming

Tuesday... not so good as far as I'm concerned. It really just started off badly, woke up with a headache from the night before, and it never diminished the entire day. There were two main things that occurred Tuesday, first off went to Fort Ross. While we were there it just so happened that a Russian film crew were starting on a documentary about the fort, so we didn't get to go inside, but it was still nice to see. From there we were able to go down to the shore line. In the bushes I saw a rather large shell, so had to go and check it out. As soon as I do the bushes rustle. AHA a reptile. That was all I could discern from it as these were blackberry bushes with nice large thorns unwelcoming to open hands. I was able to see the scales of the reptile so I knew it was either skink or snake (possibly an alligator lizard), but that was it sadly. As for the shell, I left it there as it turned out to be badly stained by moss.On our way back the second most important thing we saw was a large group of Harbour Seals. Got plenty of good pictures and videos of them. They were fairly off in the distance so couldn't get very close, but still very cute as they waddled themselves on shore. After all that we decided to head to a nice little town nearby called Occidental. If every you should go there remember to go to the Occidental Inn for food. The pizza there was AMAZING!! Plus the town has a very tight community feel. While in there we had numerous people walk in and start talking to each other, hugging and jollity then commenced. Further, all the men sounded like loggers telling stories of seeing the local Sasquwatch (I don't believe in this creature, but hey they can believe what they want). After all of this, still had the headache and it was time to head back to the trailer.

Poor thing lost one of it's legs, oh well it will grow back.

Such a cute little gopher!

Now we are up to today's adventures. After waking up a few times in the night, once to move from couch to bed and others due to rain and dreams, the first thing I notice, MY HEADACHE IS GONE! Oh so happy about that, just knew it was going to be a good day, and indeed it was. The day was spent another small peninsula that went out into the bay. Out at the end was a long line of rocks for wave control. Within the rock cracks I discover numerous starfishes, so that was cool. While climbing around I also frighten a Norwegian Rat among other small rodents. However the best part of the day was when I found a large vertebra. This I kept. Definitely larger than human vertebra, but I couldn't tell if it was a seal, or perhaps a dolphin? I don't really know. So I decide, Hell I'm looking for more. I went all the way out on the rock line and found one more vertebra, whether they are from the same animal, I cannot tell. BUT, these were not the only bones I found on this day. Along with those two vertebrae there was a head of what I assume is a humerus (s it was not human, so large marine mammal. Dolphins don't have femurs and this was larger than the femur of a seal I think). Lastly a rib of a bird probably. Also along this peninsula we happened upon a gopher digging out a little hole for some food. So we know have a video of a cute little gopher scrounging around. For lunch we had some wonderful Dungeness Crab, a very messy meal. And up til now the only other thing we have done was play a rousing game of Aw Shucks. Today was indeed a good day.

Catch-Up ... Again

Well a month or so has passed since my last update (as if anyone really cares), but there is a rationalized reason for this. Put simply my laptop died.

My old laptop has been naughty trying to get cancer, and finally succeeded . By this I mean it has been smoking... literally smoking. When I would insert the power chord it would spark and then release a bit of magical white smoke that smelled like burning plastic. So anyway it has since been condemned and I now have received a new laptop for my birthday (yes it was my birthday on Saturday, I turned 19 on the 19th). I have discovered some fun things about this new beastie. First off it has built in camera, but this is fairly standard now-a-days. Next up it has a nice little light next to the camera I can turn on to read the keyboard at night instead of tilting the screen down, so that's nice. The thing I find the most interesting is that it has a fingerprint scanner on it. GUESS HOW I LOG ON! Further it came with a battery extension allowing to run for about 6 hours on battery. Now I have begun the process of putting things on it.

Oh yeah, they can stand up also.

My reading list has also been modified since last time. By that I mean I finished my book In a Sunburnt Country by Bill Bryson. An informative book about the rich history of Australia as well as stories from his journeys to the Down Under. I rather enjoyed his quick wrap up of the animal diversity there, "In Australia, all the animals want to kill you." And this is so true. 9/10 of the most venomous snakes  live in Australia, the funnel web spider is the most venomous spider in the world, cane toads (introduced) can kill you with the secretions of the parotoid gland (characteristic of true toads Bufo), monitor lizards out there as big as dogs can out run rabbits due to a fun adaptation allowing them to breath and run (most reptiles can't because when they run one lung gets compressed as the other gets inflated). Box jellies are the worst though. They see you as flesh and that's all it takes to inject you with a toxin that will feel like putting your skin up to an open flame for hours. Or how about being killed by a snail? Certain cone shells in Australia have a venom that literally bursts your blood cells. So while the land may seem bad, the sea is worse.

After finishing that book, I read The God Virus by Dr. Darrel Ray. In the book he uses the metaphor to liken religion to a virus and uses numerous examples to try an get his point across. It was an interesting book, but I found that it he made his point rather quickly and then moved on without explaining very well. It felt more like, "Here it is! Get it? OK moving on." Rushed, that's the word for it. Don't get me wrong, I liked the book overall, but that just stuck to me.

Would you believe these are foxes? Breeding for tameness 

has resulted in secondary effects unforeseen by the breeders. 

I finished that book in about a week, I was proud of myself. Now I'm going through The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. So far it has been very enjoyable. He sets up the book as a way to, step by step, make Evolution by Natural Selection very straight forward for the general public to understand. That won't keep the public from trying not to understand though. So far nothing much has been told to me that I didn't already know, but it has been put in a very straight forward manner making it flow smoothly from one step to the next. I would recommend the book for those who don't already understand Natural Selection, and for those who already do it may give you some new insights into just how far reaching it's effects are on organisms genomes, even when selecting for a particular trait (he uses the domestication of foxes as a good example).

Now that books are done with, on to dorm life. Some may have already heard this but Sean will not be returning this year to our suite. In fact it sounds like he won't be returning until after next year. His plan as of now is to continue at community college and get a job to pay for it. So while he shall not be returning we must get a new suite-mate. So to fulfil this requirement we have recruited a guy from the second floor of our building, Tobias. We've gotten to know each other before this whole predicament and he didn't want to be stuck in his current room so we thought it a good fit. On to classes report.

So far I have heard back from the Anthro class and Math class, and they sound like B- and B+ respectively. Anthro would've been much better had I known the midterm was on Tuesday instead of Thursday as I thought it was. So keep that in mind, always make sure when midterms are the weekend before! Still need to wait for ECS and Dinosaurs. I'm hoping for B and A respectively. The ECS midterm was torture. Just when the prof says to not make programs overly complex, he goes and does that on the final... So dreadful.... Next quarter though already got my classes set up, and what a group it is, Chem 2B, Bio 2A, Wildlife 10, and Evo/Eco 12. Two of which I shall be taking with Charlie, and I think one of them with Tyler, EEB STUDY PARTNERS! What's also rather nice is the WFC class already has the lecture slides up so I can prepare way ahead of time. Finally on to more current dealings.

Finished up my last final on Saturday and am now in Bodega Bay for a week. Planning on eating plenty of seafood and expanding my pallet. Our first day here though and Snow decides to go jumping over a 40ft cliff. So yesterday was full of adrenaline and stress. Luckily she landed in some mud so it didn't cause as bad an impact. After rushing over to an emergency veterinary office, and having her checked out seems like she was spared from everything other than some bruising and a sprained ankle. She may not realize it, but she is extremely lucky after that kind of a fall. Hopefully we don't get any more nasty surprises the rest of this trip.

Some future plans to keep everyone informed on. These next few weeks I'm planning on using a nice website californiaherps.com to begin my journey on memorizing all the herps in California, their distributions, identification etc. Then I can truely call myself a (young) herpetologist.

A Story Reminiscent of Lonely George

How would it feel to be the last human on Earth? Well this story isn't quite that devastating, but it has the same feeling. A lonesome wolverine found in the Sierra Nevada mountain range is though to be the last in the area, but not a local. Indeed, the last known wolverine from the Sierra Nevada's was killed in 1922. As the last known wolverine in the area, debate has begun over whether specimens from other populations should be brought in to reintroduce wolverines to part of their natural habitat.
This particular wolverine has been tracked for over three years now. What's odd about this finding is that this is not a native wolverine. In fact, based off genetic testing, this animal is from the population in the Rockies. However it has been spotted numerous times during these three years and seems to have a huge range over the area, 216 square miles!

This was just a recent article in the Sac Bee, but it was reminiscent of Lonely George, (what was) the last known Pinta Galapagos Tortoise (Geochelone nigra abingdoni). Recently though, as a 90 year old, George may finally become a father. A few attempts have been made at breeding Lonesome George with other females of different subspecies, but so far none have been viable.
The reason I say "was" the last known is because recently a second Pinta tortoise has been found, Tony, another male. However others have suggested that other possible Pinta Tortoises may be on the island of Isabela after scientists have found a tortoise that shares half its genes with George's subspecies. The race is now afoot to search through the 2,000 tortoises on the island to see if there is another Pinta Tortoise among them.
Beyond those possible tortoises though, scientists believe that George may be able to successfully breed with Hood Island Giant Tortoises, his closest living relatives (other than Tony).

Wolverine Story - http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/20/3416527/lone-wolverine-continues-to-roam.html
Lonesome George on Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geochelone_nigra_abingdoni#cite_note-13

Catch Up Time

Well it has been a long time, I am ashamed. So what has happened in the past few weeks? I'll see how much I can remember for this post.

Happy Birthday Darwin!!

First of all, two days ago was Charles Darwin's Birthday. We had a grand celebration in the Laben 4 Ballroom (lounge) in celebration of Darwin's 202nd birthday. Charlie, Tyler, and I took the day to go walking around downtown to inform the citizens of Davis of this special occasion.. they were less than knowledgeable of the times. Charlie was walking around in a Darwin costume, full beard and coat, it was uncanny. We got many guesses as to who he was (Papa Smurf and Father Time among others). During our expedition we went to Border's to look at some good biology books, and of course we found at least one creationist book. So now there is a picture of Charlie in costume with disappointment on his face while holding the book. That night we watched the movie Creation in celebration. T'was a bit dramatized. Darwin did not hallucinate, however he was very ill during his life.Good times were had by all. Perhaps next time we can get a Wallace costume and Huxley costume, have the full gang.

Classes have been going well, I now hate archaeology though. The class is so so very dull.... Our professor only ever reads from his premade powerpoint presentation, and the TA's are so boring that it's now more fun to do math in that class, just as an example. Further the midterm was horrid; I dislike memorization with great intensity. Math has been doing much better than last quarter, mostly because now we have quizzes and homework to boost our grades, and I've been getting near perfect quiz scores so that definitely boosts the ego. ECS is also being really good at that as well (other than this last homework set). So ECS 30 was more of a tester class, to see if I liked the field. Needless to say, yes, yes I do. 66/68 on my midterm, that made me damn proud. Even more so when I find that every ECS major in that class got lower. As far as homework, each week we get a few projects to do and they are typically fairly simple, due to the last assignment I have now officially missed 17 points in total from that class, out of maybe 250 ish, and midterm was a good percentage of the final grade, so yes indeed very happy. Final class is the Dinosaurs class... there isn't much to say for this class... easy yes, got friends in it, and did well on midterm, all else is fairly self explanatory from the title.

Speaking of classes I am to sign up for next quarter classes soon, so much fun right? Well already got the four planned out. First up is Chemistry 2B, because I have to. Luckily I will have the choice between Enderle or a different professor Toby Allen who has a 4.3 on ratemyprofessor.com, so both good choices. The start of the bio series will also come next quarter, and I shall be starting with Charlie so we shall definitely be study partners. Then two GE classes; EVE 12 which is about life in the oceans, and Humanities 15. I know, I know, why humanities? Well part of it is due to the GE's for which it counts towards everything, and the topic is about the f-word. So really how could you go wrong? EVE 12 I shall also, hopefully, be taking with Charlie, Tyler, and Drew, THE EBBer's UNITE!! Some may have noticed that I am not taking any ECS courses, well the reason being that it is only a minor, major takes priority as do GE's and prereqs. Next quarter should be much fun though, even without ECS.

How amazing would it be to say I worked here?

Now onto Summer. Have I ever mentioned that Sherri Mann, my major advisor is AMAZING! So far she has sent out at least a dozen summer internship possibilities, (mostly for upper classmen, but still t'is a fair cop). One that I am eagerly awaiting a replay form is for an internship at Yosemite where I would be helping in a herpetological survey. Can you say HELLS YES? Instead of the 2 requested references, I gave 5, one of whom is one of the top herpetology scientists in the country. Chances are still low that I'll get it, but had to try for a position like that. Numerous positions were open in Alaska, but as I found out earlier today I had to be an upper classman to apply. But numerous other possibilities I still need to examine, and really even if not, it wouldn't be bad to take the summer off or get a local job, that way I can beef-up on programming and herpetology knowledge.

Oh yes, and now for something that just occurred today. My laptop my soon be fried. When I plugged in the power chord, there was some cracklinggg... and some sparrrks.... soon followed by a bit of smoke... These are not good signs, and you don't need to be a computer engineer to figure that one out. So hey mom, I know you read this, you know have one birthday gift idea... that's it, you don't need any more than that.

Guys from L to R, Trevor, Charlie, Matt, and Raymond.  The rest are amazing as well.

What more is there to catch everyone up on? ... Ah yes next year living conditions. Well that has all been figured out now. So next year I shall be living with my good friend Charlie of whom I have spoken much about in this here blog. Along with him there are three others: Raymond the Just, Trevor the Brave, and Matthew the Fair. The five of us shall be sharing an apartment in South Davis in Allegre. A quiet area right near downtown and with shopping a plenty. Drew and I have decided to separate. I think it was a mutual decision so that way we would stop annoying each other so much. The picture to the right is of Laben 4, I guess one may say they are a foster home. The four guys are the future roomies, as for the girls, around half of them will be living right near by as well. All good people who I am fortunate enough to be friends with.

I shall conclude this by saying simply that I am loving college life.

A Dream for Discussing

This my have been a bad title, but I just woke up and dont feel like trying to create a better one.

ANYWAYS the purpose of this one is to recall a dream I had during the night that made me glad to be in evolutionary bio.

So it starts off at the beach along the, what I believe Mediterranean sea oddly enough (the name of the body was said at one point, but I cant remember it), and people from high school and middle school were all there. One guy from middle school became some fashion model (something along those lines) and so there was a photographer going around everywhere taking his picture. I specifically remember two girls from high school also being there and we were talking for a bit. There's the set up.

Beach looked more like this with a few bushes

A few minutes pass and the tide starts to move in, so everyone goes swimming. These waves got decent sized (compared to what I've seen) like 10 feet swells. It was very enjoyable, the water was not too cold surprisingly.

Then we notice a larger wave coming by, I'm guessing around 20 feet. So of course I go for it (note: I'm just swimming, no board). Just before I hit it, I turn and start swimming as fast as I can to keep up with it and start gliding on it. AND I DID! IT WAS FANTASTIC! Then it started slowing down as it was breaking under the water, and I started falling in mid air, but I wasn't really scared until I noticed something under the water as I'm falling towards it.

Anomalocaris

Under the water all I thought it was was just some rock, so naturally I'm afraid I'm going to hit it. When I splash down I don't feel any rock luckily. Thinking I just had a close call I walk back onto land, when I feel something on my leg and quickly shake it off (well it startled me). That's when I see something that I feel came out of the Cambrian time period.What I shake off is this scorpion looking thing, all black, body about the size of a lobster (20 cm long, maybe 10 cm wide, there about), stinging (I assume) tail that is maybe 30 cm long and is in beaded sections, long (40 cm) thin legs that were flattened came out from the side that go from black to red to white at the tips, and claws that are more circular, yet small at the end of maybe 10 cm long arms. (all these measurements are based of the rough size I can remember of it). It was like Anomalocaris crossed with scorpion.

So I had kicked it off my leg onto a pier pillar. It scurries around on the pillar and one of it's claws brushes up against some fisherman's leg, and he jumps up a bit. By this time the creature was on the sand, and this fisherman comes up to it and beats it with a plastic food tray killing it. The finishing blow broke the carapace and out shot a bit of blood that was black.

It is at this point when I sit there looking at it, and thinking of how it could have evolved.... This is why I'm an evolutionary biologist. Based on it's look, I would say descended from scorpions. Had the stinging tail and the claws to back up that conclusion. I don't recall seeing them, but it may have had some web-like structure between it's legs (?) to help it swim, but I don't think there was as the flattening would have provided decent locomotion. These legs looked a lot like the spines from a lion fish to give an idea of what the legs looked like, just fewer of them, I think it was eight. (At this point I wake up, but I'll continue anyways) As I had mentioned, the claws were smaller and more circular. The size could have been because it feed on small fish, larger claws would have been to hard to maneuver around smaller fish. As for the long tail, probably indicates ambush predator. My hypothesis is that it sits on rocks to blend in (recall dark body) and when a fish swims by over head, it would lift it's tail up slowly when the fish is in front and strike quickly down at spine paralyzing the fish. At this point it could swim up to it and start munching away. It was only the one specimen so I couldn't get much on mating or if there were sexual dimorphisms.

My thinking for how it became sea dwelling is that the ancestors were scorpions in the desert or some dried up ancient sea bed not too far from the ocean. Water levels then began to rise, forcing the creature to start living off dead washed up fish, or whatever it could find. Over time it developed a thicker shell to keep out the water and then began it's descent into the sea. Once in the water the tail (metasoma) grew longer to be able to attack fish better with the sting (telson), and the legs  got longer and flatter to help it swim better. I don't know this but having a beaded tail might be stealthier than a tail of consistent thickness. Based on the food source, the claws (chelea) then shrunk for a) better swimming and b) for less clumsy eating. And as previously mentioned, black coloration to blend in. Finally based on the size, I would guess this was an adult.

The ancestor of the creature

Checking for a possible family, I find Scorpionidae (so clever), but also genus Heterometrus. These are forest dwelling scorpions, but humid dwelling. So while original hypothesis gets shot down, new one just places origins in the humid forests near the ocean, and they became more adapted to live in the sea. Just get better at handling humidity to the point where 100% is no issue. This genus is located in tropical and subtropical southeast Asia, (recall I guessed about where I was so this is still plausible) and contains some of the larger scorpion species. Finally not generally lethal to humans.

So what name to give it? That's my question to everyone who reads this. What is the species name? Personally I think that giving it a name based around the fact that it swims would be good, like maybe oceanus or aquarii.