Little Blue

Everyone will always remember their first car. Some may get to say that their first car was some sports car, maybe a Mustang, perhaps a truck I don't know. I do know that I will always remember my first vehicle as well. I drive a 2003 powder blue Toyota Prius, known among my friends as 'Little Blue'.

When I began driving my parents wanted me to drive a large vehicle; my mother especially because they are safer. But at the time the only vehicle my parents had that was large was the 4x4 half ton truck; I hated that thing and still do to this day. Occasionally I will have to drive that monstrous beast and I feel completely out of control with it. The truck just wasn't for me... The only other option my parents had for me was the old Prius. AND I LOVED IT! It's small, great turning radius, and has a great mileage. The positives my parents saw in it were that it was old and so if it got damaged it wouldn't be quite as big a deal. 

A total badass drives this car!

I started to drive myself to school in junior year of high school and since then the Prius and I have gone on great adventures. One of the early memories of driving in it was one day after school my friend Jesse wanted to hang out so I told him I could just drive to his place and we could have a great time. We get in the car and I instantly turn on Billy Joel's Uptown Girl, roll down the windows, and we start driving through campus singing! So what if we got stares, we didn't care how gay it looked. Two guys in a powder blue prius singing Billy Joel, sounds like a good time to me! 

Little Blue enjoyed itself very much here.

Over this past summer Little Blue also got a good work out. Every week I would have to go down to Davis for one of my research positions, meaning about2 hours of driving that day. Along with that Charlie came in to town and we spent a day down in San Francisco; that's about 2 hours of driving each way. Later that same weekend we had to go down to San Jose to help my brother and dad move in to their new apartment. So Little Blue was loaded with stuff and got 2 more hours of straight driving. After getting back I find out that I have to meet my dad to get him some stuff he forgot, so there is another hour long journey to meet him half way, BRING IT! And Little Blue stuck through it ALL! 

And now I have brought it with me to college. Little Blue has seen so much of my life; but through all the ups and downs it was still there, as reliable as ever. I'm able to just jump in, put on some music and have a great time in that car. I think all of my friends that have gotten a ride in Little Blue could each give their own great story about riding in there, it's just full of good times.

The Great Migration has begun again!

The reason I began to think of writing about Little Blue is because it recently had another great mile stone; yesterday it went on it's first dirt road! It may be a small car but that doesn't mean it can't drive on rocks! It performed fabulously (aside from the cd player skipping every few seconds...). It now gets to come out with me on Salamander hunting trips and get all sorts of dirty. So what if it isn't a sports car, it will always be my first car and favourite car.

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.

Soft Tissues or Not?

When browsing for some fun recent science discovery, I came across an example of willful and slightly gleeful ignorance of the scientific process. The line was a common argument made by those who disregard scientific finds as poppycock. Paraphrasing it goes something like such: "Scientists have had to change their story so many times it's ridiculous! How can they still go along with this clearly made up story?" When this is encountered, you know that the person who said it just cannot be shown their ineptitude at logic. To answer this quickly, science changes with the data because science is striving to understand the world, when doing so they create hypotheses, which then get tested and a few go so far as to become theories. It is at this point scientists can then predict further findings in natural terms without the use o throwing up our hands and claiming magic was behind it.

The story I was reading about when I found this was about supposed soft tissues found in fossils over 65 MYA. This isn't really a new story, but I wanted to see if there was more about it, and as it turns out there is that was completely looked over by those exposing their ignorance.

It was long thought that soft tissues would become completely fossilized with in a few thousand years or so. Then in 2005 a paper by Mary Schweitzer found what appeared to be blood vessels with blood cells still in them. This was unprecedented, especially when considering the detail seen in the blood vessels (nuclei still present, showing probable relatedness to birds). This could have caused a paradigm shift in paleontology as DNA may actually be available for certain specimens in the fossil record giving us a better idea of what dinosaurs may have been really like. Questions like if they were warm-blooded or poikilothermic, or what color they were (although this can be determined now with analysis of pigments remaining is certain fossil finds). So yeah, kind of important find.

So the person claiming science as invalid used this as evidence for a young earth model of the universe (note: not an accepted model by scientists). This clearly shows that these fossils were buried much more recently than the scientific community claimed, they though. However science continued to give predictions as to how this could have occurred, and the paper I will discuss actually purports that these findings are results of bacterial biofilms found in the fossils.

This finding suggests that biofilms were actually the culprit for the seen results of blood, as they mimic osteocytes and blood vessels when bacteria are dissolved away. So this begs the question what is a biofilm? To get a rough idea, think if you put water into a glass and left it there for a while, algae would then grow in it yes?  Then remove the water and dissolve the glass without harming the algae, the film of algae would resemble the outline of the glass it was in. Well this is what the biofilm is acting like. Further, when testing the date of these biofilms, they found it dated back to the mid 1900's.... (I don't think even the young earther's could claim dinosaurs were around 50 years ago.) This would indicate that no, sadly the original findings were indeed not osteocytes or blood vessels. However this does not mean that soft tissue does not exist in fossils, it still may be out there.

Back to the original comment of scientific lacking, it makes me tristful that the commenter never thought to get the whole story. I do realize though, that if they had read it they would have(one would hope) understand a bit better the scientific process. When a paper gets published, it is torn to bits by colleagues to try and discredit the paper, because when torn apart, other studies will be warranted thus expanding our knowledge in the process. Also we can try to get closer to the truth of how our reality truly behaves. Taking a line from Matt Dillahunty, "I want to believe in as few falsities, and as many truths as I can."

When reading scientific studies remember to dive deeper and read critiques of the studies, or just make sure the study was conducted properly (unlike the recent arsenic paper from NASA).

Original papers -
Soft Tissues in Cretaceous Skeleton
Biofilms Responsible for Soft Tissue Findings

Who Pulled the Fire Alarm?

GUESS HOW I WOKE UP TODAY! I'm glad I can wake up at a moments notice, or at least I can when there's a blaring alarm going at over 100 dB. I suppose that's all that really matters from this exercise though, waking up and getting out of the, almost hopefully, burning building. Honestly though, when a fire alarm get's pulled you kind of hope that the building is fucking on fire or else you got rudely awakened for nothing.

So it all began during a grand dreaming state, ah those were the good times. Then things went for a turn! All of a sudden it's like fucking WWII! Every moment from waking up to getting out the door, you expect bullets to be whizzing by your head, and few people to be taken out as they go for the door. Everyone swearing at those damn sleep Nazi's for waking them from slumber. I ripped my fingers away from my ears to try and hear others around me, but to no avail. All that went through my ears was the piercing screech of the alarm warning that fucking bombs may soon be falling.

After getting through the blaring noise in the hallways and stairways, we finally make it outside. First thing we hear is from people accusing each other, as if they informed the Nazi's of where we all were; some jokingly, some... well didn't sound as joking. Jay's only words during this whole experience were, "I'm going to kill Frankie", Jay is now on a 24 hour watch to make sure he doesn't do anything rash.

I was very impressed by the fire department, the US in this analogy (except they actually had a good reaction time and didn't get their asses in gear only when they were attacked), they came in completely nonchalant ready to take out this dream invading scum. At this point we were all standing outside like French people's being conquered, and I'm a little worried because I know there are some people not out there with us (turns out they went out the other exit).

So the fire department takes out the evil in seriously under 2 minutes, and we all return to our native lands freed of the fascist regime tormenting us with sound. And here I sit now on my computer telling this story.

(Disclaimer: No we were not in Nazi Europe, this was simple an analogy to give a better idea of what those few minutes were like. Any likeness to individual people, places, or events it entirely coincidental and should not be seen as deformational. The events taking place within this story were hyperbolized, but the main story concerning us waking up to a fire alarm is completely true, and took place in the span of only 5 minutes. This post too longer to write than the actual events.)

The Happenings

So I've been silent for a while... So much so that it was deafening. How has my life been so far, well let me tell you:

Starting with apartments, because we have finally started on that. So far there is a group of 5 of us (with a possible 6th) and we are now looking in to South and West Davis or apts. Personally I like the South Davis area better; closer to downtown, Safeway, Rite Aid, Kaiser, all that good stuffs. However West Davis is far prettier, and most anywhere will be next to a lake. The real worry right now is the group. One is Charlie, good guy he's no problem (we already have ideas for pets, perhaps a bit early). The others though were recently participants in an unexpected evening. Let's just say it didn't leave a good impression, but they have been told to never again do such stupidity.

Now on to classes, starting with math. The TA is starting to bug me. Last week he asked us to prove that every subsequence of a sequence has an infinite number of values, or something like that, THAT'S NOT THE POINT. The point is that when he asks for proof, I'm thinking mathematical proof, like induction or such, but nooooo, he draws a circle, and then cuts it in half, then cuts one o those in half etc. YOU HAVE TO BE BULL$^(%ING ME. THAT IS NOT A PROOF. This is one of those times where he waves his hand, calls it math and moves on... Today he did it again, only this time did it knowingly and practically mocked us for it. I shit you not, he told us, "Well you don't want me show the actual proof for you."... THEN WHY BRING IT UP? Seriously! There was no point to it other than to show off... I will say though, he is better than the last TA who liked to discuss her personal life other than teach. But there are more classes to get to.

Computers has gotten, I feel, really fun. Like the programming is actually interesting to me because it requires different ways of thinking. I did realize what makes it more difficult though, I'm learning two languages at once. One is C programming, and at the same time Linux. And to complicate things further, I'm working off of a Windows machine so I have to write the program on my computer in C language, test it on Windows, then send it to Linux to test on there, to then finally turn it in with Linux. And for the big kicker, I just found that all our problems have come from the book with the equations already in hand, AFTER I had already derived the equations based off the inputs and outputs of the program... I is full of da smarts making.

And Drew just fell asleep while on the phone... fascinating. So time to shoot him with the Nerf gun... He was apparently... he was thinking about a leprechaun???

So anyways.. I think I'm gaining fat. I've been noticing my stomach flab has been increasing these past few weeks I MUST STAVE OFF THE FAT!! That's it going to the ARC at least twice a week now, or maybe just work out in the room. But I feel so out of shape. and my 'f' key might be dying on me, I've just had to retype 'f' like 4 times. After CrossFit I was so proud of myself for the workout. -I think I'm getting sick.- 
like I really felt strong when doing it. Next year may try to start that next year with the roommates.

Time for the sleeping though, even if my first class is at 10

JOB! ME? In Yosemite? Why yes I will try for that!

Recently got an email from a club I'm in that is promoting some job positions in Yosemite National Park. Amazing, is it not? But even better one of the openings is for amphibian and reptile surveying! HOLY CRAP!!! As soon as I saw that I immediately started getting everything together that I could. Resume is now all up to date, cover letter has been written, and references found (mostly). The last few things to do is get a transcript and get the last reference (reminds me I need to call her again). 

But I'm not the only one to see this opportunity. No, no, no Charlie has also found it and applying to the same position. Hopefully we both get one of the 6 available spots. Some good news about this is that we are part of the salamander research project here in Davis so we have direct experience with amphibians and surveying techniques! We have excellent chances.

From the email:

We anticipate hiring six individuals for the PARK WIDE SURVEYS for amphibians and reptiles. Duties include: surveying for amphibians and reptiles; using GPS and other handheld devices to collect data; maintaining proper quality control/quality assurance practices; andassisting in photo documentation of sites. Positions may begin as early as late-May and may continue into late-August, depending on weather conditions including snowpack.

This would be fantastic to get in to. My only worry is that because this was sent to everyone in the club, I have strong competition. I've met a few of them and they seem to KNOW their reptile shit. I think what will get me in is my current position as a field assistant (exactly what they're looking for), along with my past experience with data collecting and managing. I like the quality control/ quality assurance part especially due to the Arcade Creek Project. One of the biggest saying in that project was "Quality Assured, Quality Control" or QAQC. Every time we entered data we always QAQC'd the data.

I would FINALLY have a productive summer, after so many years of boredom. And I'll get paid for it as well, a bonus to an already amazing position!








Not a Tiger Salamander, what the hell Google ->

Winter Quarter Doth Begun

I walk into the room and first thing I find out is that Sean will most likely be gone this quarter. MOST DEPRESSING!!! Then I read his Facebook status where he claims no Davis for the rest of the year... BEYOND DEPRESSING!!! Long story short, his scholarship didn't come through in time so Davis was like, No, and then we were like What? and Davis was still like No. So that's the big thing so far.

Now to the classes.

The easy course the quarter will be the Dinosaurs course. Using Dinosaurs as a case study we will study evolutionary theory and the process of SCIENCE!! The teacher so far seems very interested in the subject and fun. So this is good. Even better though! I share the class with both Drew and Charlie, let the competition begin. These two are the biggest dinosaur nerds I know of, so it will be fun to see who knows more. They both seem to research this stuff for fun, so its a fairly even playing field, but Charlie definitely beats both of us in scientific names and taxonomy. However with Drew's passion for history he may know more background of this study. So far though the score is Charlie-1 and Drew-1/2. The reason is Charlie got to answer what dinosaur was up (an Iguanadon), but Drew had his hand up. I recognized it but couldn't think of it in time. I expect to lose this competition.

Another anthropology course, this time Intro to Archaeology. So far it hasn't been too interesting, but first day. We just talked about what archaeologists do and what they look for. We did watch the classic section from Indiana Jones with the golden idol, this was to show what archaeologists don't do. Professor doesn't seem to be bad, he's interested, but he isn't as engaging. again this could just be because it's the first day. Discussions in that class are 40% of the grade though, INTENSE! And it's classically graded, meaning 90%+ is A, 80-90 is B, 70-80 is C etc. May be harder than hoped for.

Starting my computer science career with programming and problem solving. Surprise, I'm taking it with David. So far we talked about a bit of history of programming, but the next lecture promises to be good. "The mechanics of shoot-em-up games." I'm a bit curious when we will start learning C programming, but that may just be from the text book with the daily homework. This should definitely be an interesting course and have already met some nice people in there and the professor is very entertaining.

More Math, horrah. Well this time it's sequences and series, one of the last topics we covered in IB so this should be more review for me. The problem is that this is in the engineering course so its more competitive. The professor is VERY ASIAN, with a thick accent. He seems really nice, but it can get hard to understand him when he changes l's to r's. May sound racist but it's true.

Finally I'm to chemistry. This one will prove to be the most frustrating in the beginning. I'm on the wait list, unfortunately I wasn't able to get into the lab today, and if you miss a lab then you drop the class. I have only  3 chances to make this lab, if not then I drop the class. This would be unfortunate as I made a new friend in the discussion, but at the same time it would be nice as I would then do chemistry with Charlie and get Enderle as a professor again. So for now, I'll try but it doesn't look good.
One oddity about this is that the girl I met texted me saying that the TA called me, but I wasn't allowed into the lab as a wait-listed student, so I'm not sure what this entails.

If chemistry gets knocked off then I shall try to find some other class to get a few more units out of, possibly psychology or something in that vein. We'll see.

Classic Gaming

Needed to do a blog on this. GAMING! Some may think of me as a gamer, but really I'm much more of a classic gamer. Newer games I find, well... less interesting or less entertaining. I don't know. May just be because I grew up with an N64 and NES both at home and at school. Really though I find that my favorite console is the N64.

Quickly, some specs for it, because I feel nerdy right now. To the iPhone!!!
 Reason it was called N64, well N for Nintendo (I would hope you all know that), 64 because it is a 64 -bit machine. It competed with the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation. It was the only contender that continued to use cartridges. This was a slight limitation. But it was the tech that made it more advanced. The graphics were all thanks due to Silicon Graphics. Because of the advanced graphics, the machine was thought to rival supercomputers of the time. It was also the first console to have force feedback technology (Nintendo is really good at innovating, perhaps something on that some other time). So those are some fun things, but to get to the other stuff.

Games: The best part.
MARIO 64, honestly who doesn't like this game? One of the two launch titles!
Blast Corps., basically go around and destroy buildings so that the truck with nuclear bomb or something doesn't crash. It's something like that, t crashes it goes boom, what more is there to say?
Mario Kart, classic.
Tetrisphere, fun, but hard game. Yes tetris, kind of, but the idea is there are creatures stuck under the planet created by tetris blocks. Very hard.
Bomberman 64, unlike any other Bomberman game really, difficulty curve grows exponentially making it frustrating at a certain point.
Starfox 64, really a remake of the original Starfox for the SNES, made mostly to show of the capablility of the machine to do 3-D effects unlike the Genesis. The 64 version is a lot of fun, and very nostalgic for me. Always asked to beat the final boss for kids at daycare.. ah good times.
Smash Bros. Heck Yes! The original one. They didn't think it would do very well really because it was just another fighting game, but it became a proof of concept and then came Melee, personally the best of the series. If you find the original in a store you are very lucky, it came at the end of the consoles life so relatively few were ever made.
Banjo-Kazooie, I have mentioned before, but oh the times. This one really is the most nostalgic of the games because it takes me back to like 4th grade with Tyler. One of my best friends back then and all we did was compare notes for this game, The memories.
007 Goldeneye. This game just about single handedly created the first person shooter genre. Still having to go back and get better at it, freaking Natalie must hate life. She just stands in the middle of the room and gets shot at expecting you to defend her. Finally got through that though, now I have to defeat Jaws... oye vey.

So those are the main games I have so far, but those are some of my favorite games for the machine. Among other classic gaming machines I've got are the NES and Genesis. These really make me feel like these classic games were more difficult than newer games and much more creative. Nowadays I feel like they are focusing more on the graphics than creativity. That's really part of why I don't play many of the newer games, also price, I'm cheap. Now to go out and find pictures.