An Oasis

This little plant is a morning oasis. The tiny hairlike trichomes covering the leaves collect dew and support a little community of insects.

Oops! Did I dye the river red?

Oops! Did I dye the river red?
Originally uploaded by botanize

I dumped 5ml (about two teaspoons) of 20% Rhodamine WT into Jack of Hearts stream. It was awesome. The stream turned red and pink. Don't worry though, Rhodamine WT is designed and EPA approved for this purpose. It's just that I used about 10x too much.

Field Day

I helped Jim deploy a bunch of pvc chambers filled with bug poop into Elder last week. It was a long day, and one of the first days the smoke was really bad. We worked all afternoon, and into the evening. Stream cooled beer was our incentive to keep working after the first couple of hours.

Did I mention it was smoky? To our eyes the sun was a bright red ball of fire, and a sure sign the apocalypse was near.

California Coast north of Fort Bragg

California Coast north of Fort Bragg
Originally uploaded by botanize

I love the ocean. Here's my favorite little beach, just north of Fort Bragg around sunset. The full size image is amazing, check it out!

Thunder!

Thunder!
Originally uploaded by botanize

It's the craziest, most backwards thing. Two nights ago we had these clouds roll in, then lightning! It rained for about 20 seconds, nothing even got wet. We heard thunder until 10 yesterday morning. The messed up part is that our little rain storm resulted in more fire than water. There are fires burning and smoldering north of us. The air is visibly smoky, and people with asthma are supposed to stay indoors for the next two days. We're not in much danger of fire, but this is the first time I've experienced a thunderstorm that left me dryer than before it came.

Junebugs Mating

Junebugs Mating
Originally uploaded by botanize

The female sits in a little hole in the dust and dirt and the male flies around trying to locate her by scent. He eventually lands somewhere in the vicinity of the female and bumbles his way towards her. If he's lucky, he's the first one there. When it's over, the female quickly ducks back down her little hole.

University of Minnesota EZProxy Bookmarklet

Are you a student, staff or faculty member at the University of Minnesota? Do you ever find yourself at a webpage of a journal publisher, when you realize you haven't gone in through the Libraries system, and the publisher won't give you access to the full text? All you have to do is make a bookmark with this code:

javascript:location.href='http://floyd.lib.umn.edu/login?url='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)

When you find yourself at a page requiring authorization through the University Libraries, just click your new bookmark and it will ask you to login (if you're not already) before sending you back to the correct page, fully authorized! Of course, it will only work if the Library has itself purchased access to the articles. But it's great when you follow a link in a news story to Nature and want to read the real deal.