Beginning a New Journey

This season I am traveling to Antarctica on two projects funded by the National Science Foundation. The first is a follow-up to our 2008 season; the second a continuation of our biological studies of Foraminifera. I'll be reporting on our experiences in the field for the next 10 weeks.

For now, a tiny slice of what I'm leaving behind:

Compost for the lawn ...

Next spring's grass

Do trees know yellow?

Pollenating

I've been photographing flowers this spring and summer. It's something my granny often did, although she would get to work with her watercolors or oils after the prints came back. Like her, I'm interested in a flower's color palette, but the objects I'm studying are pollen grains. It's a refreshing break from the hard-nose science that these past months have brought.

This Casablanca Lilly is a recent addition to my meditation rock garden. It stands tall over the eclectic menagerie of stone shapes, colors and weathered textures, each carrying a bit of history that I use to launch episodes of time travel. The Lilly seems to be getting along well with the adjacent horseradish patch (which, for various reasons, is what I would certainly be if I was a plant).

Its copious pollen will give me much to study. Ah, if only its fragrance would repel the millions of mosquitos that our wet summer has spawned!

Tadpole rescue

This week I finally found time to open our swimming pool. It's not really used for swimming; rather, the pool serves as a testing ground for waterproof camera gear and aquatic sampling contraptions. I have also been known to take an underwater snooze in it (wearing scuba gear, of course).

Above the water, a 100-ft. pine tree is inconveniently situated on the East side of the pool. It's a real nuisance, shedding countless numbers of needles in the fall, depositing nostrils full of pollen in the spring, and dripping buckets of sap in the summer. More than one pine cone has conked me, usually precipitated by a frisky red squirrel giggling overhead.

Normally, the pool is tightly covered when not in use. A thick tarp keeps out sunlight, leaves, and critters all fall, winter, and spring, which makes it easier to get the pool ready for the relatively short (~10 week) swim season here in Albany. Last winter's ice storm, however, broke large branches from the pine tree, which ripped big holes in the cover. In came springtime sunlight, and months of profuse algal growth supported large populations of various waterbugs and squiggly mosquito larvae, which in turn fed loads of toads and frogs. The reproductive appetites of the latter led to the subject of this entry.

No tadpoles were harmed in the making of this blog

Hundreds of tadpoles greeted me as the pool cover was removed. I treasured tadpoles as a boy; it was so amazing to watch them develop in our makeshift aquaria: tiny legs sprout, tails shrink, and eventually they'd hop out onto the kitchen counter. Perhaps that's why I didn't have the heart to chlorinate the pool and kill the little critters. Instead, I scooped them out and let them go in a nearby pond, patting my back for being such a compassionate human being. (Better safe than sorry, I suppose: should a certain reincarnation myth ring true, maybe we're not fishes before birth -- perhaps we're tadpoles!)

Cutting down a huge pine requires skill and a large crane

Once I got the cover off and the tadpoles out, I hired a tree expert to remove the pine. A large crane and a few skilled men had the job finished in a couple of hours. Nothing was put to waste: the trunks are now planks, the branches now mulch.

And the tadpoles are now either fish food or frogs.

Stereoscopy and a wet kiss

June has been a monstrously busy month, and it's only half over! Another grant proposal went out the door (er, the internet cable), two research papers were submitted, and the North American Section of the International Society of Protistologists meeting was held in Bristol, Rhode Island, where I gave the Past President's Address.

The title of my talk was "Why Should a Cell Need a Shell?" I won't get into details here, but to illustrate the selective advantage of particle agglutination (i.e., primitive shell-building behavior), I showed three-dimensional SEM images of agglutinated shells from "living fossil" species of Foraminifera. I'm not sure if the audience agreed with my scientific arguments, but it was a hoot to see some of the world's finest scholars wearing goofy spectacles.

Protistologists viewing red/blue anaglyph images

It has also been an unusually wet month, which has not been good for evening walks but has yielded lush lawns and gardens. And lots of toads and frogs. I'm particularly fond of a pair of tree toads inhabiting the back yard. They show up everywhere -- cuddled beneath the lid of the BBQ grill, clinging to windows, snuggled under the pool cover -- and at night they bellow the loudest RIBBETT! you can image. It cracks me up that this pair (I guess they're a couple?) squat next to each other and RIBBETT! full blast into each other's ears all evening. "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? How about now?"

"Kiss me, you fool!"

Their incessant, booming RIBBETT!s make me want to bend over and kiss one, just to shut them up. Ah, but what if the resulting princess retained her booming voice?

Square Trees and Lilliputian Architects

Trees at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza in Albany are trimmed so that they mirror the monolithic architecture of New York State's government complex.

This spring, I've watched a particular cubic tree leaf from one of the few windows near my lab. I suppose that some might think it "cruel" to shape a tree this way; if so, you should see what artist Natalie Jeremijenko has done to her trees at Mass MoCA, or simply think of what every bonsai goes through.

Getting back to the plaza, I wonder if the "tree foraminifera" that we study would build similar monoliths if offered bricks and blocks? This is a serious scientific question: I've long held the notion that we could "train" cells to construct tiny devices. (The alternative concept that most engineers have adopted, i.e., self-assembly of components, is one of the bottlenecks, if not fallicies, of nanotechnology.) Tree foraminifera are magnificant sculptors and build micro-scale shells for a living. Why not teach them how to assemble our miniaturized goodies?

Notodendrodes antarctikos - a "tree foram" from Explorers Cove, Antarctica (photo courtesy Shawn Harper)

Since this post considers the concept of scale, we should be cautious when thinking about working at the level of foraminifera. These single-celled giants are voraceous carnivores; given the chance, they would probably trim our body parts so that we conform to their arborescent aesthetic.

And then eat us!

Bleeding Hearts (iii)

Irradiate bleeding hearts with simulated sunlight ...

... capture their shadows ...

... add primary colors ...

... relive 1971

Bleeding Hearts (ii)

An insect in flight encounters a string of bleeding hearts.


Upon approach, it finds company...

Bleeding Hearts (i)

Flowers mean springtime and summertime, love and loss.

A solitary bleeding heart has appeared in the garden, which has me thinking about the single-minded pursuit required for success in science. Long nights spent alone in the lab, peering through the lens of a microscope; frozen hours under Antarctic ice, encased in scuba gear. So caught up in the passion for knowledge that we forget to play; forget to tell loved ones how important they are...

Even in the company of others, bleeding hearts lack comfort. I wonder what insects see in them?

Albany bloemen

My brother's family is living in Holland for the next few months. Today we share a little color, as Albany celebrates its Dutch heritage with 200,000 tulips.

Boys, Girls, Art & Science

I've been giving science talks to school kids for over 20 years. I tell them stories about working and living in Antarctica, and weave in some bits of knowledge about marine ecosystems, animal behavior, and climate. After spending 45 minutes with 20 bubbly students, I'll wink a smile at the teacher and leave the classroom feeling confident that our world is being left in good hands.

As part of their learning experience, the younger children are usually tasked to compose "thank you" notes or drawings, which teachers then send to me. These tokens of gratitude are treasure.

It's always fun to see which stories the kids focus on. Toilets, diving, dynamite, pycnogonids, and penguins top the list. When viewing the subjects of their art, one thing that I can predict with >95% accuracy is the gender of the child.

I bet you can, too...

Seeing Red, Feeling Warmth ... and Healing

Winter is over - finally! Along with the swarming of ants and the arrival of robins, a red peppering on the deciduous forest helps announce spring in Upstate New York. 

Sadly, though, last winter's ice storm left gaping wounds on most trees, especially the maples. Their red patina seems like a bloody stain on the forest's black skeleton. 

Maple tree flowers are not simply red. Put your nose to them and you'll see a mix of colors that code their structural complexity. Subtle yellow and green pistils are crowned by a burst of pale filaments, each of which is punctuated by a slate-blue anther. For fun, I'll explore the hidden hues of their pollen grains using a microscope. Dan Mazia, celebrated microscopist of the last 

century once wrote, "... think with the eyes and see with the brain. Deep revelations into the nature of living things continue to travel on beams of light."

In the lab, thinking and seeing are best done alone, and in silence. In the forest, I trust that beams of light will warm the trees and help heal the wounds of winter.

InterfaCE IV(b)

Some images from opening night of InterfaCE IV.

Many thanks to Lynn Palumbo, Director of the Washington Art Gallery, for the invitation to show our work. I am personally indebted to DebS for her help setting up the installation, and to Wendy Bohlinger (a.k.a. Wendella) - photographer, friend, and advocate since our days studying invertebrate zoology at UAlbany.

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The scuba mantra "plan your dive and dive your plan" also works for setting up an art installation

Final touchup...

A view of the opening reception

"a place to rest the eye"

Wendy caught the light to transform graphite into ice

Thank you Wendella!

InterfaCE was supported in part by NSF grant ANT0440769 awarded to S.S. Bowser. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the The National Science Foundation. Nor any other life form/entity.