Wandering Wobert

Here’s a video showing the lab, galley, and mess area...

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 18:41:18 -1000

Here’s a video showing the lab, galley, and mess area indoors on the main deck level.

Keeping Busy

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:26:02 -1000

In the next week or so I’ll write a post to explain what happened on our cruise and why I’m currently on my way to the airport to catch a flight back to NY, but in the meantime, click the title above for a link to my most recent post on our lab’s blog. It has some good pictures.

Charismatic Microfauna

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 00:31:51 -1000

Charismatic Microfauna:

I’ve left Woods Hole, and since August 7th, I’ve been living on the R/V New Horizon, a ship based out of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. I’m part of the science crew on a research cruise from Newport, Oregon to San Diego (via the middle of the Pacific ocean) that’s being done by the lab at Woods Hole I’ve been working with since January. We’re studying the impact of ocean acidification on pteropods, and I’m aboard as a volunteer in the biology group, helping with the acoustic systems and wherever else hands are needed. If any of that last sentence sounds confusing or unfamiliar, check out the link that will take you to my lab’s blog that they’ve been using the past few years to share the work being done on the cruises. The science party, myself included, will be posting frequent updates on activities, and plenty of pictures as well. I’ll try to keep this blog going, but it’s a rough schedule at sea and working on two blogs may get tough. Either way, check out the link, and stay tuned for other updates. And definitely follow the link to check out the pictures (WHOI gave us a GoPro HD camera, which I’ve already taken the liberty of using to document some of our first science operations which will be posted within the next day or so).

More to come.

The R/V Falkor steamed into Woods Hole this past weekend, and...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 09:05:16 -1000

The R/V Falkor steamed into Woods Hole this past weekend, and will be sticking around for a while. She’s the new primary vessel for the Schmidt Ocean Institute (as in Eric Schmidt of Google) and is here at WHOI to offload some equipment from the test sail it just made here from Europe. A few WHOI folks were on board running science operations. Originally a German fisheries protection ship built in the 80’s, the Falkor has been fully retrofitted, and it is great. We got a tour of the whole ship, and while some of the science operation areas seem a little small considering the size of the ship, the equipment on board is incredible. The equipment control room where all of the electronics and acoustics are run from is straight out of a sci-fi movie, with floor-to-ceiling monitors, and it’s all controlled by a single iPad.

Oh, and the director of science operations who gave us the tour went to grad school at Cornell.

Part 3: Beer, Bears, and Bison

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 09:51:04 -1000

Leaving Glacier, we drove south, and headed towards Missoula. We decided that we would spend one night in a hotel in Missoula, relax a bit, restock on any food and equipment we needed (there’s an REI in Missoula, and yes, I had looked into that beforehand), and of course, get some good beer. After a great night in the city, we made a stop at Big Sky Brewery for some Moose Drool before heading to the Montana-Idaho border. Bitterroot National Forest, in the Bitterroot Mountains, is a fairly well known and visited area and we decided it would be a nice place to spend a few nights car camping before heading to Wyoming. We spent three nights in the Forest, and for one of the days, we ended up driving past the trail head we were looking for and up an old logging road that took us up a mountain and into some amazing Ponderosa Pine stands.

We left Bitterroot very early to drive east towards Yellowstone because on a whim, we decided to make reservations to go white water rafting on the Yellowstone River for an afternoon in Gardiner, Montana, the town at the northern entrance to Yellowstone National Park (and historically, the main entrance). Turns out pretty much half the town (and the bars) are owned by one guy whose family had built up the place, and the most active residents (and only folks around our age) are the raft guides.

After meeting with a ranger at the back-country office to plan our trip, and then spending a few hours floating down the Yellowstone, we spent our first night in Yellowstone at the campground near Mammoth Springs. The next morning, on our way out of the campsite to start our backpacking, a grizzly was on its way down the hill, only about 100 feet from the campgrounds. It was our first and last bear sighting in Yellowstone. We spent three days in back-country up on Buffalo Plateau which extends out of the park and into Gallatin National Forest. We had a snow storm come through our first night, and spent our second day struggling to find the trail through the almost 100% snow cover of the north-facing slopes as we crossed the plateau at over 9,000 feet. It was June 21^st, the first day of summer, and I went sledding on a snow drift. Besides the snow, the second biggest hazards of the trail were bison pies, which when dried out, deceivingly look like rocks, but once you step on them, you quickly notice a difference.

After a much more exhaustive 3 day trek then we had initially planned (we ended up hiking an extra day’s worth of mileage on the 2^nd day due to the snow cover and lack of trail markings in the Gallatins), we decided to take a breather for the rest of Yellowstone and explore the variety the park has to offer. Since we had already spent time up at elevation, we planned two nights at back country sites in different areas to the south. The first was to Lone Star Geyser, a small geyser not far from the beaten path with backcountry campsites scattered a quarter mile away. We had our own private showing that evening, and I must say, it was much more impressive that Old Faithful had been that morning. Also, there were only four of us, not four thousand. Our second night was at Ribbon Lake, just off of Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon. We had a great campsite with our own private lake, and some good trout fishing.

Now, about the bison. Bison are huge. Over the week that we were there, almost anytime we drove anywhere through the park, we were guaranteed to see elk, which are worse than New York deer, and bison. Big herds of bison with their baby calves hanging around the streams and the valleys. A lot of the time though, they’re right next to the road, or in some cases, on them. As we were driving out of the park on our final day, the two cars in front of us were driving extremely slowly and we had no idea why. Turned out there was a Bison on the road. Not crossing the road, but leading traffic in the northbound lane up a hill at only a few miles an hour. The best part? Throughout national parks, they always have paved pullouts for people who want to stop and pull over to take pictures, or going up hills for cars or trucks that move slowly to stop to let other cars pass. As though he knew he was holding up traffic, after a few hundred yards, he pulled off into the pull out and let us pass.

Part 2: From Gas to Grizzly

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:31:10 -1000

Leaving Northern Minnesota, we continued to drive west along US-2, the highway that runs across northern North Dakota and Montana which would bring us right to Saint Mary, the northeastern entrance to Glacier National Park. There are no major cities along US-2 and as you leave the pine forests of western Minnesota, you enter the flat farm and ranch that stretches all the way to the Rockies. North Dakota in particular is infinitely flat, and as you move farther and farther west, the development of the oil industry becomes more and more apparent, as drilling rigs start to fill the horizon and the presence of trucks on the road increases. We spent one night in North Dakota, but the oil and natural gas boom in the western part of the state has led to such an overflow of workers that getting a hotel room, any hotel room, proved to be very difficult.

After almost two days of driving, there’s a sudden change in the horizon as the clouds begin to blend with dark shapes, and you realize that the tall, dark, stony mountains of Glacier National Park are coming into view. Glacier, titled the “Crown of the Continent” by the National Park Service, was beyond any expectation I could have had. Our original plan was to spend the first night at the Saint Mary campground (see the picture I posted on June 8^th) and then move to the west side of the park, but after visiting the ranger at the backcountry permitting desk, we learned that almost everywhere we had wanted to hike when we were planning was covered in snow. After some time, we decided on a five-day trip beginning at the Canadian border, hiking between valleys to stay out of snow and camping along a series of lakes. Part of our hike was along the Continental Divide Trail, a hiking trail that runs from the Montana-Alberta border to the New Mexico-Mexico border. Over 100 miles of the trail run through Glacier, and we actually met the first southbound through hiker of the season at one of the backcountry campsites.

For the second night in the backcountry, we were staying at the foot of Elizabeth Lake, a glacial lake in a long valley, where a few days before, a couple who were staying at the same site had been approached twice by the same grizzly bear. We had run into the ranger who was patrolling the trails in the area multiple times who had given us some hints and told us where the last few sightings were (which happened to be the same place where a park volunteer had told us to go in the evening to see the best wildlife). The next morning, three of us were woken up by our friend who had come back to the tents to tell us that there were two bears on the side of the lake, walking towards our camp. We quickly got up and walked over to the lake beach in front of our tents and watched as a mother and cub grizzly walked along the side of the lake, the same trail we had walked on yesterday, and then turned back and walked up the snow drifts on the side of the mountain away from us. When I get a copy of one of the pictures someone took, I will post it.

Along with the grizzles, the wildlife spotting in Glacier included lots of birds, mountain goats, big horn sheep, lots of black bear and wolf prints, but no animal encounters, and my favorite, a moose, who we saw swimming along the shore of a lake in the rain. Yes, a swimming moose.

Stay tuned for the second half of the trip.

June Trip Recap Part 1: Voyageurs National Park

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 07:41:00 -1000

As July 4^th came and went, I can say that over the month of June, I got to see more of America than I ever had, and probably ever will see again in such a short time period. I’m sorry for having only posted a single picture and a cliffhanger statement, but I learned that besides the spotty cell phone reception issue, it’s quite difficult to write long blog posts from a cell phone. So, for anyone who has been spending the last few weeks utterly baffled by where I’ve been (which probably describes nobody), here we go:

Note: I do not have many pictures myself, but I will post a few when they are available, probably in later posts.

Along with three friends who I’ve known since sometime around the age of 7, I took the entire month of June off from any form of research or work to take a “we just graduated from college” vacation. Our trip began with three days of driving, from New York, to the Minnesota-Canada Border and Voyageurs National Park.

Voyageurs is one of the youngest national parks in the country, and unlike most, there are no hiking trails in the park. In fact, the whole thing is only accessible by water. While it is now a popular recreational boating area for folks who live in International Falls, MN (famous on the weather channel for being the coldest city in the country every winter), we decided to explore the old fashioned way – via canoe. Over the course of five days, we canoed about 50 miles through the smaller islands in the lake that borders Kabetogama Peninsula (the main land mass of the park) to the north, going from “campsite with a beautiful view” to “campsite with a more beautiful view” every day. We had incredible weather, and besides the overwhelming smell of fuel from all of the motor boats, it was one of the most beautiful freshwater environments I’ve ever been too. We just with there were a few less leeches so we could have done more swimming.

In addition to being able to see Canada, we saw a lot of beavers and bald eagles, and there was one instance where someone came close to hitting an otter with their paddle. Because the park is so new and due to the way the federal government went about acquiring the land, there are still some private residences within the park, so sometimes through the trees you can spot some houses hidden on some of the smaller islands. One of the greatest things about Voyageurs? It’s all free. Unlike other National Parks that may charge entrance fees or backcountry camping permit fees, because Voyageurs is so easily accessible to anyone that has a boat, it’s not only free, but it feels much more public than any other park I’ve been too. Yet at the same time, most people don’t choose to explore the park as we did, so most of the bays, creeks, and harder to get to water bodies are still pretty undisturbed and away from any motor boat traffic.

Made it to the second stop of my June trip, Glacier National...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 15:07:11 -1000

Made it to the second stop of my June trip, Glacier National Park. Didn’t know I left Cape Cod to drive out west? Stay tuned for updates.

Low tide and a good book make for a nice Friday afternoon out on...

Sat, 12 May 2012 16:17:00 -1000

Low tide and a good book make for a nice Friday afternoon out on the breaker.

I went to Ithaca for the weekend. Yesterday morning, this was...

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:19:39 -1000

I went to Ithaca for the weekend. Yesterday morning, this was Ithaca’s way of telling me to leave.

A Chance Encounter

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:35:43 -1000

Starting this spring, one of my housemates is resurrecting a student publication called “The Muse” that allows seniors to share stories and reflections of their time at Cornell. Knowing that the majority of the people who read this blog are not Cornell students, I figured I’d share my thoughts with you as well. The following is an excerpt from the essay I’ve submitted that is relevant to my travels and my time here in Woods Hole:

Instead of spending my senior spring in Ithaca, I chose to pursue a research opportunity, and have been living in Massachusetts for the semester. If you’ve ever been on Cape Cod or to any New England beach town in the winter, you may know that even in the best weather, the towns that line the coast, full of beach goers and pale tourists during the summer, can feel dreary and empty in the off-season. Where I live, there are only two restaurants open for dinner this time of year. Both serve the same fish, the same chowder, and have the same tiny television hanging over the bar, showing whatever Boston-based sports team happens to be playing at the moment.

On this particular night, there were maybe ten people in the whole restaurant, with four of those people, myself included, sitting at the bar. Two stools away from me sat an older gentlemen and a female colleague, who, through their unnecessarily high-volume discussions considering the place was practically empty, I learned had been spending the week having dinner with clients all over the cape. In the time it took me to finish a cup of chili, the man and woman both recounted their numerous gastronomical conquests, as if the sole reason for their business was to explore the dining options of the area. As they began their appetizers, the conversation became slightly sparser, yet just as loud as before, and their voices were replaced with the sound of shells cracking and utensils clinking.

Out of the blue, a conversation erupted on the quality of tomato sauce at various restaurants. As I flagged down the bartender to ask for the check, the older gentlemen began to recall in great detail a meatball sandwich he once had at a supermarket he described as the “the size of two Walmarts.” As I tried to disregard his humorous attempt to explain the qualities that made the tomato sauce so special, I caught mention of “central New York,” at which point the woman exclaimed “I wish there was one outside of upstate.” I was drawn in.

“Excuse me,” I said, “I’m sorry to have been eavesdropping, but are you talking about Wegmans?” “Yes,” he replied, “the meatballs at the one in Ithaca, in upstate New York, were some of the best I’ve ever had. My daughter went to school in the area and Wegmans alone was motivation to visit her.” For the first time since moving here, outside of describing my research background to someone I worked with, I introduced myself as a Cornellian. Immediately, the woman sitting with him began to hum the tune to “Far Above Cayuga’s Waters,” and with that exchange, another bond was established in the name of that beloved supermarket.

I left a present for everyone when they go to put their lunches...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 17:26:30 -1000

I left a present for everyone when they go to put their lunches in the fridge in the morning. Technically, it’s just shellfish.

New species of krill, or just the result of forgetfulness and a...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:51:30 -1000

New species of krill, or just the result of forgetfulness and a dish of bromothymol blue? You decide.

There’s nothing like starting off the morning with a fresh cup of coffee and a big jar of...

Sun, 25 Mar 2012 07:21:12 -1000

There’s nothing like starting off the morning with a fresh cup of coffee and a big jar of formaldehyde, then taking some time to sort through a soaking wet pile of eyes, legs, and spines to really help ease you into the work day.

It took almost two months of being in Woods Hole, but I’ve now begun my own project. Most of the work I’ve done so far has been small segments or analyses of larger lab-wide projects. My own research will be no exception, but the hope is that for at least this one sub-set of data, I run the show, start to finish.

I’m working with krill. And I mean really working with krill. I close my eyes at night and the outline of the krill thorax I’ve been looking at through the microscope is there. My office is now filled with boxes of glass quart jars, filled with everything that gets caught in a 333 micron mesh net. Some jars are just the usual plankton, some have a few small fish that didn’t swim away fast enough, and I had to pick a two-foot eel out of a jar last week to be able to strain out the rest of the sample.

The first set of work required for my analysis involves identifying the different species of krill present, and their distribution within the sites I’ve chosen. When I first planned on coming here for the semester, I knew I was weakest in my biological knowledge of oceanography. By choosing to work on this project, I’ll get to focus heavily on krill taxonomy of the North Atlantic. Where some may be interested in sitting down with a good book, I’m content flipping through a species identification key. It’s pretty much just a picture book with a mystery plot, but the story is mostly in Latin.

So, for a long time to come, I will go to lab in the morning, strain my sample out of formaldehyde, and sit down at a microscope. Then krill by krill, go through my species check, starting with the eyes, the legs, and the spines.

As I start to process samples, I’ve been taking pictures...

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 13:53:00 -1000

Thysanoessa longicaudata

Nematoscelis megalops

Meganyctiphanes norvegica

As I start to process samples, I’ve been taking pictures through the microscope to make myself a cheat sheet for krill identification. If I ever needed another reason to not eat shellfish, the mental association I now have between the smell of formaldehyde and things that look like shrimp will forever reinforce kashrut.

Even if it means an extra 10 miles on your ride, always take the...

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 08:52:26 -1000

Even if it means an extra 10 miles on your ride, always take the scenic route. You never know when you’ll find a new public beach.

I’ve got the whole food chain on one desk. Phish and krill....

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 08:59:00 -1000

I’ve got the whole food chain on one desk. Phish and krill. Ba-dum, crash.

Photo

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:08:00 -1000

NOAA's Delaware II

Great Harbor

Sunset from the Fisheries Department

Disappearing over Penzance Point

Don't worry, you haven't missed much.

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:24:00 -1000

It doesn’t surprise me that in light of Purim, a considerable amount of people have suggested I dress up as a Krill and go in to lab. What would surprise me is if any of the people who have made this suggestion know what krill look like.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated the three people that probably read this on what I’ve been up to, but in all honesty, if there was something to report, I would have reported it. These past few weeks have consisted of a lot of small projects, tinkering with a lot of computer code, and working on other researcher’s side projects to both educate myself and to keep busy while taking the time to figure out exactly what I’m capable of and what sort of project I will pursue on my own.

I’ve narrowed down my options to two data sets, and by early next week, I hope to be elbows deep in one of them, either plugging away at lines of code, or bumping up my glasses prescription spending all waking hours staring into a microscope. Either way, I’m sure it won’t seem that interesting to anyone besides myself (and my lab), but I’ll be sure write a nice long description, even if just to finally explain what exactly it is that I’m studying. I’m sure in many people’s minds what I actually do floats between the spectrum of yelling at whales under water and making dead tiny shrimp cocktails, both of which I’ve done in the past, but not necessarily for research, and definitely have no relation to my current work.

But regardless, living on Cape Cod has left me with no complaints, especially since walking along the beach in February doesn’t seem so bad when it’s 60 degrees out. However, as I sit here looking out my office window to the nice, warm sunny day, I’m reminded of the weather report that says it’s supposed to snow tonight. It may not be Hawaii, but at least it’s not Ithaca.

I’ll part with one thing I’ve learned about myself while living alone (and having cable television) for the first time in college: I am incredibly loud when watching television. From laughing out loud during Colbert, to yelling at players during sporting events (oh, the Lin-sanity), whenever someone does finally move into the other half of the house, they are in for quite a shock.

Phytoplankton and a Global War

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 09:15:54 -1000

Phytoplankton and a Global War:

This is a great little “fact of the day” type story from my favorite podcast, Radiolab, and is a nice tidbit of ocean science that’s just cool to know.