Sunday, January 26, 2014

A Very Special edition of Sunday Spinelessness

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote something here. Let's see if I can remember how this goes: I find a weird-looking bug and take some photos. Then I enthuse about that bug for a few paragraphs, hoping some broader point will emerge from all my geekery..

All right then, here's a neat creature I found recently in the Wellington Botanic Garderns. It's Helpis minitabunda the Australian Bronze Jumping Spider:

OK, so just this once the vertebrates might be the most interesting things in these photos. In November Ana, who has for many years put up with me turning over leaves and rolling rocks in search of interesting critters, and I got married. Since Ana made the most beautiful bride, and we had a wonderful day in the Botanic Gardens I can't help but share a few more photos:

Since getting married Ana and I have set out on another adventure. We've moved from the green and pleasant land in those photos to the endless sun and aridity of the Sonoran desert:

I am a doing a postdoc with Reed Cartwright at Arizona State University, where I am working to develop new techniques for detecting mutations from sequencing data and applying those methods to a very cool experiment .

Ana and I are starting to settle in to life here in the desert (I don't think we'll really be integrated into Phoenician life until we have a car, but that will happen soon), so I hope The Atavism will spring back to life soon. There certainly shouldn't be a shortage of topics to cover - I have a whole new invertebrate fauna to nerd out over, life in the desert to learn about and a whole new science system to try and understand!

Labels: sci-blogs, sunday spinelessnes