On how Animals Can Learn

" ...so about 7 weeks ago I was on a boat in the middle of this river in Borneo. And this guy, in the back kitchen, had whipped up some fried bananas and pineapple for me and coffee, I can drink coffee no matter how hot it is, and I was sitting at the end of this boat staring at this orangutang named Bessie, who was sitting at the end of this pier. Bessie was a large orangutang who had apparently had many kids, but she obviously had gotten rid of them by now and had lost a lot of weight so she had these gigantic breast which were now hanging way down, so she was cute in ways and very ugly in others. So I was sitting at the end of this boat and she was sitting on the pier staring at me, and I knew what she wanted, she wanted some of the fried bananas. I wanted to give her some but at the same time I was scared because once an orangutang gets a hold of your finger the only way you are going to get out of their grip is by losing a digit. So, I had finally finished eating and the guy was going to get the rope that was tied to this tire in order for us to get the boat started when Bessie decided that she didn't want us to leave. So with one hand she got a hold of the tire, and the boat is not going to move with her holding on to this, and soon after her hand started to move towards me. I thought, shit I am done for. Now what was funny was that the guy from the kitchen, apparently this had happened before so he knew how to fix the problem, had gone to the kitchen and gotten a pot full of hot water. All he had to do was move the kettle towards Bessie's face and she knew she didn't want none of that".

On a Break

Every time I begin a new project I realize that.....I will be bald at a young age. I just have to accept it.

I decided last week to take the respirometer apart so that I would have a better idea of the electrical connections needed as well as changing some of the tubing and software associated with the machine. I cleaned and organized the room, where I plan to stay all of my summer, so that when I wanted to start everything would be perfect.

Monday was supposed to be my first day of data collection. Today I have no data. Why? Because there is a mysterious problem with the stupid thing which I CAN NOT, for the life of me, figure out. So the room looks like crap again.

On top of that, while trying to fix it, I broke our one and only flowmeter. Which is only $620. Which I desperately need to figure out what's wrong with the darn respirometer!

Oh sweet science.

Yes, we have just been inside a human asshole

It's funny how science needs to be presented to non-majors so that we don't "scare" them. Stories of orangutans gripping your fingers until they are pulled off, medicine men reading the outcome of a breached birth from jelly residue on a mason jar, running around Asian jungles almost naked, the many mistresses of Thai men, pictures of human assholes. All to explain natural selection?

After all of this circling around scientific definitions and concepts, evolution was explained as a hard fact. No nice little story accompanied it. Evolution = fact. Creationism = belief. It was a little undiscerning for me. Isn't this what most of those students are going to debate? That evolution is NOT a fact but mainly a "theory". So, why would you be so carefull as to walk around actual definitions, which most of them will not debate, and then leave no room for discussion of an actual controversial topic?

I know, evolution is a fact. Science has nothing to do with religion. Religions is something you believe. But to someone who is highly religious this is more than just a belief. It is an entity. They can almost touch it and they do not neet hard facts, a book, history, scientific examples, etc... to prove it. It's just reality. So, how are we going to make them understand that this is an actual biological (and very true) idea if we immediately tell them that there is no room to discuss. I am right and they (along with everything they believe and what has been passed on for generations) is completely wrong....so wrong that we won't even take a second look at it.

I know I said every day

This week has been spent on preparing for the big summer break. Basically cleaning out the respirometry room and replumbing (putting at work most of what I learned at Sable Systems). At the end, the room looks the same, except I now know where everything is at. I have also cleaned out the very slow computer we have to capture all the data, and hopefully, have gotten it to run properly (It was freezing up and I have been losing all of my work, it's really frustrating when you have just spent that last three hours staring at a roach in a 10C room).

What's left: Calibrating and Software Upload

Today we had our second lab meeting of the summer and it wasn't at all horrible. We spoke of the proper time of when to bring authorship issues up. I doubt I will ever bring that up. Most of the time I don't even think about getting stuff published, I just want to be involved with the fun experiment part. I guess that's not professional?

A Breath of Fresh Summer Air

Well, after this long year, and this long of a wait from post to post....I thought I would start anew. Today: my first day of the summer. Officially. Not that summer means anything anymore, except that I will have more time to dedicate to my own work instead of teaching, grading or desperately trying to finish assignments the day before they are due.

I started this fresh new breath by taking a respirometry course in Vegas. It set up me up with the knowledge of not only setting up the equipment but also how to gather data properly and how to properly analyze it. Important factors if I plan to continue with insect respiration.

During lab meeting today I was asked to stand and write on the board...while I was asked relatively easy questions (which I still screwed up) about respiration. That's ok. I wasn't ready for them. that's right. I hadn't prepared. Normally we just go around the table and say what we have been up to that week.

"Umm....graded some papers......went to class.......taught a lab..." . The End.

So today it was a bit different. I don't think I screwed up as much as I had personally expected.....but I know I'm still lacking in knowledge to impress anyone. We'll see how the summer pans out.

So, today marks the date for everyday posts........about important insect respiration things.....