Stargazing the Cosmos

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the man. He's an astrophysicist, author, lecturer, planetarium director, and the presenter of the remake of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, which was on TV earlier this year (and is incredibly good). I found this awesome mural of him gazing dreamily off into space in downtown Baton Rouge last Friday when going for an after-work beer. Apparently it's part of a series of paintings by local artists which are being made into murals for buildings (http://www.thewallsproject.org), which is a cool concept, especially if the art looks as good as this!

I was lucky enough to "see" Neil deGrasse Tyson give a talk at Tulane University in New Orleans earlier this year with my labmate and friend Ganesh and his wife Sara. I use quotation marks because while we were at Tulane University, we weren't even in the same room as deGrasse Tyson. So many people turned up and waited in the rain that they couldn't fit everyone in the lecture hall, or even the overflow room, where we had to settle for watching a video feed of the lecture. The talk was titled This Just In and it was excellent. He could have had a career as either a scientist of a stand-up comedian as he has a rare ability to be simultaneously funny and informative. The lecture has made its way to YouTube and I highly recommend watching it if you desire to learn the latest happenings in the cosmos and be thoroughly entertained in the process.

Aquaman

My roommates bought me a really cool aquarium for my birthday a few weeks ago! It's just 11 litres but is large enough to be currently holding six different fish which we named: Džiber, Peeper, Monday, Killa Beez, Fireball and Galliano. 

Galliano, Peeper and Killa Beez, with Fireball in the background

Boil Up

The bounty of a hard morning

I went fishing for blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) yesterday with my friend Ray, an undergraduate student who is working for the lab over summer. In the 3:15 am darkness we left with high hopes for Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, a popular fishing spot on the Gulf Coast, two and a half hours from Baton Rouge. We were using crab traps baited with chicken and a cast net, which I can now throw decently following a bit of practice. It was a great morning but sadly we didn't catch as much as we hoped - just six crabs and a couple of pounds of shrimp. Ray kept the shrimp for his family and I kept the crabs, boiling them up Louisiana style, with some vegetables and seasoning. It was my first time cooking crabs but they turned out great!

Six crabs makes a meal

Light Trapping and Alligator Grabbing

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited along on an exciting excursion to a little town called Des Allemands, about 45 minutes southwest of New Orleans. My friend Jordan used to work for the insectarium in The Big Easy and had been asked if he wanted to go on an insect collecting trip they were organising. He asked if it was okay to bring a couple of friends and it wasn't a problem, as it's always fun to have company when out collecting. The exciting thing about this particular trip was that we were going light trapping; this is where you set up a mercury vapour lamp beside a big white sheet at sunset, then sit and watch as a great diversity of weird and wonderful bugs accumulate during the next few hours.

For those wondering, the insects are attracted to the very bright light by mistaking it for the moon, which they use to navigate by keeping it at a consistent angle over one wing or the other. As they fly past the much closer lamp, this angle rapidly changes, eventually causing them to spiral ever inwards to the light.

The sheet covered in bugs

This was my second time out light trapping, having done it once before with Lincoln University back home in New Zealand. But here in Louisiana the insects are larger, more colourful, much more diverse, and more exciting due to the dangers of being stung, bitten, or sprayed with some sort of foul-smelling chemical. It was a lot of fun hanging around at the light and collecting whatever insects people were particularly interested in. We also all learnt a lot, thanks to the organizer Zack, who was an encyclopedia, naming many of the insects we saw to genus or species. 

Grabbed this guy right out of the water (photo: E. Baldwin)

As a distraction to the main goal of observing and collecting cool insects, the land owner Gordon was nice enough to take us out in his boat for a tour of the swamp. For 30 minutes we cruised along the bayous, forever reminded of the presence of the many alligators by the red glow of their eyes reflecting the light of our headlamps. Gordon challenged us to pick up a small alligator (1-2 years old) straight out of the water with our bare hands! He taught us that to do this safely you have to grab them right behind the jaws so they can't twist back to bite you. My heart was pounding as I went in for the grab on my alligator, and it almost got me when I grabbed it slightly too far back. Once caught it was easy to hold, and if you turn them upside down they get dizzy, fall asleep, and you can tickle their belly. We also spotted all sorts of other wildlife including creepy spiders, a green tree snake, and a few different frog species. It was a real privilege to hold a baby alligator and get to go on the trip. On top of all that, I also managed to add a number of really cool specimens to my own personal insect collection.

The bounty from the collecting trip; a collection of beetles, moths, bugs, and a mantispid fly

Southern Fried Cricket

Learning the trade with my sister

Anyone who knows me well would say I love to watch cricket. It would have to rank as my favourite live sport, alongside watching the mighty All Blacks do their thing. It's been awesome to watch the Black Caps over the last 18 months as they've gone from strength to strength, culminating in winning their last three test match series (hopefully they can also win the decider against the West Indies). I've also played a lot of cricket since I was around six years old; turning out for Sumner Cricket Club during primary school, playing a bit at Christchurch Boys High School, and then donning the colours of the legendary Addington 4A (the photo below says it all about the good times had with that team). My batting technique has been described as most akin to Chris Martin's, but I bowl decent left arm medium inswing with good bounce thanks to my lanky frame.

Addington 4A

In Baton Rouge, cricket is surprisingly thriving. In fact, it even drew enough attention for a visiting New Zealand reporter to write an article about it, published in the Waikato Times (thanks to my Aunt and Uncle in Hamilton for chasing down the printed paper for me!). Cricket's popularity here is largely driven by the South Asian students and community associated with LSU, specifically those from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It's primarily played in the large LSU parking lots, and real bats are used in combination with yellow kiwi cricket stumps, and a slightly heavier than usual tennis ball, made specifically for cricket (like an old school incrediball, but sadly it doesn't swing). Innings are usually 12-20 overs each with slightly modified rules played, like no lbw or leg byes.

The Waikato Times article on Baton Rouge cricket (click to enlarge)

Some or my best friends here in Baton Rouge are Nepalese so I play with them every couple of weeks or so. Abilities range from the very talented - by that I mean they could make the Addington 4A team - down to guys who have barely played before, but the games are always competitive and a lot of fun. The overall quality of play is pretty good and there's also great banter between the guys, even if I can't speak or understand a word of what is sometimes being said.

Teams from different countries don't seem to play against each other all that often, but I once had the honour to play as a Nepalese import player in a T20I against Bangladesh. We came out with a good upset victory, but my friend Asim tells me Nepal has been hammered a couple of times by the Indian team in the past - maybe we can change that soon!

Nepal (batting) vs Bangladesh

This past couple of weekends some of the guys organized the Baton Rouge Nepalese Cricket League, which was essentially a tournament between three Nepalese teams (nine players per side), selected using the style of an IPL auction. It was decided to play this tournament on the grass of the LSU parade grounds (LSU Oval) so there could be proper fielding. However, playing without a rolled pitch meant the bounce could be variable, with some balls keeping low and others rearing at your head off a good length.

The first Saturday consisted of three games of 10 overs an innings, where each team played the other two, with the top two teams qualifying for the final to be played the next weekend. My team, the Baton Rouge Tigers (BRT), bowled out La La Chha Chha Moj Gar Moj Gar (LLCCMGMG - literal translation "ok ok you got it, have fun have fun") for just 44 runs in the first game (yours truly bowling 3-1-1-11). But we failed to chase the total down, losing too many wickets and playing out too many dot balls on the tricky wicket. LLCCMGMG (the favourites) then won their second game against Baby Doll Mein Sone Di (BDMASD - literal translation "I'm a baby doll made of gold"), scoring 68 runs and defending it without much hassle. In a virtual semifinal we put in another good performance, bowling out BDMASD for a paltry 37 (My figures were 2.2-0-2-8), and chasing it down with 9 wickets and 10 balls to spare. The final promised to be a tight and gripping contest.

LSU Oval

The final format was 15 overs per team, and it was a damp morning when we lost the toss and were put in to bat. We lost wickets steadily, scraping through to a score of just 53, which we still considered defendable (we'd bowled out both teams in the previous games for 44 or less). Coming out to bowl all fired up we took three wickets in the first two overs. LLCCMGMG's middle order then put on a couple of good partnerships and we knew we'd have to bowl them out to win. We managed to keep the pressure on with a couple of big breakthroughs and it came down to 8 needed off the last over. The first ball was pushed to our captain Sudh at cover who fittingly completed the run out as the batsmen set off for a suicidal single, sparking wild celebrations for the Baton Rouge Tigers! I finished with figures of 4-0-2-11 and scored 3 runs batting at number seven. The tournament was a privilege to be a part of and the organisers did an incredible job.

The game of cricket is alive and well here in the south, and I'm loving it.

The finalists posing after a hard fought battle

Love Bugs

These fancy little insects are known as two-lined spittlebugs (Prosapia bicincta) and belong to the family Cercopidae, commonly called the froghoppers or spittlebugs - those frothy masses of bubbles you sometimes see on plants are probably caused by relatives of these guys. I spotted these two mating on a stem of Phragmites australis in our common garden today. The different colours of their lines really stands out well using the Instagram filters, despite only being taken using my Samsung Galaxy S3.

Aphids and Syrphids

This is the first of my (hopefully many) Instagram updates. I was working in our common garden today when I noticed these colonies of red aphids on a weedy plant in one of our pots. While trying to get a decent photo I noticed a couple of different hoverfly species ovipositing (laying eggs) near the aphids. Hoverflies belong to the family of flies named Syrphidae, and their larvae are common aphid predators; adults mostly feed on flower nectar and pollen. I managed to identify this particular species of hoverfly as Toxomerus politus (thanks to the great website of Bugguide) but I can't confirm the aphid or host plant species from the photographs I have.

Life Through A Filter

In my last post, I said the lack of updates is about to come to an end. I've decided to link my Instagram account to the blog in order to create more regular (and shorter) postings. For those not in the know, Instagram is a social media app with the main purpose of sharing photos and short videos with those who follow you, and viewing the photos and videos of those users who you choose to follow. The fun feature which makes Instagram so popular is the ability to edit your photos prior to posting by applying colour filters, contrast, frames, and a other well-designed effects. I started an account on Instagram a few months ago and have since started posting photos a bit more regularly, depicting things from the places I visit, wildlife (mostly insects) I encounter, and experiments I'm working on, to the mundane parts of day-to-day life in Baton Rouge. By linking the two accounts, I'll be more regularly updating the blog with (hopefully) aesthetically pleasing, informative, and interesting photos, and maybe even some videos. Below is a sample of some of the photos I've shared since I signed up for an account to give you an idea of what to expect from future posts. I still intend to write lengthier posts on topics of particular interest, but this new approach will lead to more regular brief updates also.

An experiment recently set up to examine interactions between Phragmites and its soil microbes

A field trip in Jim's boat in a bayou near Lake Pontchartrain 

Hyalopterus pruni aphids on Phragmites

A leaf footed bug (Acanthocephala declivis) in Homochitto State Park, Mississippi

Io moth (Automeris io) caterpillars...

...and the resulting female (top) and male

A banded water snake (Nerodia fasciata) spotted while teaching invasive species ecology at Bluebonnet Swamp

Your daily dose of cuteness from the stray neighbourhood kittens

LSU campus with azaleas in full bloom

Teaching the ecology lab on seed dispersal from four stories up

Scottish band Mogwai came to Baton Rouge and put on a mean show

View down the Hooker Valley from my last trip home - I miss NZ every day

Pavlova I made for my friend's BBQ, another great NZ treat

The General Exam of Dooooooooom

It's been a long while since I posted a blog on here, but that's about to change. This year so far has been intense, hectic, rewarding, and productive. Among the chaos of the spring semester at LSU, I managed to pass the general exam, a major step in pursuit of my PhD degree. As mentioned in a previous post, the general exam is a comprehensive written and oral exam designed to examine a student's knowledge of their respective field in order to ultimately determine whether they're worthy of becoming a PhD candidate.

I was nervous going into the exam. Despite putting a lot of preparation into being ready, I still felt like I knew little more than the basics of the field of ecology. I'd made a checklist of subjects, hypotheses, organisms, statistical methods, journals, current issues in ecology, influential scientists, and LSU faculty I should at least know something about, and I'd managed to tick most of these things off (while still barely scratching the surface). However, one of my PhD committee members had told me, "there's no such thing as an unfair question", which had me wondering whether there was going to be something from out of left field. I'd heard of some crazy general exam questions before, such as one professor at LSU being given a random skull to identify upon walking into their exam (it turned out to be from a bulldog). I don't remember if she answered the question correctly or not, which highlights an important attitude I tried to take in my approach to the exam: it doesn't matter if the final answer to the question is correct or not - what does matter is showing that you can use what you do know to think critically and logically about the question, providing an answer to the best of your knowledge, which will forever be incomplete. 

Two weeks before the oral exam, I received my written questions. These were fairly straightforward and took about 3-4 hours to complete each. My question from Jim (my advisor) was even very helpful in developing the next phase of my research project, which I will blog about at some point in the near future. Then, the day of my oral exam was upon me in an instant and suddenly I was all alone in a room with five professors ready to explore my knowledge until they find weaknesses. But in actual fact, it went much more smoothly than I could have imagined. The first question was one I was expecting, which calmed my nerves, and from there it took only 2 and a half hours until I was done. I didn't get too many crazy questions, but I sure discovered where my strengths and weaknesses lie. My "favourite" question was where one of my committee members thumbed through an entomology book, randomly selecting orders of insects, before asking me for their common name and a to describe a paper I had read where they were the study organism. Of course, the first insect order chosen was the silverfish (Thysanura); seriously, who knows of a study of them off the top of their head? I also remember having to pull together some sort of answer for springtails (Collembola), grasshoppers (Orthoptera), beetles (Coleoptera), thrips (Thysanoptera), and butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera).

So, now I'm a qualified PhD candidate. This means I'm (supposedly) able to read and understand the literature, come up with novel research ideas, design successful experiments, collect, analyse and interpret data, and complete the cycle by adding to the scientific literature through publishing my results. Ultimately, studying for the exam was an intensely rewarding experience and I now feel like I know a little more about the world of ecology.

I really have to express a huge amount of thanks to the awesome support of my friends and family, for keeping my spirits up and accompanying me through the long, tough nights of studying with their words of encouragement, discussions of ecology, and coffee and study snacks.