A fine piece of writing.

This excerpt is from one of the important papers regarding the maintenance of species richness in plant communities. My favourite part is the final statement.

"Four component niches have to be recognized in a complete definition
of a plant’s niche.

(i) The habitat niche, i.e. the physical and chemical limits tolerated by the mature
plant in nature. The definition should include an expression of the kinds of fluctuations
from the mean climatic conditions which favour the plant’s vegetative development.

(ii) The life-form niche, including an expression of size and annual productivity as
well as three-dimensional pattern.

(iii) The phenological niche, i.e. the pattern of seasonal development.

(iv) The regeneration niche, i.e. an expression of the requirements for a high chance
of success in the replacement of one mature individual by a new mature individual of
the next generation, concerning all the processes and characters indicated in Table 2.

The habitat niche is the plant’s address. The life-form and phenological niches are
the plant’s profession. The regeneration niche includes elements of both address and
profession."

Grubb, P.J. 1977. The maintenance of species richness in plant communities: the importance of the regeneration niche. Biological Reviews 52: 107-145.

Talking about our ideas.

Awhile ago a friend pointed me in the direction of ted.com. Ted is an annual conference created to bring "together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives" about Technology, Engineering, and Design. The ted website was created to archive these talks and spread these good ideas across the world for free. I've been watching some of the clips and trying to find the right one to post here. Today I noticed ted mentioned on the Ravelry chat boards in the Geekyknitters group and was led to this clip:

I knew I had found the right one. This video is very interesting. I've actually seen a lot of photos of the crocheted coral reef. I love the idea of incorporating mathematics and sciences into my crafty endeavors.

Umami.

I have so many things that I need to mention here right now that I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I feel like it's been ages since I posted last. It's fairly obvious that I need to keep on top of this interspace and visit often in order to manage the things in life that are making me feel a little stressed out.

So, on six seemingly unrelated notes (not really though, it's always so much more complicated than that...just remembered a 7th item to mention), allow me to dazzle you with the going-ons in my life.

1. I try really hard to eat like a vegetarian. I'm by no means perfect and I definitely do through some meat-eating phases. These usually coincide with special occaisions when large family meals are traditionally served. Summer BBQ time is also tough. The thing is, I really an a bit of a foodie and I truly miss the flavours that get left out when I don't eat certain food groups. A long time ago Em and I came across the term umami in biology class. Umami is a Japanese word that means something along the lines of meaty or savoury. It is the fifth taste to go along with sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. So, I'm hunting for some good ways to eat more veggie umami tasting foods. As I type, there is a large crock pot of chili bubbling away in the kitchen. It's full of cremimi and other little mushrooms that I can't remember the name of right now. I also added a whole bunch of vegetable protein because I need more of that in my life too.

2. Awhile ago I had personal information cards (I'm not exactly part of a business) printed by a really cool company from the UK called Moo.com. I uploaded images from my work and travels last summer then designed the info part including a picture of myself. I used 23 different background pictures for 60 cards and I could have used 60 different ones if I so desired. Moo.com is a really cool website and a great company to work with. I would highly recommend them for any of your printing needs. You can also make personalized postcards and stickers at the site and I will definitely be partaking in the future. Last time I attended a conference I ended up ripping about 6 pages out of my notebook to scribble down my contact information. I hope I'll get to hand out a whole lot of these this summer instead.



3. Today I received a phonecall from the mother of one of the students I tutor. Apparently he achieved a Gold Medal at the science fair I judged last week! There were just so many displays at the fair that I didn't come across him at all. He didn't see me either, and only knew I was there when he noticed my name as one of the judges in the handout from the award ceremony. Awards were handed out at 8:30 pm and I was only at the fair during the morning. I'm disappointed that I missed him, but I'm very proud of his work.



4. Last week, my good friend Bronwen, from Ottawa, sent me a package in a colourswap. This was a little mail exchange I organized with a few of my crafty friends. Everyone had a secret person to send a package to full of knit, found, made, or thrifted items in the recipient's favourite colours. One of my favourites is blue and she sent me a lot of really neat treats along with a handmade, bound notebook. Bronwen is a great bookbinder and I love receiving notebooks from her. This one is called good notes. I'm going to write in all sorts of little quotes and poems I come across that inspire me. The first one is a favourite of mine by e.e. cummings. He was on my mind from two posts ago.



5. Before and after this post I've been working on a new crochet project. I rarely crochet, it jsut isn't my thing, but I will always love the mindlessness that is the creation of a granny square. The most traditional pattern in all of crochet has to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing patterns in Canadian history. Image a cottage without a granny square afghan? Last weekend, I was home and Belva gave me a giant bag of cast-away wool. Even though I'm trying to pare down my belongings, I will gladly accept any offering of wool. In the bag there were 11 balls of Shetland Chunky Tweed in horrible, coordinating colours. So, now I am making a giant granny square tweed blanket and taking into consideration everything I know about colour theory to make this mix into an appealing blend of warmth and coziness.



6. Yesterday and today I received e-mails from the ESA conference in Albequerque, New Mexico and Perth, Australia, saying that my abstracts for oral presentations were accepted. I'm very excited to travel a bit, but I really need to get my thesis finished. Today I caught a little snag in the results section and it definitely brought me down. I was feeling pretty rough and had to leave work and get some fresh air. Tomorrow will be a new day though and I'm going to forge ahead with the discussion.

7. Last, but definitely not least, this morning Doug was talking about the Guelph Guitar and mentioned that Robert Bateman had offered him a piece of Tom Thomson's coffin for the guitar or case. The thought of this is sort of overwhelming and the entire web of stories about art, science, history, life, people, culture, everything inbetween that I can't even think of right now just blows my mind. I'm so glad Doug is putting this all together and I've had the chance to see behind the scenes. I'm a huge fan of early 19th century Canadian landscape art, the work of the Group of Seven and everyone associated with them. I could go on and on about this part of the story, but my fingers are getting tired. I don't know if Doug will take this piece for his work because how will he ever sum up the circumstances that led to this offer in one chapter of his book?



That felt really good. Getting all of this out of my brain allows me to realize that there are many more important things to consider in the world besides my protein intake levels. Got to stay humble,
Cass

Today.

Blog needed some organization today. The list of blogs I follow keeps growing and growing. I decided to add categories to make things easier to keep track of. I think I like the new set-up.

I'm really glad I started writing here. Whenever I need a break from anything I can come here and feel completely refreshed. Writing out all of these things that usually swirl around in my head makes me feel much more focused and pulled-together. Also, I've found endless sources of inspiration in the blogging world and it's really nice to know that they are all in order here. Every time I open up this page I find something new and exciting.



Now that I've become more comfortable with html editing I know how to make the changes I want to make before I tell other people about this place. Today I figured out how to make a little icon for my blog tab. This why my personal style will show up on the tab as well and readers will be able to collect it for their bookmarks. The one I added today is not simplified enough to show up on such a small scale. I just clipped one of my favourite images from the title bar and used converted it to an icon file with this free converter: converticon.com. It's cute and worked well ad has a little Mac interface design. Then I uploaded it to this spot to make a direct link to the image: Image Boo Hosting. So, I'll work on the header and the icon over the next little while, but things are starting to come together!

O, and I almost forgot to mention, check out this collision of art and science:


Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.

Cass

Science Fair 09.

Today I volunteered to judge 36th annual Waterloo Wellington Regional Science Fair. The Fair is a day long event. All of the projects have won the science fairs at their respective schools and have moved on to present at this regional fair. The students range in grade from 8 to 12. There are several divisions which are divided based on age and field of study. I judged 7 displays from the Life Science and Biotechnology categories in both the junior and senior divisions. I was impressed by the level of effort and dedication the students put into their projects. One of the students decided to test the effect of energy drinks on his hockey performance. He was in grade 8 and had a rink in his backyard. He shook my hand and offered me a seat while he talked about the skills he tested after him and his dad drank Red Bull, Full Throttle, and some other highly caffeinated, sugar water drink. He had to have special permission to incorporate these drink products into his study because they aren't permitted in his elementary school (good thing, in my opinion). His observations about the way the drink altered his performance were things like 'made me fidgety'. I was impressed by his cleverness and his determination to study the contraband beverage. I tried to ask several questions, but unfortunately he was never quite able to explain what some of the negative aspects of consuming these drinks were. He also had a hard time explaining why the information he gained was useful and beneficial to the general public. I think this is where most the projects began to breakdown. And I do suppose that this sort of cognitive synthesis is going beyond the level of most grade 8 students as well.

Overall I had a really fun time. It seemed like the students were having a great time too. I think this sort of an atmosphere is great for teaching the importance of displaying your work well and sharing the information you gather.

I actually went to the Science Fair with one of my friends from down the hall in Integrative Biology. She is heading into her 7th semester and mentioned the fact that she is finishing up the last edits of her thesis. When she handed her first draft in it was only 20 pages long! I'm way past that point now, so I think I'm going to hammer out the ending and focus on submitting it asap. Even if the discussion isn't quite up to par this will get my committee talking about it and I could use some suggestions. I need to stop feeling stuck, put the ideas down on paper, and work on things from there. Moving to the next point is the goal at the moment and that requires letting all of my readers see a fair copy and sign my request for evaluation form.

Just now I also made a change to my blogger template. I managed to figure out how to edit the html and add a label cloud! I've been wanting to make that change for awhile, but I was intimidated by all of the lines of code. Blogger doesn't seem to have a gadget for just adding-on a cloud. So I went to this friendly site: phydeaux3 and figured out to add their code into mine. I also found this really cool 216 Web Safe Color Chart in order to change the colours of all of the features on my blog. I'm sure this will come in very handy in the future now that I know how to use it. I ended up making my cloud range from light pink to burgundy.

And in other exciting news, as I was browsing through the recent updates of blogs I keep tabs on, I found that the muffin bunnies were featured on IndieFixx along with a cool tutorial for these sweet little cherry blossoms.



At another of my favourite blogs, I found a tutorial for making tulle blossoms was posted yesterday. These flower crafts are so fresh and spring-timey to me. I wish there wasn't a blizzard outside. I think I'm going to have to incorporate some of these ideas into my secret swap package that's heading to South Africa this week.

This Man.

The history of science is interesting and important to study. All of our modern thoughts, ideas, and conventions have important connections to the scientists that came before us. One scientist that we talk about a great deal in our lab is this man:



Nikolai Vavilov was born on November 25, 1887 in Moscow, Russia. There he graduated from the Agricultural Institute in 1910 after completing a thesis on the impact of snails on agriculture. He went on to hold many important positions in Russia where he studied botany and agriculture. He was the man who first determined the centres of origins of many of the most important agricultural species we still use today. This work relates to the work that my lab did just previous to my joining which was summarized in the book The Urban Cliff Revolution.



Vavilov collected seeds from all over the globe. He developed the largest seedbank in the world in Leningrad. During the Siege of Leningrad, which lasted from 9 September 1941, to 18 January 1943, Vavilov's research assistants defended the seed collection. As Hitler tried to gain power over the Soviet Union people were dying from starvation, but the edible seeds and potatoes survived for prosperity. Even one of the research assistants starved to death during that time.

Vavilov, himself, was arrested in 1940 for repeatedly criticizing the non-Mendelian concepts of his one time friend and Stalin's protege, Trofim Lysenko. Vavilov died in the German prison in 1943 due to malnutrition, but the entire time he was there he delivered over 100 scientific lectures.

In studying modern agriculture and botany we follow in everything Vavilov laid out for us. The Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry stills maintains one of the largest seedbanks in the world.

The Decemberist's last album, The Crane Wife memorializes Vavilov in one of their songs, When the War Came. His story is tragic, but inspiring at the same time. Every time we talk about Vavilov in the lab or find out new information about his life traveling the world and doing good science we end up laughing and smiling. He would have fit in very well here because, as Doug says, Vavilov captures what is good in all of the best scientists we've known.

New look.

Today at lunch I'm trying to figure out how to customize this blog. So far I've learned how to update my title area. I put this together pretty quickly and it still needs work, but I really like how the look is working.

The images are taken from the work of Ernst Haekel. Haekel was a German scientist who lived from February 16, 1834 - August 9, 1919. He promoted the work of Darwin, did a lot philosophizing, and made beautiful artistic interpretations of everything he studied. One of the images he is most famous for is the controversial embryological drawings:



These drawings were recently (2001 and 2002) mentioned in Nature as examples of fake schematical drawings. I don't know much about this issue, but it's definitely an interesting one and something to look into a little further.

Whatever, even if the old drawings and sketches aren't completely accurate, he certainly could use colour and light in interesting ways.