Sick dogs and sunny gardens

Held hostage in my backyard by a sick dog... on a sunny Seattle summer day.

Sure his drawn-up, puking face makes my stomach churn in pity, and I can't imagine how the weather channel calls this 66 degrees Fahrenheit, because it certainly feels like 90 (I prefer 60). 

Certainly I'm missing work, and when there's so much that needs doing, that makes my hand itch. 

I'm missing my daily 5.5.mile bike ride to campus, and as I imagine the touch of a cooling breeze and fierce sunshine on my shoulders, I long to be out riding on the peaceful (albeit bumpy) Burke-Gilman trail.

But really, I have to thank my sick, trembling puppy (who, at seven, isn't really a puppy anymore. But I indulge myself.). I've been craving a day like this. 

The house, normally noisy and boisterous with the sounds and problems of my family, is mine and deliciously silent. There's food to be eaten that tantalizes every taste bud on my tongue (earthy mushrooms, sweet onions, and soft, warm quinoa, anyone?). 

And when my puppy turns his unhappy blue eyes on me, and comes to lean against my leg for comfort after another upending of his po' tummy, my heart melts. Sometimes I forget how much he craves affection, but just like a child, it couldn't be clearer that he needs me right now.

So we bask in the 95 degree garden, sick and missing work and perfectly content. One of the birds nesting in our neighbor's vent came to visit, catching a fly before darting off. Insects come and go - honeybees sipping nectar from our flowers and hording the pollen, earwigs nesting in one of our heads of lettuce, an Ichneumon wasp prowling for insects to devour. 

Borage plant

The soles of my feet are brown with dirt, my legs are reddening from the sunshine (I can only imagine how sunburnt my face will be in a few hours), and a string of drool/vomit coming from Surge's mouth has collected chunks of beauty bark, and dangles hilariously from the left side of his muzzle.

My sick Catahoula "puppy"

In commemoration of this gorgeous day, I'm posting some photos of lovely insects, and a few of my puppy. Some from the beginning of June, when the insects seemed more abundant, or at least more diverse. Most from today, when Surge and I panted and sweated and puked...and leaned into one another, reveling in the brilliant, shining sun.

busy bee!

Calliphoridae (fly) on a sunflower

Andrenidae (mining bee) on a lily

Bee mimicking flies are cool!

A darting little hoverfly

Warm, sleepy puppy!

Aww...

A Siricidae (horntail wasp), scouting for prey...

Apis mellifera

We spent almost half an hour chasing this fly around with a jar. Now Surge is checking it out...

This.

Ratcliff et al 2012, Experimental evolution of multicellularity

Do you see this?




I DID THIS.

Okay, I didn't do exactly this experiment and publish this paper. But, following the Ratcliff et al protocol, with a few minor tweaks, I evolved multicellularity. In just 23 days. Here's a photo of my yeast.

14 May 2012 - Monday b4 midterms

Trying to think up topics I'd be interested in researching in the time I don't really have to spare. This means I do "research" in classes and skim articles that link to more articles...in a never ending trail of article crumbs. 

Here's the conclusion I reached today:

Volvox sp. are definitely the most beautiful algal species I've ever stumbled across. 

Here's what I know about them from eavesdropping on 2 snippets of random conversations between profs and grad students: 

1. some kind of green algae
2. the outside (surrounding) circle is the parent/progenitor cell
3. the inside circles are it's daughter cells
4. the circles inside circles (i.e. top cell in the photo) are the grandaughter cells
5. this means that volvox keep their babies inside of them until they're big enough to be (potentially?) too big for predators, or better developed, or something
6. this also means they're multicellular!
7. the intercellular space is made up of some kind of jelly
8. this process of holding future generations inside of them? it can go on for many more generations, supposedly. i.e. daughter cells within daughter cells within daughter cells within daughter cells within....

Here's what I learned today, from reading this article from ScienceDaily:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090219140546.htm

1. volvox evolved multicellularity ~200 million years ago (mya)
2. they did this in ~35 million years - which sounds like a lot of years, but when you compare it to the 4 billion years of earth history, is pretty much no time at all
3. they live in freshwater ponds mostly
4. some species (because volvox is a genus comprised of lots of different species) are unicellular, some are multicellular, and some even have division of labor where some cells only swim and other cells of the same organism are only reproductive
5. they may have made the transition from unicell to multicell by banding together using that jelly-like substance
6. the next trait that is thought to have evolved was the ability to retain daughter cells within the banded-together clump, so that no individual cell inside the clump would be tempted to cheat and gain better reproductive advantage over cooperating cells
7. The Triassic period was ~200mya

And now here's some more Volvox, because something so round and bubbly and full of daughter cells is just impossible to resist. Biology is just freaking crazy, sometimes.