And any day you do an experiment is a good day. The story is as follows: I got up and drove out to the Coastal Studies lab on South Padre ...

Posted I'm surprised. Revamping a manuscript for submission to a new journal didn't take as long as I thought. I now have four cop...

Tedium! One of the most annoying things about preparing a scientific manuscript is the references. They are fiddly. They are long. And eve...

The grant gauntlet I'm starting work on a pre-proposal for something called the Advanced Research Program grants, which are put up by...

Here’s what I sent to the letters section of The Age in response to the article mentioned in the last entry of this journal: “It’s unfortu...

We crustacean neurobiologists are frequently asked the question, "Do lobsters feel pain?" (Usually the context seems to be, "...

Transitions This is always a tricky time of year for me, because I'm going from an established routine to a situation where my schedul...

Haven't been blogging much because there hasn't been a lot of movement on the research front. That should change soon, because today...

Last big boxes Got two boxes yesterday, which contained one of my last major equipment purchases (for a while). It was the second of two s...

Quirks and Quarks informed me that today is the 42 anniversary of the first manned space flight, by Major Yuri Gagarin . Major Gagarin died...

Data! Little late to report this, but on Monday I was back out at the Coastal Studies Lab, taking our second candidate for a Biology facul...

While walking into my office this morning, I noticed that there’s heavy machinery on the future site of the Regional Academic Health Center ...

"Debunking" a 'Net "psychic," Part 2 How does the Flash Mind Reader work? (If you haven't seen it yet, you ma...

A crucial part of research is skepticism. It”s not just useful to being a practising scientist; skepticism saved me from the fake eBay email...

eBay lookalike scam Received a sneaky email that just about caught me. It looked like it came from the well-known online auction house, eB...

Spent a good part of the day showing off our Coastal Studies Lab to a job candidate. Our department is in the market for a “Vertebrate Physi...

Where two cultures meet... Being a Canadian living in the southern most tip of Texas, this makes my heart feel good as much as it makes my...

A look in the lab Here's the infamous microscope that took an inordinately long time to purchase (partly due to delays in getting star...

Biology myths of our time Heard on television commercial currently playing locally: "I can't concentrate. Could I be pregnant?...

Anyone who still doubts the power of blogs (“web logs” like this journal) to be effective at reaching a wide audience will probably not be a...