Number 18

My eighteenth scientific paper got accepted at the end of last week. I finally had a chance to sit down today and make the few small required changes, so it will be off to the editor this afternoon. This one is significant because it’s the first one exclusively from UTPA, so its counts towards my tenure requirements. Sure, it’ll probably be only a page or two when it finally sees print, but a publication is a publication is a publication, as far as the tenure guidelines go. That is to say, a comprehensive 400 page monograph counts the same as a 2 page short communication in this tenure game.

I have mixed feelings about that, personally. There really isn’t much incentive to do quality work, but on the other hand, it’s not always possible to do work that’ll make the cover of Nature.

In other news, after agonizing about my species name error, I was pleased – no, relieved is a better word – to see the Society for Neuroscience had to send out a correction. I got an email saying that the time they scheduled for my poster was probably wrong, please disregard it, and they'll be sending another email soon. Heh. It's always good to know that everyone makes mistakes. My poster ended up being Saturday afternoon after all, which I'm happy about.

I was less pleased about getting a hotel for the Neuroscience meeting. The State of Texas – of which UTPA is a part – only pays $110 per night for a hotel room in San Diego. But that's actually pretty low for the hotel rates for this meeting. $150 a night seems to be more common, particularly if you're anywhere within walking distance of the conference center. So guess where the difference has to come from? That's right: my wallet. Most of those low-cost hotel rooms are already snapped up. (One colleague commented that getting a Neuroscience hotel was a “Darwinian” process.) I reserved a room that cost $115 a night, which means I'll only be out of pocket about $30, luckily.

Freakin’ taxonomists

I just got confirmation of when I’m supposed to give my poster at this year’s Neuroscience poster. I’m pleased that this year, I’m giving my poster on Saturday! First day of the conference before people are burned out! Yay!

But I’m red-faced now. I just realized there’s a mistake in my title: I have the species name wrong. I put the name of my lobster as Palinurus argus, when it is, in fact, Panulirus argus.

Now, in my defense, I am not the first person to make this mistake, nor will I be the last. You see, both names are scientifically vaid and describe genera of spiny lobsters. Apparently, back in 1847, a taxonomist named White decided to split the spiny lobster genus Palinurus into three genera. For his new genera, he chose anagrams of the original name: Linuparus, which is fairly distinct from Palinurus, and Panulirus – which darn well isn’t. And thus is was that Dr. White ensured my confusion, not to mention the puzzlement of many others, for years to come.

I would submit a revised abstract to correct the title and add an author (my student Alana contributed work to this project after I submitted the abstract), but the deadline for that was back in May. Fortunately, this is just an abstract, but it is pretty embarrassing to have to put in “sic” next to the poster title in my curriculum vita.

Western Nerve Net

As I mentioned before, Santa Clara is a very pretty university, with a long history and Jesuit tradition. The mission (below) is very attractive, and has a wonderful rose garden next to it.

We had our Friday dinner in a faculty club slighty in back of the mission, and our first speaker on Friday night was the magesterial Ted Bullock, delivering a talk called "In praise of natural history."

Ted Bullock had to leave on Friday night, which I was disappointed with on the one hand, because he's got so much experience and insight. But on the other hand, it meant that my nightmare of Ted dissing my talk couldn't come true. Whew.

The meeting itself was small. There were only about 30 people all told. But apparently the organizers broke even, and all went well. I'm pretty sure I was able to have a conversation with just about everyone at the meeting. I was pleased that my own talk was fairly well-received. At the end of the day, we had dinner out in the residence courtyard.

 

Note the large number of people around the the beer, and the small number of people around the trays containing the barbeque...

Thanks to John Birmingham for reviving a great little meeting. And I look forward to doing it again next year! (Right, Megumi?)

Feel the chill

There is no hot water in the showers where I’m staying. This makes for a rather rude awakening, especially after a night of poor sleeping. I never sleep well in a new bed the first night, and this bed is not particularly comfortable. It has a very spongy pillow. I also dreamed about giving my talk, and getting patronized at the end by Ted Bullock, who (in my dream) said something like, “It was a good effort.” I’m hoping the reception for my talk will be a little warmer. Warmer than the showers, at any rate.

In the waking world, Professor Bullock gave the opening talk last night, which was very good. I'll describe him in a little more detail later, but for now I'll just mention that he is in his seventh decade (!) as a practicing scientist, but still active and still sharp as a knife.

Unfortunately, I’m unlikely to be able to post any pictures until Monday. I realized that I don't have the right USB cable to hook up my camera to a computer, alas.

Feel the burn

Ah, the mild California weather has played its evil trick on me. Because it’s nowhere near as hot as Texas, I spent most of the afternoon wandering around campus and nearby environs, taking pictures, checking things out. Looked in the mirror tonight, about ready to go to bed, and realized that my skin is pinker than usual. And it’s been a few hours since I got out of the Santa Clara fitness center. Argh. I’m just hoping that this is a mild sunburn, and that the only consequence will be that I look slightly goofy when I give my talk tomorrow morning. I could rather do without any pain or peeling skin tonight, thanks.

Been up since 4:20 a.m., and it's now past 11 p.m. Texas time. Well past time to go to bed.

California dreamin’

I’m typing to you today from Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, California. The first university in the state, apparently – and it sure smells nice. There are plenty of plants and flowers, and you can really smell them as you’re walking around. What particularly surprised me was catching the scent of pine – something I probably haven’t smelled in three years since leaving Canada.

It also about 7°C cooler here than southern Texas. This, and some very interesting southern California architecture and Jesuit sculptures make walking outside pleasant rather than an occasion to be avoided (if possible) or dreaded (if not avoided).

I hope to have some pictures up later. But in the meantime... food. I've been up since 4:30 a.m. (!), and it's now 3:20 p.m. back where I normally live, and I need sustenance.

Well, that was unexpected...

Life is full of little surprises. Like car repairs. More examples are rolling in today.

First surprise. I am leaving to go to a meeting tomorrow. I thought I had finished my talk, and was preparing to do other things this afternoon. But while doing a little research, I stumble upon a paper that is directly related to what my talk is about. One the one hand, it’s great, because it basically answers a question which I had, and the results reported in this paper are totally in line with my own. On the other hand, it’s annoying, because I can no longer write a grant proposal asking for money to do this experiment that I had planned, because it’s already been done. On the third hand (I study crustaceans, many hands are allowed), it’s good because it adds more depth to my talk. On the fourth hand, it means I have to make a new slide quickly and revise my PowerPoint presentation again.

Second surprise. Our Dean calling a meeting on about 24 hours notice yesterday, and there was a little speculation on what it would be about. Nobody predicted that he would announce he was leaving our university in less than two months (end of August), citing personal reasons. He’d only been here for about a year and a half. He’d been the driving force behind UTPA getting a $1.3 million Howard Hughes Medical Institue grant.

I’m rather hoping that the rest of the day is sedate and uninteresting.

Has it been a week?

Whoops. Guess it has been that long since I posted. I spend most of today getting ready for Western Nerve Net (my abstract is up on line now). I gave a practice talk this morning. It clocked in at slightly too long, which I expect I can fix by Saturday. The rest of the day was spent tinkering with the talk, implementing a few ideas that my colleagues gave me for improvement.

Tomorrow, I plan to make a quick (probably very quick) trip out to the Coastal Studies Lab. I just learned today that we're going to have a faculty meeting for the College tomorrow, which our Vice President of Academic Affairs will be attending. I hope to get back in time for that, since that particular VP is very rarely seen at these sorts of things, so I suspect something important might be up.

The next day, I get on a 6 a.m. plane bound for California. Ugh... I don't even want to think about what time I have to drag my sorry butt out of bed.

Speaking of talks, I've also wrangled myself a second trip this month. I'll be heading to Baton Rouge for a couple of days, and will be giving a talk to the Biology Sciences Department at Louisiana State University. This happened because LSU has a summer research program, and they have a couple of slots reserved for UTPA students. So I decided to try to take advantage of some of those existing ties and ask for an invitation. I'll be there in a couple of weeks to spread good will and cheer. Or something.

Edit: No trip to the Coastal Studies Lab for me tomorrow. Our car needs fixing. Expensive fixing. Splud!

Double failure

Failure number one: I have to meet a student today. Which means I'm going to campus instead of getting a day off.

Failure number two: My most recent effort to get asked to write a full proposal for a Whitehall Foundation grant failed. Over 100 letters, of which they asked 22 people to write full proposals. And I – I was not one.

Happy Dominion Day!

Dating myself with that entry title. Call it Canada Day, if you prefer. I'm celebrating by trying to take the day off. We'll see if I can avoid going to uni today. If all goes well, a little matinee, a little shopping, and the like. With the amount of work I have to do, I know I’ll regret this decision tomorrow. But I’ll cry tomorrow. For now, I goof off.

Homework

I'm here at home tonight and not exercising like I want to be. I got a phone call this afternoon from one of my colleagues, who had some bad abdominal pain last week. This guy's had heart problems in the past, so went to see a cardiologist and is going to have a bit of surgery tomorrow. It turns out there aren't too many people available who have any other expertise in the summer class he's teaching, and asked if I would do it for a day or two. Me, being a nice guys, said sure. But this means I've got a lecture to write for a (groan) 7:45 am class tomorrow.

Back to work I go...

I feel pretty, oh so pretty...

Two of my students met. After they had parted, one said of the other, with a tone of surprise in his voice, "She's pretty." It apparently had never occurred to him that someone good-looking would be involved in research projects. I made some comment about being wary of stereotypes.

Obviously, there's still more consciousness raising to do.

President Bambi

Our new president-designate, Blandina Cardenas, also goes by the name (nickname? dimuntive?) of Bambi.

[Pause.]

I kid you not.

[Pause.]

As an essayist, I have to say that it's wonderful knowing that a rich mine of comedic opportunity has just dropped into your lap.

Be that as it may, I rushed to the Coastal Studies Lab this morning, did some very quick animal collection and pick-up, rushed back to the university in time to see President-delegate Bambi's introduction to the university. I sat in the university auditorium, still with sand and salt in my shorts. My buddy Mike offered me a dollar if I went up to our president delgate and introduced myself and declared that I has sand in my shorts. Didn't take him up on the offer.

President-designate Bambi said a few encouraging things about research and workload, but I still get a vibe when I hear her speaking that makes me uneasy. Just a little too much like a seasoned politician. She has the sort of delivery that leaves you wondering how much is an act for the occasion, and the cameras, and how much is real.

How to win friends and influence people

Now isn't this an interesting way to start a new job... Our new president said some things in public that she thought was private, according to this story. It should certainly add a certain frisson to her coming into the new position with people knowing she wants to swing the axe at a few people.

New President

Blandina Cardenas is our new university president. In my book, this is not great news, but it's not bad news, either. I reckoned she was in the middle of the pack in my assessment of the candidates. I was personally hoping for someone with more research experience. Instead, we get another president who's background is in education -- just like we've had for the last two decades.

Time will tell if she'll work out. It always does.

Tired

Whew. I was kept busy today with all four students working non-stop on their projects and needing guidance from me. I am pretty tired. And it'll probably get worse before it gets better; I'm planning to run out to the Coastal Studies Lab tomorrow to dig up more sand crabs and the like, which is usually fun, but not relaxing.

Less than an hour until the new President for the University is announced. The new preident will be on campus tomorrow afternoon; I don't know if I'll be back in time for the conference they're holding at 2:00 pm. Doubtful.

Cherry!

Here’s an example of one of the "cherries" of data that lined up in my scientifc slot machine at the end of this week.


Each one of those small black spheres is the cell body of a motor neuron. The lines extending into the center are the axons. You can’t see them go all the way out the nerve because this piece of nervous system is thick enough that the microscope doesn’t have enough depth of field to focus on everything you’d like to see at once.

This is a very good example of a technique called cobalt backfilling. The editor for one of my papers called this technique “old-fashioned,” but so what? I can see everything I need.

Strength

After grumbling in my last entry about having to work late on Thursday to work (made necessary by a couple of animals dying en route from our Coastal Studies Lab to my lab), I was working even later yesterday finishing what I'd started on Thursday.

The lobsters I was working with on Thursday were intended to be part of a project for my student Alana. I planned to have her finish yesterday what I'd started on Thursday. Alana who usually arrives in the morning, but didn't come in until afternoon yesterday. She started to finish the tissue staining I started, but didn't quite get all the way through. SO I was left to do the last few steps on my own.

But it was well worth it. Everything worked. And not only did everything work, it did so near perfectly. It was definitely a "Yessssssssss!" moment when I looked at what we'd done. I was pumped.

I often compare the experience of doing science to being a gambler. (Or, for you psychologists in the audience, a rat in a Skinner box on a random reinforcement schedule.) You keep pulling the lever on the slot machine, but you never, ever know when those three little cherries are going to line up in a row. The jackpot comes at random. And that, according to much psychological research, is the situation that tends to lead to the strongest drive to perform the behaviour. Rats trained on the "jackpot" schedule press their little bars for food faster than any other reinforcement schedule.

I probably shouldn't be comparing my profession to unhealthy addictions. Though I doubt I'm the first to do so.

Give me strength!

I think everyone has days where they ask what it is that keeps you going. This was one for me. I had been holding some spiny lobsters out at the Coastal Studies Lab. I had three of them shipped into our main campus today. When I got them in mid-afternoon, two had died! Not again! These animals seem dedicated to being pains in my butt. This meant that if I was to get any useful information from these animals, I pretty much had to dissect and stain both of them now before the tissue started to go bad. Which pretty much shot any other plans I might have had for that afternoon and early evening.

But what might keep me going is that if I come in tomorrow, and get some beautiful stains of neurons... all will be forgiven, and it will all be worth it.

More grants...

I was just informed that the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston got a major grant to help funnel students into graduate studies in research (I believe it's a Bridges to the Future grant). Why do I care? Because our university is a partner in that program. I'm one of the faculty who's listed as a participant. I should be able to get money to support some students and their research, which is good and useful.

I seem to be unable to generate a successful grant on my own, but at least I'm a small part of teams that put together successful grants.