EcoGrind

I have found true love. I think. She doesn’t exactly know it yet, but in my mind we spend about an hour locking lips every time we meet. Given that she serves me my coffee in the morning, its surprising I don’t have pash rash. What is it with café waitresses? Speak to any man and he’ll tell you to forget the cheerleaders, models, and flight attendants, it’s the café waitresses which represent that untouchable dream. My particular waitress/goddess works in a very trendy boho style café in Bondi. Shes tall, slim with giant eyes, a contrived cliché of the alternative aspiring artist/musician/poet/writer/actress who frequent those sorts of places.

Given the chances of forming a relationship with this woman (that goes beyond ordering a cup of latte) are slim, I wanted to destroy the magic of attraction with science. Apparently, it takes between 90 seconds to 4 minutes to decide if you’re attracted to someone. 55 % of this attraction is to do with body language, 38% through the tone and speed of their voice (did I mention she has a very French accent…) and only a measly 7% is based on what they say.

After millions of years of evolution, mating in animals all comes down to reproductive fitness. Good indicators of fertility equal better chances of hooking up. For my waitress/goddess this equals fair skin…check, good waist to hip ratio; a waist of about 70% of a woman’s hips is great…check, good facial symmetry; indicative of robust gene development…check, a cute sense of humour; indicating intelligence and fast thinking…check, and a pixie like face with close cropped auburn hair; not exactly a scientifically based fact, but I like it…check. Other environmental factors, such as body language, smell, and grooming can also contribute to attraction.

Now its time to put those millions of dollars of research grants to good use. Apparantly I need to maximise my reproductive fitness so she thinks I am good father material, or at least trick her into thinking having babies with me is a great idea. Those that know me are laughing hysterically at this thought. Apparently, I need to form an inverted triangle body shape (a la Thorpie, pre dougnuts), work on my wit and humour (phhhh…as if…), get rich (on a PhD scholarship?), take better care of my grooming (see ‘humour’) and get myself an Audi (see ‘Get Rich’). I guess I’m out of luck. I’m sure she has a boyfriend anyway, probably some bass player in a funky indie rock band…

Oysters have a hard life. Some detractors might cite their sedantry nature, “sit and wait” feeding style and lethargic reproductive processes as reasons to the contrary, but its a small wonder they are alive at all. I recently spent a few months at the Port Stephens Fisheries Research Centre, working with the invasive Pacific Oyster, Crassostrea gigas, and found they are fickle things. They’re worse than a spoilt eight year old. The water temp has to be just right, the light cycle spot on, they need regular water changes and a constant supply of food. If any of these conditions are not met they will stomp their feet, shake their fist whilst screaming that they hate you, until you give them a wowwy pop. If you dont, they will die. Talk about cutting your nose off despite your face.

And then the teenage years come along. It’s at this stage that you start to feel for them. Pelagic larvae experience over 99% mortality in the water column. There’s nothing much stopping anything with a larger mouth (which is pretty much everything) eating the poor little guys. They’re the fast food of the ocean. Fish swarm to these guys like fat kids to doughnuts. Even worse, they are completely at the whim of the tides, so many will simply be washed out to see before geting the chance to settle on a nice rock, grow old and fat, and expell some gametes to keep the grandparants happy.

Its at the late teen stage where it just becomes unfair; a joke instigated by the cruel hand of evolution. When I was working with the oysters, I wanted to see whether increasing the numbers of oyster arrivals into a community would increase the numbers that would survive to adulthood (yes, this is an oversimplified explanation… not by much though!). It turns out that increasing the amount of settling oysters didn’t do anything. No matter how many oyster larvae I would introduce into the system, fish would simply decimate the population until only a few lucky ones survived. In some communities, I successfully introduced over 1000 early “pre teen” oysters, only to have 15 left after five weeks. They were shown no mercy. It was Peter O’Toole in Lawrance of Arabia all over again; “No Prisoners! No Prisoners!”.

While you do have to feel sorry for the little guys, one has to remember these Pacific Oysters are invasive. Like marauding hordes, they have taken over much of our natural Sydney Rock Oyster habitats. Which leads us to the question; if these exotics can so comprehensively invade Australian shorelines despite their inadaquacies, how wimpy must our native oysters be?

Insects are horrible. Irritable abominations sent from hell to make human life on this Earth unbearable. Well…that’s the view of some people. I was fascinated the other day, when over dinner, a friend mentioned he had received an unwanted visitor on his scalp. A humble tick had taken residence amongst his follicles. The amazed dinner participants reeled in shock! They expressed opinions of pure disgust, and questioned his continuing employment (he is a Bush Regenerator). They were serious. This surprised me, to say the least.

At any one time in the Evolution and Ecology Research Centre, several people are wrist deep in fox, cat and mouse urine. Several others are feeding and breeding thousands of flies, crickets and bugs. In my own field, I am continually finding new and unusual places for water bugs, dead barnacles, and crabs (the sea dwelling crustacean variety…) to hide on my body. On a field trip some years ago, I had a friend remove close to 20 ticks from his skin every day. Unfortunately the trip was five days long. This got me thinking about peoples exposure to the natural world. From an early age I was exploring the bush and waterways around the Central Coast. Ticks and bugs were a way of life. Similarly, my colleagues and friends have had similar exposure, with many diving under the sea before they could ride a bike, hiking the Blue Mountains before they could read and write, or exploring the rockpools of Sydney before learning to tie their shoes.

How do people get exposed to the natural world? I wander what percentage of the population would reel in shock, as my dinner companions did, or embrace the mild annoyance of a tick as an invevitable byproduct of living in an insect dominated world? Should we start this exposure at school? Do school students still take fieldtrips and camps in the bush? Yesterday I spoke with a school teacher who complained that fieldtrips are far too stressful for the staff, and should be cut back. Indeed, the burden of OHS compliance has made any sort of outdoor activity almost impossible to undertake without writing a small novel on the risks associated with taking a walk. But does that mean we should just stop trying to get kids exposed to nature? We are at the brink of an ‘Environmental Revolution’, the idea of a sustainable future is spreading like Swine Flu through a Mexican cantina, yet its becoming harder and harder for people to go out and experience the world we are trying to save.

I certainly hope my dinner companions are in the minority, and this post has been a pointless meander through my thoughts. If they’re not, then as scientists and educators we have a long road ahead…

On another note, I found a really good website of other science bloggers, infinitely better than myself, check it out at www.scienceblogs.com

I am an angry man. No I really mean it…furious. A PhD will do that to you, but there’s something else. You see, for the past five weeks my colleagues and I have been made fun of by our complete lack of literary prowess, our media shyness, and generall lack of experience in this exciting thing called life. I feel like the elephant man… “I am not an animal!”.

We’re scientists. Ecologists, Evolutionary Biologists, Botanists, Geographers, and Pathololgists; the nerdiest of the nerds, and we’re undergoing media training. It has become apparant to both school and university ‘higher ups’ that we have an image problem. Apart from a few notable exceptions (think Dr Karl…) we dont connect with the real world that often. The other day we were called (by the former Chief of Staff of the Sydney Morning Herald no less) “pasty aliens” who dont know how to comunicate with people. Well I’m here to make my voice heard! (He says with a pasty fist high in the air and a glint in his bulgy alienesque eyes).

Its not that we dont try to connect.  Catalyst is one of the more popular programs on ABC1. Everyone watches that dont they? Hmmm…what about The Science Show on ABC Radio national? No? Surely everyone has been to a free public lecture from The Royal Zoological Society of NSW? I swear they’re very interesting. Maybe this is a double edged problem? Scientists have lots to say, but lack the skills to present it. The public want to hear what we say, yet have an apathetic attitutude towards its presenters.

I am adding this blog to the network in order to present a forum for junior scientists like myself to talk about what interests them, the science they do, the problems they face and the attitudes they encounter. It will be about science, the presentation of science, and the logical life that a scientist lives. It will not include words greater than four syllables long (except maybe Onomatopoeia…such a cool word), nor will it stoop to incoherent ramblings of a Twitter aficionado… “oooh i am txt my bff :)) science is cool lol:__)(U*(*JHJ)” and so forth. I hope you can catch up with the friendly aliens regularly to see whats happening in those enourmous brains we must have.

Now excuse me, i have a spaceship to catch…