Science-update
Things have been going surprisingly well, science-wise, so I figured I should do an update.
As far as side projects go, the brittle star paper is on a colleague's desk for review, the Calaveras paper is on my adviser's desk for review, and my undergrad is revising the springy perch paper. I've put the frog-jumping simulation aside for the moment, mostly so I can focus on other things, but also because I can't actually publish it until someone else publishes *their* results, which could be a while. The rat project is progressing nicely, in spite of some difficulties in getting everything to work properly, but a long-time colleague is taking the lead on that, so it's not super-pressing for me. I've also got a potential project involving some cross-genus snake hybrids, but we've really not done much, and should probably get our butts in gear if we want to get IACUC approval before hatching season.
I've actually hit major milestones in all three of my thesis chapters within the past few weeks. I just submitted the first chapter to a high-level journal, and I'm quite optimistic. The second chapter's first experiment went well, and I'm about to start data processing after being stuck for 2 weeks waiting for a micro-CT-scan.
Most importantly, I've finally had success in my third chapter's experiment. Basically, the project involves doing a series of tests and measurements on a wide variety of frog species showing both independent convergence on similar forms / locomotor modes and divergences from closely related species, with a goal of examining the evolution of jumping (and, more specifically, the rates of evolution of various underlying physiological traits).
The power of this experiment is that I'll be doing exactly the same tests and measurements on every species. Unfortunately, this means that I have to get every aspect of the methodology nailed down before I can even start, and with 23 species in the planned experiment and (hopefully) only two years left in my degree, time was getting short. Last week, if preliminary data proves correct, I finally got the last piece of the puzzle, the final bit of methodology that had been thwarting me for months.
Now, off to do data processing!
As far as side projects go, the brittle star paper is on a colleague's desk for review, the Calaveras paper is on my adviser's desk for review, and my undergrad is revising the springy perch paper. I've put the frog-jumping simulation aside for the moment, mostly so I can focus on other things, but also because I can't actually publish it until someone else publishes *their* results, which could be a while. The rat project is progressing nicely, in spite of some difficulties in getting everything to work properly, but a long-time colleague is taking the lead on that, so it's not super-pressing for me. I've also got a potential project involving some cross-genus snake hybrids, but we've really not done much, and should probably get our butts in gear if we want to get IACUC approval before hatching season.
I've actually hit major milestones in all three of my thesis chapters within the past few weeks. I just submitted the first chapter to a high-level journal, and I'm quite optimistic. The second chapter's first experiment went well, and I'm about to start data processing after being stuck for 2 weeks waiting for a micro-CT-scan.
Most importantly, I've finally had success in my third chapter's experiment. Basically, the project involves doing a series of tests and measurements on a wide variety of frog species showing both independent convergence on similar forms / locomotor modes and divergences from closely related species, with a goal of examining the evolution of jumping (and, more specifically, the rates of evolution of various underlying physiological traits).
The power of this experiment is that I'll be doing exactly the same tests and measurements on every species. Unfortunately, this means that I have to get every aspect of the methodology nailed down before I can even start, and with 23 species in the planned experiment and (hopefully) only two years left in my degree, time was getting short. Last week, if preliminary data proves correct, I finally got the last piece of the puzzle, the final bit of methodology that had been thwarting me for months.
Now, off to do data processing!