Friday linkage

Here's a trio of random science-y links before I call it a day and head home:

I thought this piece from Orion Magazine was poetic.

Courtesy of Paul, here's a post on Comics Should Be Good about how Donald Duck discovered methylene.

If you find this funny, please let me know, because I like the cut of your jib and we should hang out sometime.

Oh, and I received the nicest compliment today. Last semester, I took a conservation biology course in which we were required to write weekly critiques of each other's presentations, as well as of classmates' grant proposals. My professor said she'd been meaning to tell me that she thought my critiques were the best in the class; she also wondered if such ability meant that I tended to be overly hard on myself. How insightful is that? It's something I need to work on, but it's nice to know I can use my power for good as well as evil.

Have any good weekend plans? Here are mine:

Friday night: drink
Saturday: lab (am), maybe see a movie or something and/or drink (pm)
Sunday: lab

Glamorous and exciting, no?

What doesn't kill me...

I'm taking a quick break from studying to mention that I'm still here. Busier than hell, but I'm still here. In addition to schoolwork (including homework for a class I'm not even officially taking... yeah, I know, but it's a good class), I've started a leaf litter decomposition study in a number of local springs (which means three full field days between this past Monday and next, plus lots and lots of lab work). And then there's the presentation I'm giving to the Salt River Watershed Watch tomorrow night, and grant proposals, and stressing about procedures for assessing microbial biomass and community composition on leaf disks and worrying about my graduate committee and research plans and everything else under the sun, and... thud. (That's the sound of me collapsing in an exhausted heap.) My trip to Santa Fe for the ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting the week after next will be a welcome break. And yeah, even that's school-related.

Here's photographic evidence of how hardworking I've been lately:

Here I am retrieving a leaf bag from one of my study sites. The smudge on my butt is a lovely mixture of mud and bovine excrement. And no, said butt is not as huge in real life as it is in waders.

An extremely concise comic book review, nerd-style

Y: The Last Man #50, #51, and #52



Writer: Brian K. Vaughan
Artist: Pia Guerra

I really, really liked this book... before the Bad Science hit. Bad, BAD science. What is it with crackpot, nonsensical evolutionary theories these days? Between this and NBC's Heroes, I might have to punch somebody in the neck. You know, for the sake of plausibility and reason.

Overall: D