Yet another peaceful feast day

February 10th marked yet another peaceful St. Scholastica Day at the University of Wyoming. Unlike the days-long riot between armed bands of scholars and townsfolk that broke out on this day many years ago in another university town, the tenth of February - like other days - was characterized more by continued tranquility between the town and the university. In fact, there's quite a bit of support and pride in the University and its teams around town; in turn, scholars here generally refrain from throwing alcoholic beverage containers at tavern-keepers while using abusive language and sparking riots. All of which is to say that town-gown relationships here are pretty nice.

Downtown

I've lived in college towns with less than thriving downtowns, so it's nice to see folks in Laramie who care about keeping the downtown area thriving. In the warmer months, there's a farmer's market on Friday afternoons. Recently, downtown has seen a new bar open (which houses one of the oldest bars in the state), a new sushi restaurant open, and a new Italian restaurant is coming soon.

In addition to the mountain west location and amount of outdoors, Laramie's downtown is one of the best parts of the area. The Main Street Program is a good source for information about the downtown area and the shops found there.

Feedback

As I work on refining some ideas for my dissertation, I'm looking forward to getting some feedback from professors and fellow grad students. This Monday, I'll be giving a talk going on some of my research ideas in the Zoology and Physiology Department's informal weekly seminar.

I've enjoyed conversations with grad students in my home department and PiE at seminars and receptions, but I'm really looking forward to having a captive audience of scientists to help sharpen some of my ideas. The Monday "brown bag" series is a nice way for students, faculty, and guests to share ideas and get feedback from folks who have expertise outside your study area.

Up and running

The semester is beginning with a flurry of speakers and seminars. I enjoyed listening to Dov Sax speak about patterns of plant invasions on oceanic islands. Since part of my research involves thinking about freshwater fish invasions, this was an interesting perspective - the patterns are quite different between fish and plants.

Alexandra Rose gave a seminar on latitudinal gradients in clutch size. Again, I found myself thinking about the potential role of latitudinal gradients in my research and the comparisons among taxa.

This week, Peter Groffman is giving a seminar that I believe focuses on smaller organisms and ecosystem processes. One of the reasons I came to Wyoming was the diversity here - plants, birds, worms - which helps keep me from focusing too narrowly within my own work. The seminars are also a nice way to meet some of the dozens of PiE students who aren't in my department.

End of semester

I walk by one of the older buildings on campus most mornings, shown above. With the semester over and campus less busy, I've enjoyed the calmness and the extra time to read papers and work on ideas. (For reference, I'm not in my lab on Christmas Eve, just posting from home.)

Last night, I had dinner at Passage to India, which I think still qualifies as something new and therefore exciting in Laramie. In the past couple years, I've lived in larger college towns (Fort Collins and Corvallis), but Passage to India might be the best Indian restaurant in any of them. (Their naan is certainly the best.) Even if it isn't that new, it still qualifies as exciting.

So after living in Laramie for a semester, my expectations of the town have been exceeded. It's prettier than I thought, and the dining options are quite decent. I'm looking forward to checking out the skiing in the coming year.

Nice, if not magical

I enjoyed reading a recent op-ed about colleges touting themselves as being similar to Hogwarts, the wizard school in Harry Potter. While none of the grad schools I visited thought to do that, and I don't suggest any grad school should, I enjoyed spending a bit of down time during finals week considering how Hogwartsian Wyoming could claim to be.

Faculty I haven't encountered any Snapes yet, nor do they wear robes or extravagant hats. Solidly muggle.

Grounds Actually, mildly Hogwartsian. Currently, the evergreens and stone buildings are white from a recent snow, making a nice comparison to all the winter scenes from any HP movie. A pair of owls hang out on campus as well. Slightly magical.

Feasting Between PiE and my home department, there's actually a fair amount of food accompanying talks and speakers. The department holiday party last weekend had plenty of tasty stuff, although that's because the faculty and grad students can apparently cook well. However, there's nothing inherently magical about that, and we tend to consume it in rooms that do not qualify as great halls. Solidly muggle.

Creatures A nice variety of species are represented, from plants to polar bears, although all are actually real. No Sasquatch research. Solidly muggle.

Housing No castles in Laramie. But my apartment seems to have insulating capabilities verging on alchemy - at times, it's 50 degrees above outside temperature without turning on the heat. A touch magical.

Superficially, then, there's not a great deal here to market as Hogwartsian. But as the high school student writing the op-ed agreed, that's not really why you choose a school.

Shifting baselines

Taking a cue from the other bloggers, I thought I'd mention the most interesting science I've been reading lately. Or rather, the science I've been reading about, since the media coverage seems to have preceded the article's publication (thanks to Newswise's science coverage).

Essentially, it appears our baselines for evaluating species - in this case, fish - can be severely off-target depending on where we set the baseline. Karin Limburg and John Waldman compared shad populations from the late 1800s, where baselines usually begin, and the early 1800s. The baseline levels derived from catches in the late 1800s represented a population that had crashed from previous levels. There's a nice graph of this in Newswise's coverage. (The article appears in the December issue of BioScience.)

In other words, many of our restoration goals could be based on already diminished populations. Fascinating, if depressing.