Sea Urchin XX

I'm on the Peter Pan bus heading up to Boston after a long but very good and productive Developmental Biology of the Sea Urchin Meeting XX.  Its always nice to be in Woods Hole - see old friends, the ocean, my old home.  But this was better than usual.  The conference was wonderful.  It had a much broader representation of what you can do with a sea urchin than usual.  There was the usual hardcore developmental biology, but there was also more integration outside of the norm -- immunology, circadian rhythms, 3 sessions of evolution & development -- even the field's fearless leader incorporated and acknowledged the world outside of cis-regulation of development.  This was especially rewarding for me -- since my interests are how the environment and development interact.

This new tone, or may be just coincidence, meant that there were numerous opportunities for collaboration that arose during the meeting.  Of course, that means I've got a long To Do list for when I get home.

Half of the new, larger personnel sphere being made.  (c) WHOI

The trip was also fruitful outside of the meeting.  It started with a fortuitous meeting with the head of the submersible Alvin retrofit and my old friend, who, as always, told great stories over dinner and a few beers. Then I got a tour of the Alvin mock up - full sized and with 2 more windows than before.  It should be nice!  I just hope I can get out to sea to take the real one for a test spin sooner than later!  A couple lunches at the Fishmonger and trips the Captain Kidd allowed me to catch up with great friends and also develop new project ideas.  I may have said something stupid and landed myself on a cruise in the near future as well.

All and all, a great trip.  I miss the Hole already... though admittedly, I don't miss the wooden chairs in Lillie Auditorium.

Science!!

After a whirlwind of phone calls with reporters, traveling, and anticipation, the Science paper came out today!  Check it out.  (If you don't have access to Science, you can get the article from the pdf link found here.) There was also some pretty good press associated with the article.  There are too many to include here, but they can be found by clicking the tab "In the news" above.

Thank you to all of you for your emails and facebook messages of congrats!  I must say that its strange spending days working with the press and Science Magazine to promote your work.  I know a lot more people, oceanographers, scientists and non-scientists, will learn about this work.  I hope they and you like it.... or if you don't, I hope it makes you think of another experiment to test the work and push the field forward.