Polish Man in New World

T o be successful is to be able to retain enthusiasm between the failures (Churchill probably said so).  Philosophy that explains how important failures are in one's ability to grow may apply to humans as  well as to any organisms on Earth. Last week I had a chance to help one of the graduate students Dr-to-be Stephen Formel in the field element of his PhD project. While collecting mud for his glasshouse experiment we also ventured into one of the island ecosystems of Bay Jimmy - oil contaminated part of the Gulf of Mexico .  To our surprise oil-contaminated soil did not stop mangroves from establishing but what managed to kill them was the very short period of freeze that happened last winter in Louisiana . Apparently, the xylem vessel that transport water into mangroves canopy are of weak design ( broad vessels with thin walls ), just like pipes in the whole of New Orleans - they burst open while temperature fall below 0C (32F). The mangroves do not give up t...

" What the fuck is going on? " - it is a citation from super charismatic Dr Jack Gilbert - microbial ecologist who decided to ID all microbes present on Earth in an ambitious called Earth Microbiome Project . There are more microbes on Earth than stars in the entire cosmos. To be precise, estimated number of cellular microbes in the biosphere of the Earth is around 10 to 30th power (10 + 30 zeros) the number of stars is estimated to be 10 to 22nd power ( Purdom and Francis 2009 ). And we, Louisiana Phraggers Team , are a part of the research project that aims to contribute to Earth Microbiome Project by hunting microbes related to invasive success of local grass Phragmites australis .  Phragmites is mostly the dweller of wetlands ecotones zones  - zones of high disturbance level that mark border between high wave/hurricane/human activity and more intact wetland ecosystems. And of course we do have our hypotheses we want to test: H1: Increases in soil salinity w...

I nearly threw up and passed out at the only museum in entire of USA that is solely devoted to slavery. Museum is located at Whitney Plantation, Louisiana and we visited it last weekend. We have yet again learnt that freedom is a costly thing. At the same time, once the birth of that very freedom is concluded, we choose to forget the blood, tears and suffer that accompanied it. Presently, the image of slavery is still being romanticized and smoothened on its sharp edges, isn't it? These heads on pikes are hidden away now in a corner of the plantation due to its brutality. Apparently, they caused too much anger on social media. These heads on spikes are not an example of author's imagination though as you may think reading in U.S.News of " Ceramic sculptures at the Whitney Plantation ." These are the copies of heads that once belonged to slaves who were trying to free themselves from sugar cane plantations. These heads on pikes are true representation of heads th...