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Showing posts with the label Tulane University

Glorious / Disgraceful Tuesday 19 June 2018

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I simply have to diarize that Thrilling Tuesday (19 June 2018). That Tuesday didn't start anything special. Following one month or so of Christina's unflattering comments on my hairstyle I arranged a meeting with a hairdresser. Here we come - the roller coaster starts accelerating. The hairdresser turned out to be a rock/jazz band singer and I could not stop asking for more details. Is there anywhere a place on Earth, except for New Orleans, where singers recruit their fans by trimming their hair :) ? Anyway, here is one of the videos of  that rock & roll hairdresser Barbarella Blue (like all well-established Kardashian-like stars in USA Barbarella Blue has Instagram too):  A chatter with Barbarella made me come late to viewing World Cup game at the Botany Lab, Tulane University. Fan W. set up the projector and the live channel before I came. Few colleagues joined us in supporting Poland against Senegal. What a disgraceful game it was for Poland! One deflection off P...

Winners, losers and who cares?

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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...