Winter break
Winter's always a nice time of year to be at uni. The weather outside actually makes you want to be inside, doing something productive, or drinking coffee and discussing ideas with people. Plus being able to park in student bays without a permit, go and get lunch at Broadway without huge crowds, talk to lecture-free supervisors about your project, and have free run of labs and libraries are all additional bonuses. Starting field work in a few weeks' time may be a little less enjoyable, but hopefully we can pick out the right days to tackle it.
Lab experiments at the moment are mainly focussed on simulating weathering, using pressure vessels to speed up attainment of chemical equilibrium, and Soxhlet extractors to simulate the effects of leaching at elevated temperatures which should also make things reach equilibrium a little more rapidly than in the field. A lot of work at the moment is also based around getting techniques right: optimising experimental setups, comparing analytical methods, figuring out how to get the most information out of the least number of samples and analyses. It can be pretty frustrating as it feels like you're not really getting anywhere - there's no numbers on a page or graphs to draw. But it is worth the time spent as it saves you repeating entire sets of analyses later on when you realise that, oh, great, X interferes with the measurement of Y, so all those analyses are invalid. Now that's frustrating.
I'm also working on editing an article (together with my supervisors) based on a third-year project looking at harnessing the activity of sulfate reducing bacteria for treating the acidity in acidic saline drainage waters from deep drains in the Wheatbelt. One reviewer's comments were positive, and the other's not so positive. But they did both agree that with revision, it would be suitable for publication, so I guess you've got to go with that and work on making it better. And at least we can be assured that it has been rigorously reviewed - it'll be a better article for it.
Friday drinks are attracting about 12-15 people now - numbers are going up week by week - and this Friday, the name of our 'pub' will be selected from the entries in the inventively-made entry box. This week will also see the commencement of the 'door prize', with one lucky winner receiving a free drink of their choice. The only thing cheaper than cheap beer is free beer! Journal Club will be on next Tuesday at 1, and this month's article (selected by Bree) is:
Carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems in China. Shilong Piao, Jingyun Fang, Philippe Ciais, Philippe Peylin, Yao Huang, Stephen Sitch & Tao Wang. Nature, 458:1009-1014 (2009).