Release!

Yesterday I made one more trip to the Arava valley, this time to release lizards instead of catch them. I finished the last of the experiments last week, removed the dataloggers from the two with them, and that's it. Finished for this set of experiments. It was a nice, relatively cool day, and the lizards seemed happy to be home. It was interesting watching them. I put them next to their burrows, and they either dove right in, or sat around making threat displays. You can probably guess which the males did, and which the females did. The males were really interesting. In the lab, they were quite docile, but as soon as I let them go in the field, they started puffing themselves up, hissing, and displaying. The display was interesting - they flattened their body to make it as wide as possible, stood up off the ground, and tilted their body toward me. The effect was to show just how big they are. At least three of them did this. And they refused to go into their burrows until after I'd left. Quite interesting.

I have to say, even though I'm glad I'm finished, and certainly glad I don't have to feed lizards every day, I'll miss having them around. Those of you reading this who haven't spent time with lizards may think this strange, but they have very distinct personalities, and species like this which are quite calm, really grow on you. Makes me feel good to know that animals like that are out there in the desert. I like to think that they'll still be there for more generations to appreciate how interesting the are.

Woohoo

Woohoo! I finished my last sample today. Finally. All of the experiments done from this end. Now I just have to figure out what it all means. Of course, it would be easier to do that if I had datapoints instead of just samples. Well, that will be soon. Most of my samples are already in the mail to Wisconsin for analysis. Nothing will get back to me before I'm supposed to present it at the meeting in S. Africa, but that's okay. I'll just wing it on the poster. Tomorrow I have to get up at 5am to go to Tel Aviv to get more visa pages in my passport. For some reason, US passports are distinctly short of visa pages, but they also offer to add pages to them without charge. You just have to go to the nearest embassy, which is in Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, they are only open from 8:30-11:00 am. And the bus and train schedules don't align very well, so a trip that should take 1 1/2 hours by car, takes about 4 hours by bus, train and taxi. Oh well. At least all that time on the train should give me a chance to work on my talks and poster.

TV news

So, a few weeks ago, a strange thing happened here. The university installed satellite dishes onto our apartments, and now we have free satellite TV. We get the basic package, which includes the three Israeli stations, CNN, National Geographic, ESPN, Eurosport, a network of spanish-language telenovelas (soaps or dramas) and a few non-premium movie channels.. This has resulted in several interesting social dynamics. The first thing was a rush for TVs, since they didn't provide those. Next, was a whole lot of hermit-like behavior, as people explored what they could watch. This has also resulted in a decrease in attendance at the weekly movie showing. On the other hand, there is still the occasional major TV event. There are some interprising guys who have managed to get a digital projector (like the ones used for PowerPoint presentations), and a large screen. they tend to have showings of sports events, like the recent UEFA cup (European soccer) final, which, if you missed it, was a great game. Now, you might ask why the university would spring for satellite TV, and you wouldn't be the only one. No one here is entirely sure. Most think that it is to make up for the fact that the apartments are bloody cold in the winte. We all complained about that a lot, but mostly got a brush-off. Some particulary cynical students are convinced that after 6 months, we will have to pay for the service. We all thought it was a bit strange that we get satellite TV, but are prohibited from putting heaters in the place, etc. I've been enjoying the BBC, and the Sports channels. I got to see the Giro di Italia, and now they are showing a lot of the French Open tennis tournament. And of course, a steady stream of great films, like "Mars Attacks" and "Eight Legged Freaks". There are also some interesting, Israeli influences on the TV. For example, on the recent Holocaust Memorial Day holiday, most channels showed programs related to WWII, and for the Israeli Independence Day, nearly every station broadcast a picture of a rose, with a message in Hebrew. There was much grumbling among the non-Israeli students about that.

In the non-TV world, things are really humming around here. I'm frantically trying to get the lizard experiments finished before I go to South Africa. It looks like I'll make it, but just barely. I did manage to catch 2 of the 3 lizards with dataloggers implanted from the Fall, so we'll have some data from them. We were lucky that we were able to take observations on one of those for a whole day, so we may have enough for a small publication, though our sample size is certainly small. I'm pretty eager to see what their temperatures were. Those also have a bonus for us because I can record their temperatures in the lab, for the digestion experiments. Quite nice actually.