1 down, 1 to go

“Coral communities of the Arabian Sea: diversity and structure in relation to macroalgae.
Dissertation submitted to obtain the degree of Master of Sciences in Biology, option zoology”

Nope, not another personal attempt to obtain a second degree, but fully credited to J.E., the Master student I was supervising. He handed in today, 6 hours before the deadline. Better than I did Anyway, he did a terrific job if you ask me. He did his field work together with me in September. Not only did he prepare this field work in a very successful way: starting off as a complete layman who couldn’t rely on any expertise at our university, he ended up with coral identifications in the field which were confirmed by experts for 95%, the other 5% being dubious species which are generally under discussion. He also spent 3 weeks helping me out with my (purely phycological) field work with great enthusiasm, even when I got him involved in a horrible car crash (for which I still feel guilty, despite the fact that there were no physical or financial consequences for him). I was also very lucky about the fact that he turned out to be very capable of working on his own, especially since I immediately got two students to supervise for the first time. I’m still a bit nervous though, as most of the critiques from the jury will be directly addressed to me, as I’m the only one who has corrected the proofs…
So, still one to go: A.S. is working on a “Master after Master” in Marine Biology dissertation on satellite-based mapping of macroalgal communities, completely in the framework of my PhD research… Deadline for that one is next Wednesday.

Besides the stress of finishing these works in time, another problem arose: my personal computer crashed completely during the last days. As satellite image processing requires a lot of “computational power”, A.S. is now working on my desktop at the lab, while I brought my own laptop to continue my work and correct J.’s dissertation. Clearly my laptop couldn’t cope with this anymore. As I already formatted my laptop in February to eliminate the bugs before I left for Oman, the idea of having to format my computer again and again wasn’t very appealing to me. So I had to advance my plans of purchasing a new one anyway. Since I live close to the university now, I regularly head down there in the week-end or after dinner in the evening, but as I’m moving further away in August, I need a computer at home capable of doing my job. I bought an HP pavilion dv8228ea, in all aspects “ready for the future”, at least for 6 years (fingers crossed), except for the rather small hard disk (80GB), which I can compensate by dumping archived files on the huge lab servers

Seafaring techniques

After Dranouter aan Zee, Oostende voor Anker was the second disappointing spring week-end festival of the year. Both were overly crowded happenings under a sunny 30°C last year, while this year both were moderately visited under a 15°C cool breeze with a hesitating sun. As they put it on the weather forecast: still too cold according to historical averages. Global warming? Either it has already struck by stopping the warm Gulf current to this region, or I could live with a few degrees extra, really…
Anyway, apart from the good old Swan Fan Makkum (I’m craving once to sail on that one), my attention was drawn to a book shelter where I found a book called Spinnaker sailing, a title I’d been looking for for a few weeks now, since we also ordered a spinnaker on our yacht in Croatia for this summer. I’ve intensively used a spinnaker sail during a racing course a few years ago, but that was on Dragon, with a remarkably advanced system of launching and recovering the spinnaker. Setting a spinnaker on an ordinary yacht is nothing like it, so I could do with a bit of extra literature. I noticed the book was somewhat damaged by the rain, and I immediately asked if I could buy it at half the price.
“That’s alright”, the Dutch guy behind the desk replied, “so 15,95 divided by two, that makes…” “7,5″, I suggested. “Right… er… Let’s see… Well, okay, why not, go ahead”… I was actually surprised my Omani bidding skills yield some results here, especially with a Dutch guy.
The book features some cool pictures of capsized yachts. It’s definitely impossible to capsize a yacht using standard sails. There is actually only one way to keel over: get a spinnaker and abuse it. That’s why I bought the book, you see. To see how I’m not supposed to handle the spinnaker in Croatia, naturally. Also, the book describes the emotions a crew can encounter when you’re sailing a spinnaker, as in “the crew looks desperate and confused at the spinnaker which has been hoisted in a knot”, and “untying the knot can be extremely stressful, especially with an inpatient skipper”. Hehe, I like this stuff

The truth is out there

Just finished the governmental General Navigation Permit exam. Should be okay really, but I won’t know for sure for another 3-4 weeks. By then, our yacht will be completely paid and there will be no turning back… Scary
The moment the questions were handed out, everyone started looking at one another… All multiple choice answers to the first question, regarding the depicted sign, mentioned port instead of starboard (while clearly, the latter was needed to answer the question correctly). Kinda frightening since all unanswered questions meant 3 points off, not to mention additional points lost for every wrong answer. I decided to leave the field blank since I assumed the supervisors couldn’t do anything about it at this stage anyway (although I somehow assumed they at least knew about the error, but forgot to mention it or whatever). Anyway, I didn’t care too much as I was doing fine on the other questions. Finally, after some had already left, someone thought it wise to confront the supervisors with the issue. It turned out they had no idea, since they were all ordinary public functionaries, not specifically trained in the matter. The only thing they could do about it was to mention the remarks in their report to the government and let the government decide how to cope with it… Although the whole auditory was roaring with laughter, I must say the chief supervisor put on her most ferocious expression of the day (she didn’t look too friendly on average anyway) upon hearing the joke of someone suggesting to take this blunder to the Council of State I think she was getting desperate because of the chaos and chattering that was provoked by the initial remark on the issue…

Panpan

Panpan panpan panpan
charlie quebec charlie quebec charlie quebec
delta echo
klaas klaas klaas
at home
reporting VHF exam finished
obtained unaone novenine on bissotwo nadazero
requesting immediate applause
over

Blue

What I didn’t do yesterday: revising my student’s dissertation chapters that need to be handed in within 15 days (but I’m making up to that now), and studying for my VHF exam on Wednesday. The latter activity will have to be postponed for yet another day, since tonight is Ice Age-night! (Which clearly has priority over studying, since seeing this movie is indispensable for climate researchers, ahem…) Besides, the VHF course is boring beyond belief. It tells you to talk more or less like this:

panpan panpan panpan
charlie quebec charlie quebec charlie quebec
this is

me me me
requesting to shove your whole s***load of VHF bands to be memorized right up your a***
panpan

Seriously…

By the way, I suddenly noticed this is… oops, sorry, let me rephrase it:

panpan panpan panpan

charlie quebec charlie quebec charlie quebec

this is
me me me

reporting post nr. 100 on my blog… Time flies when you’re having fun!

panpan

Although I did learn that broadcasting this kind of information on channel 16 would cost me my license, my equipment, a fine between 1000 and 10000 euro and imprisonment between 8 days and 1 year. Oh, and the same again for publishing a VHF announcement here, since all licensed users need to take an oath to protect secrecy of VHF traffic… *weary sigh*

Crash

Did I say watching Crash made me silent? Then what am I supposed to say when watching the movie turned out to be a mere preparation to Belgian reality? I am truly disgusted, and deeply ashamed having to tell foreign people I live in a country where most of the people are rich, wealthy and happy enough to accept a racist party pleading intolerance gets one third of the votes and to let the society evolve to a cold-blooded state where innocent people can get shot, stabbed or beaten to (near) death for no obvious reason, beside being colored or wearing a worthless gadget, or a combination of these. In the past five years, the number of homicides has increased by one third and crimes against general moral values has doubled over the same period of time.

I am getting sick and tired of it, and every additional similar act (three times a week these days) drives me closer to move permanently to a genuine warm-hearted society like Oman, where ten times less similar crimes are noted, a significant part of these occurring in the western expat community anyway. Cheers, good old senile western example of freedom and wealth! Well done!

It’s… beyond believe!

Hot topic in the science section of the news(papers) today:

Singh, R.P. et al. 2006. Anomalous increase of chlorophyll concentrations associated with earthquakes. Advances in Space Research 37 (4), 671-680 (available for a limited time only)

Recent studies have shown land, ocean, atmosphere and ionospheric anomalies prior to earthquakes. The optical and microwave sensors onboard satellites are now capable of monitoring land, ocean, atmosphere and ionosphere which provide changes associated with natural hazards. In this paper, we have analyzed remote sensing data of the ocean coasts lying near the epicenters of recent four major earthquakes (Gujarat of January 26, 2001, Andaman of September 13, 2002, Algeria of May 21, 2002 and Bam, Iran earthquake of December 26, 2003), our detailed analysis shows increase of Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration associated with these recent earthquakes. The increase of Chl-a concentration is due to the change in sea surface temperature (SST) associated with the changes in stress regime in the epicentral region which is responsible for modifying the in situ thermal structure of the water and enhancing the upwelling of nutrient-rich water. The increase of Chl-a concentration also shows one to one relation with the increase of surface latent heat flux (SLHF) which is found to increase significantly prior to the earthquake events. Due to cloudcover, it has not been possible to quantify the effect of the chlorophyll concentrations associated with the earthquake events for each successive day during an event. However, the limited data from the adjacent oceanic regions provide strong evidence of the increase in Chl-a concentration. The monitoring of chlorophyll concentrations with higher spatial and temporal resolutions may provide early information about impending coastal earthquakes.

Additionally, in the same thematic issue of Advances in Space Research: since chlorophyll and SST maps derived from satellite imagery are freely available on the internet, a fully automatic html based real-time earthquake monitoring and warning program is being developed with promising preliminary results. Satellites aren’t always designed to track “hidden weapons of mass destruction in the axis of evil”, you know…

Open minded

Everyone accusing the Islam of being a rusty medieval religion should read something about the Baha’i: the youngest world religion originated from Sji’ism, proving that there is perhaps more evolution going on in Islam than in Christianity. I read about it in a magazine for veggy (friendly) people (because of the Baha’i recommendation to eat vegetarian), and it immediately hit me that this religion is far above Christianity agreeing with most of our modern western values (sadly except, as always, (homo)sexuality and relationships, although they are pleading tolerance and understanding towards everyone).
What I appreciate in this religion: it regards all known gods (Allah, Jahweh, God,…) as the same and only one, sending out different prophets with slightly different messages following particular needs and conditions in different parts of the world (personally I don’t believe there is a god, but if there has to be one, surely this is the only way to look at him/her/it). Bahaists believe in a united future without religious violence. They are very down-to-earth and open minded, pleading equality among all people and fitting religion within science.

What I don’t appreciate in this religion: the (Islamic) prohibition on alcohol. How could one celebrate the first summer evening properly without the option to heavily abuse G&T’s on the Graslei??

Also, I’m thinking about joining a nature photography group, called Lek, from the Swedish word “lek” meaning “game” or “mating”, although the group tells me that, naturally, their name is based on the second meaning. Sounds promising, and I guess a picture of a spawning Nudibranch in Wimereux (northern France) will do to buy my way in.

Spielerei

Sometimes, life can be surprisingly simple. What I’m about to tell here might bore most of you (be warned, stop reading if you feel like it), but it doesn’t happen a lot I’m sufficiently creative to be more or less proud of (ahem :-p), so here comes: I designed and tested this formula to calculate the degree of exposure of bays to wave action (and other oceanographic influences), from problem to solution within half a day. Guess what: it seems to work! And what’s more: for once my supervisor was enthousiastic about it :-p It matches our temperature and biological field observations. Merely four internationally published references tackle the problem of conceptualizing the degree of exposure when data from unaffordably expensive loggers are absent, and only one of these attempt to do it without presuming the availability of fine-scale meteorological data. In all modesty, my method is by far the most comprehensive and straightforward, useful for both high and low resolution studies, without requiring extensive meteorological data sets (only a rough estimation of a will do). It yields a reproducible and readily interpretable index between 0 and 1 that can be compared between different sites. It allows for objective class definitions and can be used to test whether biological features in particular bays are mainly influenced by exposure or whether other factors (e.g. substrate type, human influences, …) are involved. Until I publish it somewhere next year, I invite everyone in search for this kind of indices to test it and let me know if it works with their data. And if it doesn’t… at least it looks cool!