Bio Boot Camp Days 8 & 9

Waiting for lecture

I know that I normally wait a couple of days between blogs, but we just had our lecture canceled for some unknown reason, and I find myself with an hour to chat with all of you. Luckily, we're still on the weekend. So there'll be more fun and less science. Not that science isn't fun to me, but science isn't always fun for everybody to hear about all the time.

The Botanic Garden of Smith College

When Mike dropped me off, one of the first things he said was, "Did you know that there is a botanical gardens you can visit?" Unfortunately, their hours are a bit short 9am to 4pm every day. That probably works for most people but when you are in class 8am to 9+pm it doesn't leave time to explore except on the weekends. They have an amazing outside garden with a ton of north east native plants. I took notes on some of the plants that I am hoping to get for our home meadow. The trees on the Smith campus are extraordinary. This is mostly due to the fact that the botanical plans started in the 1880's.

This Ginkgo Balova tree on Smith College's campus, located on the south lawn, is around 190 years old, and is the largest ginkgo tree in North America. It was planted around 1896, along with a Japanese umbrella pine, also stunning, as part of the original landscape plan designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. For perspective you can see the greenhouse in the background, and the native outdoor beds. One of the reasons I took a photograph of this tree is because they are endangered today in their native range in the highlands of China. I know this seems absurd, because they are in every other town in America, but in China logging and other industries have severely limited their numbers. Lucky for everyone on the Smith campus, this is a male a tree, so it does not get the stinky berries that everyone associates with this species.

I wanted to show you some of my favorite species that really caught my eye as I walked around the botanical gardens. From the cactus room, I couldn't stop, staring at this beautiful Mexican barrel cactus Kroenleinia grusonii. It reminds me of some that Mike and I saw when we were visiting his aunt in Arizona. She also took us to the loveliest botanical gardens. The middle ones are right, a native thing iris, to the northeast of America, Simlax herbacia. The last one is the Voodoo lilly, Amorphophallus bulbifer that is native to India Myanmar and Burma. It is classified as a perennial herb and features a large, mottled green and white petiole supporting a single, palm-like leaf. But we got to see it in its glory with the single pinkish flower that only grows after several years of vegetative growth. Trust me, I want to add one of these to my collection, but I know how difficult they are to grow.

I'll limit myself to just four more pieces of art. I had to put in Yves Tanguy, 1900 to 1955. Thete is something about his work that just speaks to me. If I look around a modern, a room in any museum, I can pick his work at a thousand yards. It's like I can hear it humming in the corner, saying, "Come stare at me.". If I could own one crazy piece of artwork, it would be one of his. The middle one was done by an unknown author and is the backside of a private chapel tripty. It is meant to be the angel Gabrieland I just thought it was one of the oddest depictions I had ever seen. It's not a biblically accurate description, nor one that comes from popular literature, like Dante's Inferno. He just looks a little bit creepy, and much closer to one of the ghosts in A Christmas Carol. I just knew I'd regret it if I didn't take a photograph for posterity. The last one is a stunning Mayan carving. Not a lot of information about it, but it may be a ceremonial axe, of course the handle is long gone.

I said, four, so here's the last one. This is hands down my favorite piece in the entire museum. Maybe it won't look like much at first.But wait until you see the inside.

Markaba (Ship), 2016

Meet Moroccan contemporary artist Younes Rahmoun يونس رحمون . Born in 1975 in Tetouan, a city in the north of Morocco Younes’s work has been exhibited in more than 25 different countries and nearly 170 different places. I feel incredibly lucky that Smith College purchased this piece so that I could then enjoy it. I don't want to tell you what I see in it, because I'd like you to make your own decision. Just make sure you take a look at the the inside first and if you're really interested i've added QR code that will let you look at a three hundred and sixty degree view.

Inside view, close up.

Looking inside a larger view.

Unfortunately, you're not allowed to put your head up inside anymore. You can imagine that some dummy almost knocked it over. Here is the QR code I promised.

The entire group was having a case of the Mondays today. By the time we got to our last lab, everyone was ready to just wrap it up!!!

Here are some of my lab buddies standing by the PCR machine waiting for it to finish. Our lab instructor said that on the first monday, we were freshmen, by that wednesday we were sophomores, and as of today, we've graduated to juniors. Unfortunately, our attitude is taking the same turn and everyone is a little bit worried whether we're heading into our senior slide. Oh my gosh, I still have six days left, we can't do that. I promised myself on the walk home that I would get back in the game tomorrow. I think that's going to mean at least half a dozen cups of paris tea.

Everyone was so excited to go back to the dorms that we had our pipets ready to go as soon as the the tubes came out of the the centrifuge. I told you were HS juniors... you can see it in our eyes. Well, sleep well, everyone and wait for the next installation 😀