Although we are not completely unpacked, I thought I would share a few pictures from out new place!
Gorgeous kitchen!
View from our balcony looking to the left. Intracoastal waterway in the distance.
View to the right…. and the reason we moved here!!!
Check out the American Elasmobranch Society Cafe Press store for sharky gifts!! Fun stuff!!
Right now I am in cold cold cold cold cooooooooooooold Denver, Colorado! Its is 7 degrees F now and will get down to -3 tomorrow night! My Florida blood is not used to such weather! Anyhow, I am here to work on my research with a fish nose expert at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus. Last time I was out here in CO, I dropped off some stingray brains with her. In the mean time she has labeled a few of the them with a fluorescent dye that over time traces neuron pathways in the brain. This allows us to see how things are connected, especially in the smelling centers of the brain.
The first hurdle was to see if these dyes would even work in stingray brains since no one has ever tried it before. And……. Success! The images below show some glowing red cells from the nose that transmit smell info to the olfactory bulb of the brain. The second image shows green glowing neurons that form clusters in the olfactory bulb of the brain. What does it mean? Well, I don’t know yet, but I have all week to find out! Hope everyone stays warm and has an interesting week. 
Here is one of the many articles to come out about my labmate, Mikki’s, new paper! Very exciting!!
Why the hammerhead shark got its hammer – life – 27 November 2009 – New Scientist.
Its official! We get our Keys Friday morning to our amazing new apt on the beach! Woohoo!
The little dragon is getting bigger! Here are some recent pictures of Diji sunbathing the other day. Look at his fat little belly!
This is him 1 year ago. Tiny!
Now, tubby! And blue footed from the blue sand he had for a while in his tank.
Very dinosaur-ey
He got a little warm sitting in the sun all day. I think this is a cooling behavior. Either way, its pretty hilarious.
Ahhhh! You can see his cute little teeth here.
Hope everyone’s having a good week!!
You may or may not have noticed the new box on the right side of my page that tells you where visitors to my blog are logging in from. Since I placed this feature on my blog last week, I have been addicted to watching where people are coming from. I thought that mainly my family and friends were checking my blog (and I do notice when Youngstown, OH; Sa Diego, CA; or Virginia Beach, VA pop up) but as you can see, this blog is getting visitors from all over the world! Very interesting. Some of that traffic may be people trying to post spam-type comments (which I block) but some might actually for real….
If you are one of these random visitors, feel free to say hi!!
This is where we are thinking of moving.
What do you think?
Not a bad balcony view….
Halloween 2009 and another Wes Anderson inspired costume! I was a Team Zissou unpaid intern….not far off from my real job.
My costume was inspired by the real Team Zissou in the wonderful movie “The Life Aquatic”, which is sort of based on Jacque Cousteau’s expeditions (see below)
And here’s my take……..
Wooo!
Dave was “the most intersting man in the world” a la Dos Equis commercials (below)
Some other Halloween photos…….
These 2 girls both teach Anatomy and Physiology lab (same as me) and apparently not only our coordinator, but also their own student confuse them all the time! They decided to go as each other for Halloween. Pretty funny!
Dave, Mauricio, and Chris (who look like munchkins here)
Chris and I
Pedro, Lynda (super flexible yoga lady), and me
Hope you all had a fun Halloween! Time to start thinking of a costume for next year!!! Ok, maybe its a little early….
Day 7: Last day of the trip. 
Morg, Josh and I did a hike in a bamboo forest. Climbing over boulders, swinging under bamboo branches, scaling waterfall faces, and cliff jumping included!! So fun and what an exciting way to end the trip!!
Bamboo up the yin yang!
Relaxing for a sec by one of the waterfalls
Morgan climbing up the side of the waterfall. I am apparently supervising.
Boulderey
Quite a scenic hike
Morg and I climbing up to the last waterfall
That’s as far up as we could get….. probably about 15-20ft up. Looks much scarier once you’re up there looking down!
I think my scream was heard all over the island!
Geronimo!!
And here are a few fun photos that Morgan and Josh took while I was in Maui…..
Reminds me of Patrick from Sponge Bob
Floating around at fish rain
Octopus transfer at Turtle Town
So cool!
Hanging out at 110 ft.
Best buddies at Turtle Town
