Thrilling Afternoon

A long, but VERY productive day at the ecological preserve. In a post last night I mentioned a unique discovery made by a fellow graduate student last weekend and the hope that we would be able to replicate the finding today. Not only did we replicate the discovery, we replicated it FIVE times. We were almost euphoric from the excitment of scientific discovery and wrapped things up only reluctantly as the sun dipped below the western horizon. There are no paths where we were working and trying to find our way out of the inpenetrable thickets in the dark would have been difficult if not outright treacherous. We now have sufficient data for publication, though I want to accumulate a little more over the next few weeks before we being the writing process. The more comprehensive we can make the article, the greater the chances of publication in a worthwhile scientific journal.

It's a pity that the discovery came at the end of the research season. Several good reserach questions have arisen from the finding, but we'll have to wait until the next field season to conduct the experiments. But on the bright side, it is something to think about and prepare for during the offseason.