Bowling competition between Animal Flight Lab and EXEB: "It's complicated, dude"

Posted by Erik Svensson

The bowling competition between our research colleagues at the Animal Flight Lab and EXEB that took place recently was a success, although I personally felt that Professor Anders Hedenström showed worrying signs of stereotypic behaviour (watch video above!). Perhaps he was to focussed on trying to win?

The outcome of the competition of the labs has not yet been analyzed - there are problems with the data which precludes the decision of the winner. Nevertheless, it was a very nice evening, and we all tried our best to achieve the skills of Jesus, Walter and "The Dude" - with varying success (see video below):

Afterwards, our two labs went to "Berliner Bar" for some well-deserved beers and classic German-style food. It was a great evening, and our labs have so much in common, and our scientific skills largely complement each other. EXEB:s focus on population biology, ecological and evolutionary genetics could certainly mix well with evolutionary biomechanics and flight morphology, given that both labs now are very focussed on insects. Hopefully we can repeat this succesful event, and perhaps go to some other nice place in the future? Time will tell.

Below are some more pictures from this nice event. Enjoy!

 

 

From Athens with love: greetings from "His Dudeness"

 

I have now spent about a week at Ohio University in Athens, and as you see on the pictures I have been working hard with Shawn. Apart from discussing geometric morphometrics, predator-mediated natural selection and dragonfly wings, I have had the opportunity to participate in several discussion groups, ranging from niche conservatism in salamanders to the strength of selection in natural populations. It has been fun and entertaining.

Athens is a lovely little liberal "latte-town" in Ohio, with about 30 000 inhabitants, of which about 70 % are students and academic staff at OU. There are an impressive high number of bars and coffee shops around, and one of the most popular is the Casa Nueva, which is on the uppermost picture. There we have had many margharithas and beers and listened to some good live music. 

By the way, OU scientists are impressive in their party mood and habits, we have been going out every evening, and I think I will need a loooong recovery when I am back in Sweden. I feel I have been very welcomed and well-treated during my visit, and the two research seminars I gave were very appreciated by students and faculty. I especially enjoyed discussing science with Molly Morris, who works on sexual selection in swordtails, and ecomorphologist Donald Miles, apart from Shawn, of course.

Close to Casa Nueva, on the corner in the picture above, there is an excellent T-shirt shop, where I bought the lovely T-shirt I am wearing, showing one of my favourite actors (Jeff Bridges, "The Dude") from one of may favourite movies The Big Lebowski. I use this T-shirt the first time before we go to a party (again!) tonight at Donald Miles' house. What could be a better combination than also trying out some of their excellent local beers from Ohio's microbreweries, and posing in front of the photographer (Shawn) at his motorcycle and Volkswagen bus?