Nerds!

I've had an exciting week. And I'm excited about science. The downside is that I'm working too hard, waking up too early, and generally freaking out. For two nights in a row my dreams have been 80% about root and soil research and 20% about being lost, meeting old friends, being in imaginary cities, having whimsical superpowers, and all that normal dream stuff. It is really sad. I didn't even know I could HAVE a science dream until I dreamt that root proliferation also depends on oxygen concentration and pore space, which is, I thought upon waking, probably true.
In other news, here is a picture of some equipment.

I was at Harvard Forest on Tuesday (yeah, they have a forest too) and got to hang out around these soil respiration chambers that a postdoc installed. They are automated, which means that when they close, it is with a very satisfying PSSSHHHHHHTTTTTT sound of a piston being turned on by an electrical setup housed in a giant tupperware. The absolute #1 BEST thing about outdoor research is that everything interesting is kept in a giant tupperware. So when you are walking around a forest and it looks like IKEA is having a kitchen sale scavenger hunt, you know science is happening.
Also, today is the first day that I was mistaken for a Dr. by a piece of mail.

....it was just a newsletter, but still!
In closing, here are some glam shots of plants: