From around the world

The arrival in Japan was very smooth. Chie Murakado from Kyoto University arranged transport from the Osaka airport to Kyoto where she and a fellow worker/friend met me at the Seifu Kaikan. This dormitory "hotel"was a trip for the first evening of my stay in Japan. Measuring no more than 12 feet by 6 feet, the room was smaller though generally everything one would need. I will be spending quite a bit longer at the Seifu Kaikan beginning September 8th or 9th once we arrive back in Kyoto after our time in Yakushima.

After being met by Chie Murakado, I was escorted to a traditional Japanese restaurant where I was met by many of the students from Kyo

to University, two faculty, and Mohammed Balal Uddin where I was subsequently presented with an epic quantity of sushi, fried veget

ables, and my first Japanese beer (In Japan). The students are quite a bit of fun and "Love" their beer. I fully expected a greater presence of Saki, but not beer. This love of beer is not restricted however to the students, but appears to be a trait of many of the people here.

The following day we began our excursion to Yakushima fo

llowing a few hours waiting and exploring Kyoto University. To get to Yakushima required us to take a bus, a van, a ferry (Really a HUGE shipping vessel that also deals in people), a bus, a rocket ferry (speeds up to 80 km/hour), and a fleet of vans.

I return a sated man. Belly filled with the bounty of the forest amongst other things. To say that the the drought of last summer repressed the chanterelles last season and the beginning of this one would be an understatement. It's no secret that mushrooms and the mycelial body beneath the soil requires a heavy dose of the H20 and nature wasn't providing, until now. The forests have been ramping up production lately with a solid showing my the common Russulas, beautiful but deadly (mostly) Amanitas, Boletes, et al. The bounty comes in the form of Chanterelles in their many forms (Cantharellus cibarius, C. cinnabarinus, C. lateritius). To boot we've got the indigo mushroom (Lactarius indigo) which is beautiful and tasty.

Chanterelles are an excellent input for any meal. They are high in vitamin C 40 g/100g (only slightly less than an a small orange), high in potassium, and extremely rich in vitamin D. When cooking them, clean them good of dirt, leaves, etc. and split them in half to make sure that holes and tunnels haven't been created by the many insects in the forest. They are full of water and while you could probably pan fry them in their own aquatic goodness, I feel a healthy dose of butter can do no wrong.

The picking is good right now, here in Oxford, MS. Make your way to the national forest and keep your eyes open because these fellas are hard to miss.

Note: Before ingesting any mushroom, make sure you have consulted with a professional or have adequate experience yourself.

Two standard deviations from frustration

Hello folks,

I come crawling back with a sense of guilt that I haven't kept up with this, only begging this blog to take me back once again. I promise, I'll never falter again, never sway, steadfast in my resolve.

Though I've been working tirelessly(merely a phrase, not the truth), I've come against roadblocks that are slowing my progress towards getting my degree. Not for long, though, as I still intend to graduate this coming summer. I've been busy doing analyses on the demographic data from the forests in Cambria, looking at such things as lambda (population growth rates), stable stage structure(if the population continued on it's trajectory, what would the distribution of certain sized individuals be), reproductive contribution(I'm sure you've got that one), but now it's time to get outside this comfort zone, the known, and delve into the theoretical deep, probing the population with hypothetical survivorship changes to determine what it takes to really throw this populations growth up or down. Anyhow, working on my statistics for the ectomycorrhizal shifts in community and its dependence on environmental factors. Getting rather comfortable in R, which is an open-source statistical/programming package with loads of bells and whistles. It's a rather steep learning curve, but it's coming along and fortunately, the community behind its development and use are fervent supporters of the R newcomer.

Great sites that I've come across include: Stackoverflow (a generally helpful programming website with increasing traffic and pages from the R community)

Quick-R - (Super helpful R site)

Cerebral Mastication - Links to other R sites along with helpful info

For developing your programming chops and picking up some basic mathematical background, I've found Project Euler to be incredible. Solve number problems by figuring out the basic mathematical concepts that these questions are based around and then programming your package(R in my case, most others use Python, Ruby, C++, etc.) to determine the correct answer. It's suduko for the new age. It's all the rage and I'm surprised you hadn't heard!