natursyn.dk

Last week I went on a backpacking trip along the Chandalar river in the Brooks Mountains. It was my first visit ever to the tundra. The changing weather, the beautiful mountains and the tundra filled with flowering plants made it a very special experience, especially from a photographers point of view with the spectacular scenery. We did get plenty of rain showers and the mosquitoes were also all over so I wore long sleeves most of the time.

See more pictures here: http://natursyn.dk/Alaska/Chandalar/

Science is not only about publishing high key papers to journals that are aimed to be read by fellow scientist. It is also about teaching kids and their parents about the wonders of the natural world. Dragonflies are among one of the critters that fascinates me the most so at a natural science fair I and a grad student, Todd, had a booth about damselflies and dragonflies. We had collected some dragonfly larvae, their empty exoskeletons (called exuvia) and a newly emerged adult dragonfly plus some other aquatic animals. I was surprised to learn how easy it was to make the kids interested in this subject and it was a very positive experience.

The fair was sponsored by TOTE, an acronym for “Totem Ocean Trailer Express”, but it also means “dead” in German. Moreover, the acronym is written on a what looks like a cross so I was very perplexed when I first saw this logo on a train wagon before I learned that it is a transportation company.