Fly with the Birds

While at Scripps, we also stopped by the NMR facility. They of course have an impressive array of Bruker NMR spectrometers, including a 900 Megahertz instrument. The manager is Dr. Croon, who I found out enjoys ornithology. One thing that I could share with Dr. Croon is an excellent birding site called High Island on the Bolivar peninsula along the Gulf of Mexico. I have gone with the kids often and in April is a peak time for the migration of birds through the woods. What makes "High Island" so special is that it is a beacon of trees on a mound high enough above sea level to have been protected from historical storms and so these bird use it for landfall and food as they come across or along the gulf. Also it has a intimate boardwalk next to a line of trees that hosts a rookery for spoonbills, herons, and egrets, with the ever present prowling alligator in the water below.





Here is a link to a nice summary of the
High Island, Texas .

NMR Transcends Human Languages
After the Protein Society meeting Dr. Legge and I went to visit his old stomping grounds, the Peter Wright Lab at Scripps. Chiaki Nishimura, a long time postdoc in the lab, has been doing some interesting dynamics as described in his recent paper. As Dr. Legge and Chiaki caught up, I noticed the abundance of NMR materials in Japanese (behind the Enchilosa soup!). The sciences are truly a model for how our common interests binds us as people, and how the sciences transcends our language. We are all the same, basically. Wanting to advance our understanding of what is around us in creation, wanting the best for our children, wanting the best for the people in the world. And yet we as Humanity, and me as an individual, so often screw up, leaving ripples on the glistening surface of reality. Disturbances the echo through space-time. Despite the problems in the world, I love that NMR engages people from every corner of this planet.