What's In John's Freezer?

‘Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.’

(Shakespeare’s The Tempest Act 1, Scene 2)

Stomach-Churning Rating: 1/10- this time, tame images.

Five years have passed on this blog now, and this year with them passed Freezersaurus (soon to leave RVC’s campus; sob!). Indeed, the blog has changed, via the tempests I’ve weathered in my own life, which I lamented in last year’s summary. Regardless, the blog has been visited this year more than in any prior year, with >101,000 visits– thanks!

This year I’ll keep my annual retrospective shorter than usual, as I’m feeling healthier and more energetic but less self-indulgent.

I still got to have fun, like this ComicCon in NOLA. So, some self-indulgence.

I began the past year by blogging about why I blog, and how I feel that in a way I (and others) have long been blogging even if it wasn’t called that, and how I don’t see science communication such as blogging or tweeting as something distinct from science itself. Reading back on that post, I find some themes there that emerge again and again throughout this year’s posts, such as valuing diversity (in its diverse forms) and curiosity.

Like this you do? So much more here there is!

Never tired of elephant feet will I be!

Those introspective posts included one that is very close to my heart, about how I notice my own decline (some of it since reversed, but some still lingering) and feel grief. It wasn’t long after that post that I wrote more about my experience as an epileptic; what it’s like to have a seizure. Another, more science-focused (but still very human) one laid out my views on what my team’s principles are. Then I returned a few posts later with some reflection on how time passes (too quickly!) and with it come publications (I reviewed some of my team’s latest), among other changes as a person living as an academic. I wrote then that “I suspect I’ll look back on 2016 and see it as transformative, but it hasn’t been an easy year either, to say the least.” Yep. Spot on. I’ve started a big new grant which has been a huge challenge, and I’ve rediscovered my health and some of my old self with it, rekindling some passion and hope. Later, on USA’s Thanksgiving, I typed in some musings about my appreciation for diversity in the human world. Again, with thoughts of disturbing recent political/social trends weighing heavily on me, I celebrated how the Women’s March inspired me, and how that relates to the importance of curiosity and empathy.

He ain’t goin’ nowhere.

But there was plenty of time here to talk about freezers and anatomy and research, too! We published a paper that I think I’ll long regard as one of our better ones, on using dynamic computer simulations to study how ostriches control their walking and running gaits with their muscles. Throughout 2016, we worked hard to get our anatomical research out there to the public in person. So I posted about our presentations at the Cheltenham Science Festival (including a public cheetah dissection, which was a huge hit!), and “Team Cat” did a dissection of another cheetah (all zoo mortalities) at the RVC for a well-attended joint event with UCL/Grant Museum on “Wild Cats Uncovered: movement evolves“. UCL’s PhD student (soon Dr.) Marcela Randau wrote a great guest post about our paper on how size and ecology relate to the shapes of backbones in cats, which tied in nicely with those big cat dissection presentations. I also ruminated about how scientists balance testing big questions vs. getting very accurate data, using the big question (in my and others’ research) about how much more slowly big animals can move relative to smaller ones as an example. As a final anatomical post this blog-year, I wrote about the biceps muscle, and people seemed to like that, so I will do more of those.

Whale humeral epiphysis (joint) turned into a sculpture with walrus ivory teeth, at Point Vicente Museum, LA.

In addition to being open about my (and my team’s) thoughts, experiences, dissections and publications, we put a lot of effort this year into making our scientific and anatomical data public. My blog posts about our huuuuuge open datasets on crocodile and tuatara 3D scans exemplify a deluge of data that is going to keep coming out. We’re going to push very hard on this, including an effort to release old data from prior publications of mine. I’m thrilled that we can finally deliver on these things; it is a great feeling!

Yale Peabody Museum specimen YPM57100: right ilium (hip bone) and vertebrae of the Triassic archosaur Poposaurus. More about this later!

We enter year 6 of this blog with a new (temporary, maybe) freezer, which we failed to reach a conclusion on naming. I’m sure you’re on tenterhooks awaiting the final decision. I have a bunch of ideas for some blog posts to come soon (really fun anatomical papers en route), and I always welcome guest posts so let me know if you want to do one! In the meantime, I sprinkled some images from my 2016-7 travels here in this post. With good health comes more ability to go do fun things that I’ve put off while recovering, so hopefully 2017-8 will provide some new images to share.

A sunny Sceloporus fence lizard seen in LA. Meanwhile, the UK awaits some sunshine…

I doth not protest too much, methinks– there have been some good times this past year, and ides of March be damned, I look forward to sharing more science here for year 6!