Theft about dog food.

Dog food was the bait when we were catching fish. As we put the trap into the water, we were focusing on the pond. At this time, a thief was stealing our dog food - a squirrel. Because the dog food bag was behind us, we were facing the water and the food was free to go. The squirrel walk toward the bag in quiet and if we had any actions, it would turn backward pretending that he was watching something in the other direction. When it made sure that we were not watching him, he moved closer to the bag again. In one or two second, he got a piece of dog food from our bag and faced us with his back, telling us that he was concentrating something unrelated to us. After that, he enjoyed his accomplishment - a piece of food. After he finished one piece, he would turn to a second piece. If we walked a little further from the bag, he would even stay beside the bag and keep eating regarding that the food was his property. When he noticed that we were walking back, he would disappear immediately, but not very far - he waited for next chance to return and get more food. He was very cute.

Fish are smarter than what we thought.

In the Thanksgiving, I helped my girlfriend fishing - she is working on mating preference behaviors with mosquito fish. There are three continuous ponds on her campus, upstream-pond, middle-pond and downstream-pond. The upstream pond was occupied by a kind of large fish (I cannot remember the name) which feed on other small fish so that fish is the only species in upstream pond. In the middle pond, there are mosquito fish which are of large size and they are mature fish. Downstream is dominated by sailfin molly together with small mosquito fish. She wants only large mosquito fish which can only be caught in the middle pond. We used traps with large entrance but small exit to catch mosquito fish. For the first time, we put traps at the bottom of the middle pond and made some dog food as bait inside. 20 mins later, it was empty. As mosquito fish swim in the top layer of, we turned to trap them on the top layer of water. This time, over 30 fish got trapped and she was so satisfied. It was a pity that when we tried to replicate this success, the second trial gave us only several fish and the third trial gave us zero. It is hard to imagine that fish can learn so quickly because those fish which got trapped cannot communicate with other fish about the experience being trapped. Fish can actually learn by only watching and twice is many enough for them to adjust their behaviors, somehow faster than some humans.

Lab moving!

We moved our lab into RH on this Wednesday! We got three new incubators (I don't have to work with the one fluctuating!) and we got six fly stations with brand new bench top! Though the experiment bench area is still under construction, we can start working as long as we have some fly stations which are used to apply CO2 and sort flies. We are on the 4th floor of RH and the window view is really good! Norman in Fall is so colorful and I enjoy the view very much. When it rained last night, I was working in the lab. Hearing heavy rain outside and working in our brand new lab is ridiculously exciting!

Here, we have more people, biology people to communicate. We were called strangers when they saw us before in RH because we were working in Stephenson. But now, we move back and we can shout that we ARE Zoologists! Stop by to see our new lab and I will give you a leading through!

And excited about Thanksgiving? Enjoy!

Chinese food.

Mum asked me to eat some lamb/mutton because according to our tradition, lamb/mutton can help your body fight against cold. It has been colder and colder recently. I missed a lot about many Chinese foods, home-made food. No matter how hard I tried, I cannot make the taste which mum has been making for more than 20 year for our families.

My city is along seashore so definitely we have A LOT sea food to enjoy. I like shrimp and crab most but my city Qingdao is most famous for clam. There are about forty clams per kilogram so it is not famous for its size. It is famous for its taste - you do not have to add any flavorings to make a soup which is amazingly delicious! In addition, my city is also famous for its beer which you can get some even in US which is called TstingTao beer. We do not drink bottle beer or can beer - they are not fresh enough. What we do is to buy some beer from a huge barrel and hold it in a plastic bag. Bring it to home or to a small restaurant to drink with clams - you cannot imagine until you try it - especially add some ice in hot summer. That is the happiness of Qingdao style!