Onward to NZ

Our stay in Australia over, I have traveled to New Zealand. How can I describe it? It's a land that I would like to marry and settle down with, filling the rest of my days exploring all the little sheep-dotted hillsides, pebbly beaches, and rich green mountains.

I haven't even really been here very long. I spent the first night here in a cheap motel in Auckland run by an Indian family. They were lovely and it was reasonable for the price, but it was definitely not a place that inspired rest. Early the next morning a shuttle driven by a woman named Ngaia took me to Hamilton and I disgraced myself by falling asleep. Fortunately, I am both a discreet and fetching sleeper. I was deposited at the AsureQuality office and met with Byron and chatted a bit over some needed coffee. Drip coffee this time. Kiwis apparently aren't as picky about their coffee as the Aussies. We drove over to the Plant and Food Research Apicultural division and I met Byron's wife Michelle who works on varroa-resistant bees and her boss Mark who gave me his opinion on everything bee-related and un-bee-related, particularly Australia, USA, and why New Zealand is superior to those countries.

I had almost run out of brain power by the time we got back to AsureQuality. I was ready to go to bed, but I still had a 4 hour drive to Napier ahead of me. Byron kindly drove me to the Airport to pick up my car and reminded me about the unique Kiwi road rules such as no left on red and yield to oncoming right-turners when you're taking a left. They love the roundabout in this country, too. Every intersection spins you like a merry-go-round, exits shooting off the center circle like so many bicycle-wheel spokes.

I got on the road by 4pm, driving an exceedingly cheap Australian-made car. I found out that the kiwi definition of "highway" apparently is "lonely two-lane track through nowhere." So strange to drive so far without the comforting presence of other drivers. I guess that’s what I feel like I’m doing here- striking out on my own despite the fact that I don’t really know anyone in this country, don’t know if I can get a job in this country, don’t know where I’m going in this country on this little highway in the dark. No one driving my way to encourage me, to say, “Yup, you’re going the right way!” Strange stars hang in the sky as I stop to take a look around in the dark. They are useless to navigate by. But I see a shooting star, and think, with a sigh, that it’s not a bad road that I’m on anyway.

I arrive after some delay finding my hotel in Napier. The hotel manager offers me "trim milk" and a newspaper. Then he has me park my car in a tiny little spot on the corner of the hotel. He crosses my own personal courtyard and opens big French windows to a small efficiency apartment, complete with mini-range, mini-fridge, mini-bar with mini-stools, mini-sink, mini-cupboards, mini-microwave, mini-tv, etc. He stashes the milk in the fridge for me and bids me goodnight. Everything in my room is tastefully selected from Ikea. Clean, simple, warmly well-lit. I open the door to the bathroom and I am greeted by a large, lavatorial refuge, soothing colors, a new shower, and multiple mirrors. There are premium soaps. There is an abundance of nice towels. I am in heaven. Then I walk out and notice that there is something hanging from the side of the bed. The controls for my electric blanket. How far did I have to come for this? It doesn’t matter.

A ministry update!

After a delightful time shopping and eating delicious new things at the Queen Victoria market early yesterday morning, Mike picked up Ash and Jared and I and drove us out to LaTrobe University to meet with the Christian Union team there. Ash will be writing a little bit about that meeting and another meeting with a national staff member with Christian Union working with graduate students. Suffice to say, the eyebrows wagged in our favor and we had a couple of really productive, positive meetings yesterday.

Today I hopped on the bus to Monash to meet Ash and Mike there for the undergraduate Student Life (Campus Crusade in Australia) weekly meeting, which was delightful. Then I wandered upstairs to the Monash Postgraduate Association, an office which serves the Post-grads (Graduate students) at Monash with seminars, socials, support, and advocacy. Here they have 4 full-time staff devoted to helping graduate students to cope with grad school problems and find community. Jenny, executive officer of MPA, sat down with me and happily answered all my questions about how the MPA works. Basically, the university funds the MPA to increase the completion rate (graduation rate) of post-grads by providing advice and support. In the case of conflict with supervisors (advisors) or problems with intellectual property rights, the MPA can act as an independent advocate for the graduate student, explaining their options and even going with them to help sort things out. I'm not sure if there's really anything like it in the 'states.

Ash joined us later and we continued a great discussion about the perils of graduate school and the role that a group like ours, devoted to meeting the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of graduate students could play. The MPA provides a lot of inspiration for our work in the future at Penn State and in Melbourne. The mission of the MPA to support graduate students is very much like ours in PSCG. Their website even uses the slogan "Don't go it alone" - which we've discussed using in the past. Perhaps they would like our Top 10 reasons to get involved with PSCG, including "Your advisor is not your God" and "The late-night library raves are getting old."

P.S. It has come to my attention that our Slideshow gadget up on the right-hand side seems to be broken, hopefully temporarily. In the meantime, click here to visit our gallery

Aussie Rules Football: Geelong-Collingwood match

A few months ago, when Jared informed us that we would be attending a "footy" match in Melbourne, I didn't know what that meant, though I could have made a bad joke about Aussies flirting under the table. Apparently footy is another Aussie nickname - in this case footy means football, specifically Aussie Rules Football or AFL. (By the way, my checklist of cute Aussie phrases has really grown. Favorites include "brekky" (breakfast) and "bikkie" (biscuit aka cookie))

Jared told us that his friend Paul was going to get us tickets so that we could enjoy this quintessential Victorian (that's from the state of Victoria, not necessarily from the time of the reign of queen Victoria) pastime. It sounded like it would be a cultural experience, but never being much of a sport-lover, I didn't know if I would really be able to get into this so-called footy.

Later, as Paul revealed, Jared had the same thought. "I don't know how excited she'll be about it, but she probably won't bring her knitting," he had said to Paul.

Well, friends, I definitely didn't need my knitting at this event. Aussie rules is a much more fast-paced game than American football (call

ed gridiron here). There's very little stopping for the entire game of 4, 20-minute quarters. The ball is constantly in motion, sailing smoothly from player to player, punted or punched with knuckles. If a kick is caught cleanly, you get to "mark" the ball and essentially take a free kick where the defender cannot pass a certain point to attack you. The object is to kick or push the ball through your opponents goalposts on either end of the field. Getting through the outer goalposts scores you 1 point, the inner goalposts 6. Defenders can tackle you when you have the ball, but instead of everything grinding to a halt when this happens, as in American football, when you are tackled in Aussie rules the goal is to get rid of the ball while you're being crushed by other players. A player goes down in a pile and the ball squirts out like a big yellow egg to be snatched up by another player who keeps the play moving. Simple in its rules, elegant in its execution, AFL is infinitely watchable.

As we climbed to our seats in the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG),I noticed that Aussies from all walks of life attended footy. There were tiny boys and girls with their faces painted, many elderly fans, as well as a large number of mid-twenties people like us. I noticed the girls were dressed smartly, as if they were going out to dinner somewhere nice. Girls who watch football in the 'states are by no means inelegant, but usually a football match calls for more masculine attire than a night out on the town. I wondered what drew them to the games.

As the game started and I watched the players begin to run around, I have to admit there was but one question on my mind. Why are their shorts so tiny? I asked Paul, our resident AFL expert. He had no answer. I looked again- weren't they cold? There could be any number of good explanations for the size of their shorts. Perhaps it was so that they didn't lose them when they were tackled. Perhaps it was difficult to punt successfully in longer shorts. But as I watched further, the game seemed to be full of innuendo. Scoring a point was known as a "behind," the official spanking the goalpost enthusiastically when one was scored. The most frequent word shouted by the crowd was "ball," referring to when a player failed to get rid of the ball when they were tackled. Perhaps this explained why so many women were fans of this full-contact sport.

The match was a nail-biter, but in the end the Geelong (pronounced "Jah-LONG") Cats, reigning champions and our team, failed to scratch out the Collingwood Magpies, the number two team this year. Even though we lost, there was an atmosphere of good fun for all. As we filed out of the stadium, some boys started a kick-the-coke-bottle game which followed us all the way down to the riverside. Australia is always up for a good game.

Cool Creepy Crawlies

Jared lent me his copy of the Lonely Planet's guide to New Zealand, since I will be visiting this country after our stay in Australia has ended. While flipping through last night I came upon the "wildlife" section and promptly began reading. There were lots of entries about cute marsupials and several kinds of short, fat birds that are no good at flying or getting away from even the most inept of predators. Everything that was cool-looking was either endangered or threatened. It seemed a miracle that New Zealand had any native animals at all.

I looked in vain for an "Insects" section. Instead I was affronted with section entitled "Creepy Crawlies" that spoke of but one true insect, the weta. Putting aside the the derogatory term "Creepy Crawlies" for a moment, the embarrassingly ignorant authors of this guide did chose to highlight what is probably one of the coolest insects in New Zealand when they selected the weta.

The weta is nothing fancy to look at. There are apparently 70 species of weta in New Zealand, and none of them are pretty. They look a lot like crickets that have taken to the life of a couch potato, their brown cuticle bulging with an excess of snickers bars and pork rinds. Their large heads are armed with impressive jaws and sometimes tusks. They are not known for their good natured personalities. The weta's great claim to fame is two-fold. One - the NZ-based special-effects company responsible for a great deal of the awesomeness of Lord of the Rings movies took this humble NZ insect as its namesake, calling themselves "The Weta Workshop." This was long before anyone in the world outside of New Zealand knew what a weta was, much less its other claim to fame - one species of weta survives being frozen solid for hours at a time.

Now, being frozen at -9°C (that's 16°F) —85% of your body's water in the form of ice crystals, all of your tissues experiencing severe osmotic shrinkage— is ordinarily considered lethal. The alpine weta (Hemideina maori) takes it in stride. There is no larger insect that can withstand becoming a popsicle like this¹.

The way the alpine weta does it is not the way that we would expect. Other cold-tolerant species avoid turning into insect-sicles by infusing their blood with a sort of antifreeze. Just like the antifreeze in your radiator, proteins circulating in their bodies keep them liquid even under freezing conditions. They do this because ice crystals tend to be bad for living things the same way that putting a coke can in the freezer is bad for the coke can. As the ice crystals form, the coke (like every cell in your body) expands then explodes.

Antifreeze is a great strategy if it doesn't get too cold. But where the alpine weta lives it gets pretty chilly. So instead of preventing ice crystal formation in their bodies like many other insects, the alpine weta welcomes ice crystal formation. Their blood contains ice-nucleating agents, which act like seed crystals for the ice to start to form. The alpine weta compartmentalizes these ice-nucleating agents outside of its cells, allowing ice crystals to form slowly and at a safe distance from their sensitive cells. Thus the whole insect slowly freezes into a solid block of weta, but retains life, ready to scurry away as soon as warmer temperatures allow it to thaw.

I am not looking forward to the winter that awaits me in the southern hemisphere. It seems less terrible when I think about the alpine weta and thank God he decided to make us warm-blooded creatures. The weta withstands the shock of new challenges by welcoming change, a lesson even us endotherms could use. Nevertheless, I wouldn't like to be an alpine weta. I think I would be very un-weta-like if my body temperature sunk to that of my surrounding environment, ice crystals forming throughout my veins. I would probably thrash and shiver, breaking my fragile frozen exoskeleton instead of quietly enduring the freezing process. Though if I had to be a weta, I don't think I'd mind having a nice pair of tusks.

1. Ramløv, H., Bedford, J., Leader, J. 1992. Freezing Tolerance of the New Zealand Apline Weta, Hemideina maori Hutton (Orthoptera: Stenopelmatidae). J. Therm. Biol. 17(1): 51-54.

Photo by Flickr user Kiwi Mikex licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License.

Crazy Good From Just Plain Crazy

As otherworldly as this landscape appears, it was photographed by Phil Hart on the shores of Gippsland Lakes in Victoria, Australia, Earth. For a few summer months in 2008/09, disappointingly terrestrial creatures called Noctiluca scintillans—bioluminescent algae—created a bright fairy-land where the shores glow with eerie turquoise and the water reacts with flashes and sparkles when touched. View his Full Gallery to see more fascinating images of this phenomenon.

No sublime phosphorescent microbes inhabit our bodies of water in central Pennsylvania. I have never seen the shores of Whipple Dam lapping with electric blue waves. I have never witnessed Spring Creek flowing with fireworks. No doubt it would be a thing to behold. Though, I'm not sure if I would pray to receive this delight. The bioluminescence photographed in 2008/09 was extraordinary in its brightness, but it arose out of extraordinary disaster.

In December 2006, brush fires covered over a million hectares of land around the rivers and streams that feed the Gippsland lakes. Come winter, severe rains flooded Gippsland in a "1 in 100-year" flood, washing nutrients from the holocaust forests into the lakes, altering the chemistry of the lakes and causing blue-green algae (frequently toxic) to bloom throughout the lakes that summer. Following so much misfortune, lake-area inhabitants wondered what new tragedy the next summer would hold.

But instead of more toxic cyanobacteria, the lakes were visited by Noctiluca scintillans, a bioluminescent alga that feeds on the other numerous algae, causing the lakes to dance with the splendor of stars.

Few wonders come without a price. The larvae of lightingbugs cower in muddy waters and eat nothing but snails for months before they are permitted to ascend to write the sky with glowing letters. Sparkling algae swarm to feed on the products of a series of unprecedented natural disasters. Would that I could remember this when I am the burned-out forest or the flooded land! Remember to look ahead, over the charred remains and the deluge to see brilliant glow of the next spectacle God has prepared.

Image by Phil Hart, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic license. Background information likewise provided by Phil Hart.

The International Date Line of Mystery

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia"

Charles Schulz

Lately I have been pondering the mysteries of the International Date Line. At some magical moment in the evening while I'm flying over the Pacific on Monday, August 2 I will cross an imaginary line on the globe and all of a sudden it will be the same time on Tuesday, August 3. Goodbye Monday. Hello Tuesday. On my way back from New Zealand, I will leave Auckland at 1PM on Saturday, August 21 and arrive in L.A. at 6:30AM on Saturday, August 21. I will forever find the international date line a celestial wonder.

Time-travel was on everyone's mind when Magellan's voyage, having been the first to successfully circumnavigate the globe, landed in Portuguese territory on a Wednesday, while, much to their consternation, everyone there stubbornly insisted that it was Thursday. Later, Pietro Martire d’Anghiera, "being much disquieted and trobled with that care," figured out the answer and wrote it all up for Pope Adrian VI, concluding that if one sailed west, chasing the sun, the days would be a tiny bit longer and by the time you got all the way around you would have burned up a whole extra day, as Magellan's voyage had. What was Wednesday to you would be Thursday to everyone else. Pietro felt this to be very profound but resolved to "Let Philosophers more deeply discusse this matter" in the future.¹

Curiously enough, the idea of marking a line on the globe to delimit "today" and "tomorrow" was thought up long before people started circumnavigating the globe. Since the 12th century Jewish rabbis have debated the placement of such a line so that righteous Jews living in all corners of the globe could observe sabbath on the appropriate day. The question of how should one observe the sabbath when traveling over the date line on a Friday-Saturday or Saturday-Sunday transition is even more thorny.² It's lucky we travel on a Monday.

The civil date line observed by most of the world zigzags through the Pacific Ocean, careening left and right to avoid hitting land or splitting up island chains. It is placed where it is because presumably no one would want to live somewhere where it is today on one side of your home but tomorrow on the other side.

But wouldn't it be rather nice to live in just such a place? If your house was split by the date line, you could have the power of the date line always at your disposal. Anytime you were having a bad day you could just hop across the imaginary line and it would be tomorrow. Same time, just the next day. And if one sunrise wasn't good enough for you that morning, you could hop back across the imaginary line and hit "repeat." And if you made a mistake on that morning, could you get another chance to make things right? Cross the line, rewind, and do it all over again?

1. A History of the International Date Line
2. A Traveler's Guide to the International Date Line

Image licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License by user Jailbird.