[part 2] Leaf Peeping: Boston Public Gardens

This is the second part of my series on autumn in the Boston Public Gardens. For this set I wanted to focus on the experience of being surrounded by color. My next post in the series which will finally give you the full view of the gardens. Let me tell you, you’re in for a treat!

[Part 1] Leaf Peeping: A Profile of Leaves

A lot of people back home have been telling me how much they miss the changing of the leaves during the fall (Phoenix isn’t exactly known for that). So I decided to series of posts on the autumn colors. I realized very quickly that it’s a daunting task to capture something as magnificent as the changing of a season on camera, so each post in this series is going to focus on a different experience of fall. I’ll start with the smallest elements and zoom out (a la Carl Sagan’s Cosmos). So, what could be better to begin with than …

Dance of the Jellyfish: New England Aquarium

The very first thing John and I did when we got to Boston was to become members of the New England Aquarium. Our annual membership fee contributes to public education, exhibit improvements and local conservation efforts. And, it allows us to go to the aquarium as many times as we want, all year long. This was really nice during the summer because the ferry from Boston to Salem is right next to the aquarium, which means we have a place to meander while we are waiting for boarding time. This week we discovered the Jellyfish exhibit. For those of you …

Museum of Science: Butterfly Garden

Last Tuesday we decided to explore the city a bit, and ended up at Boston’s Museum of Science. One of the sections I really enjoyed was the butterfly garden. My college roommate would hate this; she is terrified of butterflies. It’s a long room with air-lock style entryways at both ends, which have forced air blowing down over them to discourage butterfly “hitchhikers”.

Peach Picking!

Our neighbor invited John and I along to go peach picking last weekend. Unfortunately John had to work, but the rest of the housemates made it out. And, it didn’t even rain until the very end!

Be Moved Every Day: Jaguar

There’s no better way to recover from a stressful week in the lab than a photo bomb weekend. Alex and I got together Sunday to search for the railroad park, and just happened to stumble across a Jaguar show in Chandler. Needless to say, we didn’t make it to the trains.

The Secret Life of Scientists: Chris

Chris is a grad student that I work with who is finishing up his dissertation. I took some photographs of his STM (scanning tunneling microscope) setup. The microscope is hiding out in a case, what you’re looking at is a setup that Chris built in order to perform experiments in an oxygen free environment, suspended so that he can take images without worrying about interference from tiny vibrations. What’s that about a secret life? Well it seems that many of my scientist friends have some pretty exciting hobbies. Chris is a marathon runner. I’d love to do a series showing …