This brief tour of Durham in the NY Times gives some sense of how much is going on here.  And they didn't even do it during baseball season.  I'll also say that 36 hours is not nearly enough time to visit all of the great places to eat in town.  But they do mention some of my favorites.

Our new Ecological Monograph on diel variation of phosphorus in the Ichetucknee River is available online as an unformatted pre-print. I am really excited about this paper, which was led by Matt Cohen at the University of Florida.  Basically this paper extends our previous research on diel variation in NO3 to estimate P uptake by vegetation in a spring-fed river, but with several interesting wrinkles.  First, to understand how biotic processes influence diel variation in P, we had to correct for the precipitation of calcite in the water column, because P binds strongly to it. Second, the P budget for the Ichetucknee River suggests that there are unaccounted inputs, which is consistent with what we have found based on other elements. Third, the diel variation of P is out of phase with that of O2 and NO3, which may represent differential timing of the cellular processes that metabolize these different elements.  Nonetheless, the stoichiometry of C,N,and P uptake that we estimate based on diel variation matches pretty well with the stoichiometry of the dominant plants in the river.  With all these different as

Some overdue news prior to the start of the semester:

Last year, the Bernhardt Lab initiated the greatest idea ever - Lab Olympics - and invited your humble PI to serve as assistant judge (under the mentorship of young Hannah Bernhardt).  This year, we build on that storied tradition with the first ever inter-lab Lab Olympics.  This year's events included the ever-popular Awkward Field Equipment Carry; Ecology Concepts Charades; and Speed Soil and Litter Sampling.  Taking Tests for Fun made its debut as a full event after many years as an exhibition event.  Participants were drawn from all four River Center labs (Bernhardt, Doyle, Heffernan, and McGlynn), plus the Wright Lab was invited for some reason. The Bernhardt lab played the role of Greece (founding nation) and the Wright lab starred as East Germany (Lab Olympic automatons).  The Doyle and McGlynn labs were beset by injuries, pride, and holiday travel plans, so their members defected as dictated by numerical balance.  I think that makes the Doyle Lab Cuba, and the McGlynn Lab might be Romania.  Sadly, the Heffernan lab was cast in the role of Moldova, plagued by bitter disappoinment at the podium.  Your humble PI, in particular, was even more so at the end of the day.  Nonethless, a good time was had by all.  Full results here.