Matthew Singer

What might the native prairie have looked like?

May 26, 2014May 26, 2014 Matt Personal Updates

It's hard to imagine what America's prairies looked like when they were unspoiled. Today, more than 95% of our prairies and grasslands have been repurposed for agriculture. The last remnants are so highly fragmented that it's a fight to keep non-native invasive species from taking over. Prairies and grasslands were once thought to be ecological wastelands, a monoculture of grass…

Evo-WIBO and the Olympic Peninsula

May 11, 2014May 10, 2014 Matt Hikes, Travel Stories

I'm two weeks on this post, but forgive me because the last two weeks of the semester have been insane. The bi-annual northwest evolution conference, Evo-WIBO, occurred the last weekend of April. If you don't remember, I attended the last meeting two years ago and presented a talk on the results of our selection experiment. This year, I presented a…

Scenic Drives and Cemeteries

March 30, 2014March 30, 2014 Matt Travel Stories

I really enjoy the small historic cemeteries that dot the Palouse. They're tucked away on obscure roads or in the middle of farm fields in places where you wouldn't think to go. They're incredibly peaceful and scenic and full of local history. So, I decided to visit a few local to my house along one of my favorite drives (See…

Asotin Creek

March 10, 2014March 10, 2014 Matt Hikes

[caption id="attachment_483" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Bighorn Sheep at Asotin Creek.[/caption] It's funny that only two weeks ago, I was clearing snow from my driveway, and now there's hardly any sign of winter left on the Palouse. Instead of snow, it rained for nearly a week straight. So when we caught a break in the weather on Saturday, I was quite happy…

Palouse Photography: Waiting for the right light

March 8, 2014 Matt Photo Blog

This post will demonstrate just how fast light can change, especially during sunrise and sunset. [caption id="attachment_478" align="aligncenter" width="500"] View of Moscow Mountain and the Idaho Palouse.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_479" align="aligncenter" width="500"] View of Moscow Mountain and the Idaho Palouse.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_481" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Moscow Mountain and the Idaho Palouse at sunset.[/caption] These three images, taken in the same location on…

A President’s Weekend in McCall

February 26, 2014 Matt Hikes, Travel Stories

I can't believe February is almost over an I haven't made any posts yet. I've been plugging along with classes and research and laying fairly low for financial reasons. I'm not skiing this year, which helps out in keeping my costs down. I have been snowshoeing more this winter than in the past, and that's helping to keep me in…

2013: A Retrospective

December 31, 2013February 26, 2014 Matt Personal Updates

For all intents and purposes, 2013 was a shitty year. Just when we thought things couldn't get any worse, something else would go wrong. And, so the trend continued until the final months. The year started out pretty good. Though we've been struggling financially since Erin lost her nursing job in 2011, by the fall of 2012, she had a…

2013: A Year in Photographs

December 25, 2013 Matt Photo Blog

This year, I have fallen behind in my photography pursuits. It's in part due to the events in February, and part due to not having the funds or time to get out as much as I'd have liked. I've been looking through some stats tracking the number of photos I've taken over the past few years, though a better metric…

Snowshoeing Moose Creek

December 25, 2013July 29, 2014 Matt Hikes

Last week, winter returned to the Palouse. We got about six inches of snow in Deary, most of which was still around over the weekend. On Sunday, I joined a group of students and post-docs for a snowshoeing trip to Moose Creek. Although it was a foggy and overcast day, we had a great time. I'm always amazed at how…

An update on the Hawk Owl

December 11, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

It's been over a week since a Northern Hawk Owl was spotted hanging out across a busy street from a shopping mall in Moscow, Idaho, but the bird is still here and reliably seen in the same locations. I've now seen the bird four times and may continue to watch and observe it until it is no longer a novelty.…

The latest hype in Moscow

December 5, 2013December 5, 2013 Matt All Things Moscow, Personal Updates

[caption id="attachment_428" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Northern Hawk Owl[/caption] The latest rage in Moscow, Idaho is the sighting of an immigrant that shouldn't be here. A Northern Hawk Owl (Surnia ulula) has been spotted in Moscow across Rt. 8 from the Safeway parking lot. The earliest sightings on eBird show that this individual has been hanging around since Tuesday, reliably in the…

Look what I found

October 19, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

[caption id="attachment_415" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Long-toed Salamander, Ambystoma macrodactylum[/caption] Since we finished the interior of the house, it was time to clean up the garage and start moving everything back inside. This was also a good time to start tidying up the yard before winter hits. Last weekend, we took down an old dog house that we were using to raise…

The New Kitchen

October 14, 2013October 14, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

[caption id="attachment_422" align="aligncenter" width="500"] The Kitchen before renovations.[/caption] Three months ago, we had some pipes leak in our kitchen that caused some damage to the flooring and the cabinets and resulted in us basically getting a brand new kitchen. We contacted State Farm to see about getting any coverage, and thankfully, they agreed to help cover some of the damage.…

October Update

October 1, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

Where has time gone? It's already October, which means I missed out on September. Well, I didn't really miss it. I was busy with a graduate school ritual known as the preliminary examination. Prelims are, without a doubt, the most stressful event for a graduate student. You might think it's writing the dissertation or even giving your final defense. The…

Garden Produce

August 16, 2013August 15, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

The tomato plants have fruit, but I'm awaiting them to ripen. The pepper plants are starting to produce. The strawberries are on their second round of harvest. In the mean time, the squash and zucchini are providing us with food of plenty. Yesterday I picked four zucchini, all from the same plant. This morning, I grabbed two more before leaving…

The Joy of Home Ownership: Adventures in Plumbing

July 26, 2013July 25, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

When we moved to Moscow, we knew we'd be here for more than five years and that buying our own place would probably benefit us more in the long run than renting. There are many advantages to owning your own home. The most obvious is that your monthly payments go toward something tangible. When you pay rent on an appartment,…

My Research: What I have been up to

July 17, 2013December 13, 2013 Matt Personal Updates, Research Blog

Last week, the fruits of my last three year's work has finally come to fruition in the journal PLoS One. The premise is that the personality behavior we call boldness, or the bold-shy continuum, is not only heritable, but a genetically correlated multivariate trait. The research is essentially a continuation of a project Mary Oswald completed for her dissertation, however…

4th of July

July 5, 2013July 16, 2013 Matt Hikes

Once again, I missed the fireworks. I admit that I was looking forward to photographing them, but in the end, I was busy hanging out with friends, and we decided not to go over to Pullman. I did spend much of my nation's birthday enjoying one of the best parts about this country: its wild side. I went back up…

The Garden of 2013

July 3, 2013July 16, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

Because I was laid up and out of commission for much of the spring, I wasn't able to work on expanding our garden much this year. Last year, I built a third 4x8 foot box and a 2x4 foot box which were meant to be tiered for planting small annual herbs in large quantities. I never got that box filled…

Aurora

June 29, 2013July 16, 2013 Matt Photo Blog

Once again, the skies lit up with the dancing inferno of the northern lights. The sun has been fairly active the past two months, but this is the first I've both been aware of and had a clear sky to see. All of the aurora events I've photographed have been special, and each one is different. This one happened to…

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