Matthew Singer – Page 3 – Biologist, Photographer, Geocacher, Adventurer, and more…

February 26, 2014 Matt Hikes, Travel Stories

A President’s Weekend in McCall

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…

December 31, 2013February 26, 2014 Matt Personal Updates

2013: A Retrospective

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…

December 25, 2013 Matt Photo Blog

2013: A Year in Photographs

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…

December 25, 2013July 29, 2014 Matt Hikes

Snowshoeing Moose Creek

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…

December 11, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

An update on the Hawk Owl

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.…

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

The latest hype in Moscow

[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…

October 19, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

Look what I found

[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…

October 14, 2013October 14, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

The New Kitchen

[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 1, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

October Update

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…

August 16, 2013August 15, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

Garden Produce

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…

July 26, 2013July 25, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

The Joy of Home Ownership: Adventures in Plumbing

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,…

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

My Research: What I have been up to

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…

July 5, 2013July 16, 2013 Matt Hikes

4th of July

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…

July 3, 2013July 16, 2013 Matt Personal Updates

The Garden of 2013

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…

June 29, 2013July 16, 2013 Matt Photo Blog

Aurora

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…

June 27, 2013June 28, 2013 Matt Travel Stories

Evolution at Snowbird

This year's Evolution meeting was held at the Snowbird resort in the beautiful Wasatch Mountains outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. This year, I was fortunate enough to attend this meeting and present a talk on the correlation (or lack thereof) of boldness behaviors and swimming behavior in an open field. Of course, while meetings are great for presenting research…

May 28, 2013 Matt Travel Stories

Palouse Falls

There seems to be a trend among people that when you live in a certain area, you tend to take for granted your proximity to tourist attractions and not visit them. Local attractions aren't really a priority because they're always there, so you can always visit them later. Well, later can turn into years. In this case, three years. I've…

May 12, 2013May 12, 2013 Matt Travel Stories

Spring Wildflowers and McCroskey State Park

When I started this blog, I never intended to make daily posts, but then, I thought that maybe I could come up with enough content to post more than once a month. This month's post is all about Spring wildflowers on the Palouse, because I've found some new ones and re-photographed some old favorites. To begin, I had realized that…

April 15, 2013April 15, 2013 Matt Research Blog

Problem Solving to Victory: RLE

Today I had a sort of "Boo-yah!" moment when I solved a problem I've been working on since the summer. Here's the back story: We've been integrating video tracking into our behavior assays in the lab, and in order to implement this method into research, I have been working with one of the math-bio undergrads on writing R-code to import…

March 16, 2013 Matt Travel Stories

Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge

I had to go to Spokane for a follow-up appointment with the orthopedic surgeon, and it happened to be a nice day, so I suggested that while we were up there, we should go to the Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge and spend some time outdoors. I've known the refuge was there and have always wanted to check it out, but…