El Yunque History, 6/5

I have been trying to kick my coffee habit, but I get caffeine headaches so I ditched that idea. At least for now. I was so set on it, I didn't bring any coffee with me. Well, I woke up and was making breakfast when Seth, who works on web building spiders in aquatic ecosystems, asked me if I wanted any coffee. I said hell yeah. So he was using this fancy coffee maker, pictured below. Turns out, it's an espresso maker and it's totally awesome and quick and small and CUTE!

This is the fancy espresso maker

Today was a good day, we had a lot of fun touring the forest with a long time researcher, Chris. (Chris said to tell you hello, Quentin. He said something about needing you do dig a soil pit for him?) He was very well informed about historical and current research at El Verde. Howard Odum, (brother, Eugene Odum, both very famous early ecology minds) studied here in the 60's and received a grant from the Atomic Energy Commission to do research on radioactive material. Turns out, there was a radiation plot that they set up during that time in order to understand the effects on forests. (Keep in mind, this research sounds very negative (Jessica, he described it as "not nefarious"- that word!!!), knowing what we know now but the goals of the scientists were not evil. Nuclear power & radiation were not well understood at this time, this was an attempt to learn something new.) There was a radioactive chunk of cesium in a lead box, that set up on a tripod.  They would open the box via switch from a cement box a few kilometers away and stick a geiger counter out the window to see if it was working, and it did. The radiation treatments burned a small radius via radioactive waves. (Radioactive waves, not a point source pullutant that stays in the system for a long time, its more like a flashlight beam of radiation versus a spray bottle of radioactive fluid that persists) The small trees died, seedlings were roasted. There was a larger tree that was badly burned on one side of it but did not die until decades later. When it died, it fell right onto the tripod and knocked it over! Poetic justice isn't it? The lead box and radioactive cesium were gone by this point.

This was from yesterday, 6/5 but the power went off before I could post it.

Today, I meet my mentor, Sofia who I will be working closely with throughout the summer. I am super excited, I have heard nothing but really great things from the researchers about her.

Good stuff!  oh, and I took tons of photos yesterday, but it takes forever for them to load, so I will work on them today and post them tonight in their own blog post.

Meow

This little dude guards the trash receptacle.