Another piece of good news from bug-land:

Stahlhut, Julie K. and Cowan, David P. 2004. Inbreeding in a natural population of Euodynerus foraminatus(Hymenoptera: Vespidae), a solitary wasp with single-locus complementary sex determination. Molecular Ecology 13: 631-638.

This is, chronologically, the second full-length manuscript to emerge from my dissertation. Readers may recall that the first has been accepted and made available on-line by Heredity; we don't know in which print issue it will appear, but we have high hopes for March. That would put it in a dead heat, release-wise, with the Molecular Ecology article, which would be nice because the second manuscript builds on the first. We submitted a third manuscript (which builds on the first two) to a major journal which didn't accept it on the first pass, but all three of the reviewers who read it have strongly encouraged us to add a few specific pieces of information and resubmit it.

So, despite the fact that my current job is only part-time, I'm keeping very, very busy. Cathy and I are mulling over the possibility of producing a review article while researching a project proposal. On my off-days, I'll need to spend some time back at WMU, working with Dave on the manuscript revisions. And, while waiting out a round of other funding decisions (due in late March or early April), I'm applying far and wide for various postdoctoral fellowships. All I can say is that my scientific life is holding a variety of contingencies worthy of a Stephen Jay Gould essay.

At any rate, it's been an auspicious period for many of my favorite biologists. For example, this one made the cover of the January 20, 2004 issue of PNAS. If you have access to it on-line or in your library, look for the cover photo of the huge Rafflesia. (Don't give one of these flowers to your sweetie on Valentine's Day. First, they're rare. Second, they're fly-pollinated, so you can imagine what they smell like.)