Tomorrow

Procrastination’s setting in
like the setting of the sun
Soon it will be all dark as sin
and time will be all done.

Last Day!

Today is the day that I am all done
No more mass spec, its time to have fun
No longer before dawn will I rise out of bed
Eat breakfast alone and kiss wife on the head
And measure all day, like a beaver and dam
No, never again hence today, that’s the plan!
I will go home today a burden relieved
Although that’s what I thought last week, woe is me!

Scrap-booking in China

To Beijing China I did go, with poster in a sling
To speak some science and to show, my work with modeling
But when I got to where I was to post and show it off
I realized my dimensions wrong, I cursed and oft did scoff!

But innovation came so swift with scissors and with tape
A scrapbook poster there would fit my fate I would escape
Surprisingly the poster there as rough as it did look
Attracted conversation sweet suspended from that nook!

What I do

A number of people have asked me to post a brief description of exactly what I do. So here it goes…



You may have learned back in high school that plants take in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen during photosynthesis. This is only partly true. While the net flux of gasses is carbon dioxide in and oxygen out, other plant processes take in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide at lower rates than photosynthesis. Some of these processes are a big headache for the plant and result in wasted energy and lost carbon. I am looking at possible ways to minimize the amount of carbon dioxide that bleeds from the plant during these processes in order to maximize the potential carbon gain of the plant. If you want more specifics, check out the Wikipedia article on photorespiration.

Ode to Yair

It all comes down to energy
And how the carbon too
Is balanced ‘twixt all the demand
And what can be produced.

And if those two things do not jive
You’ve dropped the ball to curb
For either you’re not steady state
Or mass is not conserved!

Shakey Science

The forth and fifth floors of Heald have been mothballed
No more science in those halls, only rusted centrifuges and cracked test tubes
Once they were the best
Humming labs unwrapping the cell
Now they are dusty
decontaminated according to the facility operations postings
never to be used again
Like a Barry Goldwater dashboard mount.

No more Eureka’s
One day Heald will be torn down
The crack in the foundation
Runs like a prophecy down the front steps
Maybe to be replaced
Or maybe to lay out as a green patch for the rabbits
And so might our science
If it too has cracks.

Nobel Surprize

At least three Germans that I've heard
fled their homeland from the war
but worried for the things behind
they disguised some stuff for none to find

three Nobel medals were so dissolved
in caustic acid, in bottles stalled
marauding armies passed them by
a clear concoction does not catch eye

when bombs were done and guns grew still
the laureates returned to their hills
precipitated gold amassed
and had their prizes then recast!