So I just finished up my 7th quarter here at UCSC and it was truly the most difficult one to date. Between my 24 hr/week job, 17 units, and volunteering at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center I just about didn't get time to breathe. I'm relieved to say that I passed all my classes and have finished my first two upper division classes. Next quarter I'll be starting up Invertebrate Zoology, Marine Environment, and Docent training at the Seymour center for a grand total of 14 units. I am also going to be continuing to work at our Dining hall as a Supervisor (18 hr/week) and volunteer at the Seymour center (5 hr/week). I'm really excited to finally have a quarter where all my classes will be within my major!
Besides that October 2012 was the month that both my car and my computer crapped out, coming out to a very expensive month for these near-necessities in college. While I waited for replacements I became very familiar with the City Bus (conveniently was too full to pick me up many times, including 20 minutes before a midterm) and the Campus Library Computers (They are some nice Macs, when you manage to grab one for yourself). Having these resources available was a lifesaver - which brings me to thank everyone who voted for Prop 30. I cannot tell you how relieved the entire campus was. It felt like New Years. Finally after constant tuition hikes and budget cuts, the prospect of a lowered tuition seemed unbelievable. It is nice to finally see government care about their education system.
I hope everyone's holiday season was enjoyable and not stressful, and good luck for the new year!
Okay, so now for some interesting stuff from my classes/life:
-Ever thought your dog was watching television? Turns out they can't even see what's on the screen. All dogs will be able to see is a white bright screen. Television/computer screens are made for humans to see. Very simply put, if you look closely enough at your monitor, you will see tiny red green and blue lights. This is because humans are Tri-chromatic. Our eyes can only detect red, green, and blue, all other visible colors arecomposed out of varying degrees of these colors. Dogs are very different . They are Mono-chromatic, meaning they are only capable of detecting one color of light, effectively making their vision gray scale.
-More cool eye stuff related to your visual field here.
-Related to the brain: this is a story told by a brain scientist of her experience having a stroke. Its one of the more popular videos on Ted.com (a site of free talks lead by professor-level amazing individuals.), but if you haven't watched it I highly recommend you watch it.
-Some people have been asking me what my opinions on the PG&E seismic testing were. (For those of you who haven't heard it did get denied a permit).
I do think its a horrible idea. The reasoning: The testing would include "PG&E had requested a Coastal Commission permit to begin the high-energy surveys of 130 square miles of ocean. A 235-foot vessel was to tow a 1/4-mile-wide array of submerged, 250-decibel air cannons that would discharge every 15 seconds, night and day, for 17 days." Unfortunately this means many animals in the ocean, including elephant seals, sea lions, and more would be exposed to deafening levels of sound for an extended period of time. This is bad for echo-locating animals as they use their aural senses primarily for hunting, navigation, and other vital functions. What this all boils down to is that emitting that loud of a sound for that long kills a large percentage of the animals it comes into contact with. This has huge repercussions throughout the fragile and valuable kelp forests that reside off of our coasts. The largest example of harm starts when you remove seals and sea lions from the ecosystem. This means that every seal that otherwise would've been the meal of a shark or orca will need be replaced 5x over by sea otters. Sea Otters are what you can call a 'keystone species', meaning they are absolutely vital for the kelp forest to remain prosperous (see my last email for a better explanation). Sea Otters also do not have a large amount of blubber, meaning that a shark or orca will need to eat ~5 sea otters for every seal they would've eaten in the past. The Sea Otter has been struggling to come back from the verge of extinction, so this would be largely detrimental meaning possible extinction of the Sea Otter and thus the Kelp Forests along with it. The seismic testing would also kill off large portions of fish (What happens when you tap the glass of an aquarium?) meaning that fishing industry and the animals that eat them would suffer. All in all: just a terrible idea and an environmental catastrophe.
-To end on something positive: Les Miserables is amazing on screen and its truly an emotionally moving movie - so I recommend you go see it!
All my love,
Emily Stollmeyer
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