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That was a typical, lame title. Oh well. I'll get to it in a bit.

Today we had our first Faculty Field Problem (or FFP, for the acronymically minded). These are problems that are led by our course coordinators and the resource people who are experts in something to do with tropical biology. Basically, they come up with a research question, and teams of 4 or 5 students get to run around and try and answer the question.

Really, it all puts me in mind of one of my favorite TV shows, Junkyard wars. Actually, I haven't gotten to watch it since about a year ago because I have been cable TV deprived, but still, the memory lives on. Anyways. For those not familiar with Junkyard wars (also known as Junkyahd Wars for the New Englanders), it's a show where two teams compete to build some sort of device out of materials that are obtained from a junkyard. For instance, one week two teams had to build fireboats, and another week, they made snowmobiles. The teams have ten hours to complete their projects before the competition, when they find out which machine will work and which machine will fail miserably. Most of the machines are miserable failures, but sometimes the failures can be quite amazing. For instance, one week the teams had to build giant car-flinging devices. One of the devices was a catapult that ALMOST got the car off the ground before it crashed into a heap. A big heap at that.

But to get back to my story. We have two days to complete our FFP before we have to present it to the entire class, so of course we go through all of the usual stages of such time-constrained events. First there is the planning session, where our team leader (the guy who puts the "Faculty" in the Faculty Field Problem) lays out our plan while we all nod our heads enthusiastically and scribble down some cryptic notes. Then we get our junk together and rush out into the field. (in contrast, in Junkyard Wars, everybody rushes out into the field and then gets the junk together)

Once we're in the field, we run around and try to remember what it is that we're doing there and then try to collect some data (and perhaps our wits, depending on how much coffee we had in the morning). After a while, we start to get the hang of what we're doing and become efficient data-collecting machines. Then it's time to head back to the lab.

Once we're back in the lab, we spend some time looking at all the data we've collected and make such remarks as, "What the heck is all this crap, anyway?" Once our heads are thoroughly scratched and the data is in the computer and transformed into some graphs, it's time for a break before we head back out into the field for more fun.

Basically, that's what we did today. Only the most exciting part is that we were working with Acacia ants! I mentioned those the other day. What you should really know about them is that they live on Acacia trees, and the trees provide them with food and shelter. In return, the ants make sure that nobody eats the trees. How do they accomplish this? Since they're about as well versed in diplomacy as certain presidential figures who will remain unnamed, they use all the martial skills at their fingertips. Actually, since they're ants, their tarsi-tips. They run onto your skin, clamp down with their mandibles (mouthparts), and use their gasters (butts) to sting and sting and sting until you find them and destroy them.

For our field project, we were trying to find queens or eggs on the trees, so we had to rip apart the hollow thorns where the ants raise their young. So we were pretty intimate with the ants. But there is a silver lining to this cloud--I now know that Pogonomyrmex bites are worse than acacia ant bites. Pogos are the ants that I work with in Arizona. So while many people complained about how painful the ants were, I was pleasantly surprised to discover they weren't as bad as I'd thought. Besides, neither sting can compare with the sting of a honeybee!

Tomorrow we'll continue working on our project, and maybe--if you're lucky--I'll tell you more about the science of it. In the meantime, I just remembered that I have to tell you about the "rain" in rainforest. Basically, we started to hear rumbles just as we finished up our data collection, and the clouds opened up and dumped water on us just as we reached the road to head back to the research station. It was buckets of water like I haven't seen since Boston in the summertime! The rain was great because it cooled us down and washed off some of the grimy grime that had collected on my clothes.

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