Greetings from Seattle! The Space Needle and the mountains looked on as two members of the flight lab, Anders and Melissa, gave talks at this year's SICB meeting. Melissa (who is currently talking about herself in third person) introduced the Integrative Migration Biology symposium she had organized, and Anders spoke about mixing theory and wind tunnels to increase our understanding of animal migration.
The symposium went very well, down to a last-minute replacement talk by Ken Lohmann for Tom Kunz, who was ill and couldn't attend the conference. A Science reporter was at the event speaking to several of the speakers, and we were approached about potentially writing a book (something that, if it happens, won't be happening anytime soon!).
There were many interesting flight talks, but since many of them were at the same time as the migration session, I didn't get to see them. Hopefully Anders did and he can fill you all in on all of the exciting research going on in the US. I personally got to meet up with old lab-mates and friends, and generally enjoyed the area (including some wonderfully fresh seafood!).
On Friday 29th January 2010, Per Henningsson is defending his thesis on "fluid dynamics, flight performance and flight behavior of common swifts". The defense takes place in the Blue lecture hall at 10:00, with Prof. Bret Tobalske as faculty opponent. On the day before, you can enjoy an extra CAnMove mini-sympoium on the animal flight, starting at 14:00 in the seminar room "Tanken", in which Bret Tobalske will talk on his fascinating research on hummingbird flight. That the swift is a remarkable bird is perhaps not new to most of us, and Per is now getting some well deserved media attention for his spectacular PhD thesis. See e.g. http://www.gp.se/nyheter/sverige/1.296297-flygexpertens-hemlighet-avslojad ).
As the laser has lately given only about 25 mJ per pulse when set to maximum power, we figured it is perhaps time to change the flash lamps. In our Litron laser there are 4 lamps to replace, and on Friday afternoon we had everything in place, i.e. the lamps, new o-rings, appropriate laser manual and isopropyl alcohol to clean the new lamps. It took some time, and even if the manual explicitly said "do not lose" about 4 particular 3M bolts that was exactly what happened to one of them. It fell to the floor, two bounces was heard and then it was gone, probably it fell to the basement. The lost bolt must have moved a horizontal distance of at least 1 m, while subsequent experiments with a similar bolt showed an average horizontal displacement from the position of first floor contact of about 15 cm! However, we found new stainless steel 3M bolts and could proceed as planned. Also cooling water was renewed and before that we had changed to new filters. So, no we will hopefully get back the strong and clear light sheet that make stereo PIV such a nice method.
