United in Los Angeles

A quick update from Los Angeles.  A while back we mentioned that I would be moving to LA to take a job at USC.  That move occurred after the field season in New Mexico, and so both H2VP authors are now residents of Los Angeles (and USC)!  I have a lot to get running and I am terribly behind the schedule I set for myself in late August, so blogging will be rare until I am caught up.

In the meantime, I have posted a slightly longer update at http://aeroevo.blogspot.com/2012/10/updates.html.  You'll see, in short, what I've been up to these last two months...

Back from the Field

Very successful field outing in New Mexico.  I'll let Justin take care of posting about the field trip, as he was our fearless field leader.  Some other highlights from the last few weeks:

- We are both nearing completion of a major manuscript that should make a big splash in the avian flight origins literature

- It looks like I will be adding a swarm motion component to my research base in the near future.  Exciting stuff!

- Data collection underway for some more azhdarchid pterosaur motion and size estimate work.  This will be the best hindlimb cross-sectional work for an azhdarchid, along with some some quite good forelimb data.

- I've been doing the Twitter gig for some months now, particularly contributing to Science140.  My Twitter handle is @aeroevo

Cheers!

--Mike

Field Work

I'm leading my first field expedition ever this summer, taking a crew from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and associated colleagues to New Mexico for two weeks. I've been second in command on a number of expeditions and involved in probably a dozen or so, but this is the first time that I've been the primary budgeter, scheduler, organizer and everything else. It's an amazing experience, but sometimes it feels like trying to herd cats to make it all come together. I have a new appreciation for the complexity and expense of fully managing a field crew now and it's been an amazing experience. It will definitely be easier next time. I'm through the looking glass now. The kind of looking glass that only appears when you've spent time researching and negotiating for a company to drop port-o-potties in the middle of BLM land, 51 miles from the nearest town. It's a truly unique experience. I'm spending nearly two weeks in and around the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness in northwestern New Mexico. Mike is going to come join the crew for a week, which will be his first time out in the field. Expect lots of exciting (hopefully) updates in a couple of weeks and pictures regardless. This is some of the most stunning geology I've ever seen. -JTH

Pterosaur.net: The Beauty of Big

Greetings all!  Hoping to get some more material up on H2VP soon, but in the meantime, those of you that don't already follow p.net might find my latest post on that site interesting: it involves the possible selective advantages of being a giant flyer. Turn your cursors here.

Aero Evo

Greetings everyone!  Just a quick note that on April 4th I launched a new blog, called Aero Evo.

I will still be posting here to H2VP, of course.  Aero Evo fulfills a different sort of niche.  First and foremost, I will be specifically discussing animal flight - particularly the evolution of flight (as opposed to all manner of biomech topics here at H2VP).

The format is also going to be different from H2VP. I have designed this blog to be a rapid-fire, regularly updated feed.  I expect to post something almost every day (holidays and such excepted, of course). Posts will typically be short - when I have something more lengthy to say, I will link over to H2VP or Pterosaur.net.  In this way, it falls within the realm of so-called "micro-blogging", though not as extreme as things like Twitter (I also have a Twitter account, incidentally, called aeroevo).