Possibly Insightful Ramblings

Remember my little friend Skunky the ninja ? Well there is another animal in the depths of the Bean Museum that always brings joy to my heart. I've affectionately named him Gandalf. I think any Balrog would stop at the sight of this little guy.

As a biologist, I get super excited when I see plants and animals. Like, really. I mean, think about how incredible it is that millions of tiny cells make a flower able to photosynthesize, and little elephant cells give the elephant its trunk. The little storage vacuoles are keeping the lilies turgid so they don't wilt, and the pigments not only make the flowers look gorgeous, but they allow them to use light (LIGHT! Seriously!) to synthesize their food and structural components. Life is nothing short of a miracle, and zoos and gardens make me stand in reverent awe. Earlier this summer my family went to the Hogle Zoo. The zoo had acquired some cute, still-surviving specimens of creatures we thought to be extinct. But my buddy the T-Rex was very much alive. Actually, no. But he tried hard to be. Look at all those little elephant cells! It boggles my mind every time, just thinking about how they work together so perfectly to make an elephant. Look at how different gene...

Within the depths of the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum resides a spotted skunk. But this is not just your everyday, run-of-the-mill spotted skunk. No - this is an epic, talented, hand-standing skunk that would be about to spray you had it not met its untimely death years ago. Super cute, no? Earlier this year, I applied for a position with the Western North American Naturalist, a peer-reviewed, scientific journal headquartered in the Bean Museum. When my future boss invited me in for an interview, she informed me that the journal office was right next door to the hand-standing skunk. Not yet fully understanding the implications of such a hand-standing skunk, I thought that was an unusual method of direction-giving. Shortly after beginning my job, I read an article about the journal in a magazine. Much to my amusement, the article introduced the journal as residing next door to my skunk buddy. I laughed to myself at the strange obsession that seemed to exist with this...