Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a free online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. Normally it works pretty well but with the recent earthquake in the Indian Ocean, this article is receiving over 3 edits per minute. People are overwriting others changes.

Rauchen Verboten

On Friday New Zealand no smoking laws came in to effect. We celebrated by going out to the pub. It was nice coming back without the stink of smoke in your clothes and hair, no to mention the health benefits

Added some more pictures

I have just added some more pictures from China and Mexico. It is not hard to tell which photos belong to which country. A lot of the Chinese photos look fuzzy or out of focus, this is because of the very large amounts of air pollution in Beijing.

Street

A street next to the hotel.

Mountain range

A mountain range I saw as I was flying out of Beijing

Beihai park

Beihai park in Beijing

Hero

The sign says that I am a hero for climbing the Great Wall. Well actually the translation is: "One who fails to reach the Great Wall would not be regarded as a hero" - Chairman Mao

Hills

Hills surrounding the Wall

Yes that's me

Here I am at the Great Wall

Climbing

Climbing the Great Wall of China

Building at the Ming Tombs

Statue

Some important guy on a horse. This is in the midle of a very large roundabout.

Skyline

Skyscrapers as far as the eye can see. The eye could see further if it wasn't for the smog.

Sunset

Sunset in Beijing

Vertigo

Looking down from my hotel room

Chinese power points

Power points in China take New Zealand style plugs! (Upside down). They also take American style ones too. Most hotels have these but I'm not sure about out of the way places.

Monkey

A thirsty Monkey

Tucan

A Tucan

Cancun street

The streets of Cancun. Note the white paint on the bottom of the trees. This is done for asthetics and to stop bugs crawing up (so I was told).

Cancun from the air

I took this photo as we were flying out of Cancun. You can see on the wing of the aircraft that i was flying Mexicana. The Hotel is to the far left of the picture.

Going down

Climbing down the pyramid, its really steep.

Moved news page here

I have moved all of the news from my news page on my website to here. When I get some free time I will upload more photos from Mexico and China.

Chichén Itzá

During the conference we had a day off, I went on an organised tour to Chichén Itzá, the oldest Mayan city. This was fantastic, most of these buildings are 1000 years old. This day it reached 40 degrees C, and 95% humidity. I saw two ambulances speeding around.

This pyramid (Temple of Kukulcan (the Maya name for Quetzalcoatl), often referred to as "El Castillo" (the castle) is unbelievably steep, at about a 45 degree angle. Thats why there is a rope to help people walk up the steps. I found out the next day that 20 people are killed each year falling off it!. The view from the top was worth the climb though.

The Hotel

I stayed in the HyattRegency Cancun, a five star hotel, but at a discounted price of
US$110 per night. These are some pictures of in and around the hotel.




The first two photos are of sunrises, I was up at about 3am every day
thaks to jetlag, so I saw a few sunrises.

Mexico Photos

A few weeks ago I came back from Cancun, Mexico. I was there for the 10th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology (ISME). Over the next few posts I will publish a few photos with a bit of a story about them.

2004 ISME Conference

In eleven days I leave New Zealand for Cancun, Mexico. I will attend the 10th International Symposium on Microbial Ecology. Here I am presenting a poster [PDF file], and a short talk on my research.

Publication in AEM

My manuscript covering the first part of my research has been accepted by the journal: "Applied and Environmental Microbiology" This will be published in the October 2004 issue (volume 70, issue 10).

Awarded a Royal Society Travel Grant

I have been awarded a travel grant of $1000 from the Royal Society of New Zealand to go to the 14th International Congress on Nitrogen fixation in Beijing, China from the 28th October to the 1st November 2004. Here I will present some of my work on New Zealand rhizobia.

Website in Environmental Microbiology Journal

My rhizobia taxonomy page was recommended in the "Web Alert" section of the January 2004 issue of Environmental Microbiology. The author writes "This webpage offers a recent compilation of the taxonomic designations for rhizobial strains. This information is useful for navigating in a field where genus and species names have changed frequently."

Reference:

Wackett, Lawrence P. (2004). Rhizobia. Environmental Microbiology.
doi:10.1111/j.1462-2920.2004.00564.x