A new post

Shortly I will move this sadly neglected blog over to my main website, once I get Drupal up and running. Expect to see more updates there.

Now 73 species of Rhizobia !

I have done a major update of my rhizobial taxonomy webpage, and the total number of rhizobia species is 73. I remember in the first year of my PhD there were only 23 or so described.

Post-doc

Well It has been a while since my last post. Yesterday I started a postdoc working on the pathogenic fungus Colletotrichum, still based at Landcare Research.

I have done other research as well since my PhD. You can see my research page here.

NZMS 2007

I recently attended the NZMS 2007 Conference in Wellington; it was a good conference this year. I spoke on my work with t-RFLP on grapevine fungal endophytes. David Beckham was in town at the time, and was also staying at the Copthorne Hotel, however there are two Copthornes in Wellington and his was much nicer than mine.

My Band - Shadow Dreams

My Band - "Shadow Dreams" has now got some demo tracks up at myspace.

Shadow Dreams - myspace

Sahdow Dreams - ReverbNation profile

Shadow Dreams - LastFM profile

New website design

I have redesigned my website, and will be rolling out the changes to each page over a period of weeks.

The first page up is rhizobial taxonomy.

Let me know if there are any problems.

PhD Graduation

 

Wedding

Another hectic few weeks. I got married on the 14th of April 2007. It was a great day, then we had a honeymoon in Queenstown, which was fantastic.

You can see more photos here

Over 60 rhizobial species

There are now over 60 known rhizobial species, I have just updated the taxonomy page of my website

Thesis published

At long last my PhD thesis has been published. You can find an electronic version at my website: http://www.rhizobia.co.nz/PhD/ and soon there should be a version up at the university here: http://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/. Update 4th April 2007: The location on research space is

This should be cited as:

Weir, B.S. (2006) Systematics, Specificity, and Ecology of New Zealand Rhizobia. PhD Thesis. School of Biological Sciences, The University of Auckland.

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Passed PhD Oral Exam

I had my PhD Oral exam on the 14th of September, it certainly wasn't easy, but I passed, and now just have some minor corrections to do before I can do the final printing and handing the copies to the library.

Engaged !

After three years, I proposed and now we are engaged. No date yet for the wedding. It has been a year of changes for me.

 

Site moved

It looks like my site has moved successfully to the new servers. Tell me if something is broken.

New Host for website

I am moving my website to a new host. Expect the site to be down for a bit and e-mail to be down too.

Handing in thesis

Well finally it is done. Today my thesis is at the binder, and tomorrow I have an appointment to submit.

It has taken a long time (4 years, two months) but that is fairly standard I suppose. I am just glad to get it in.

So celebration, then time to look for post-docs.

Back from Conference

The Australian conference was well worth going to. I met some interesting people from Australia and around the world. My talk won me the Alan H. Gibson Memorial Prize for best student oral presentation.

The weather was poor for most of the week, but the day after the conference the weather cleared, and I went sightseeing. Above is a picture of the "three sisters" rock formation.

Australian Nitrogen Fixation Conference

Tomorrow I leave on the plane for Sydney, where (at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains) I will attend the 14th Australian Nitrogen Fixation Conference. Here I will be giving a talk on my PhD research.

Snail Attack!

I have had strange snail bites in my mail for weeks. Now I have finally caught the culprits.

iframe

Thanks to the wonders of iframe you can now read this blog from within my news page at www.rhizobia.co.nz/news.html.

New site design

I have changed the design for my website (www.rhizobia.co.nz) slightly to a new colour scheme. Hopefully it will make it nicer to read, although I am not sure about the background at the moment.