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An indoor field trip: visiting Canada’s national spider collection

Last week I traveled up to Ottawa with two of my students – our goal was to visit the Arachnid collection at the Canadian National Collection of Insects (CNCI) (and Arachnids and Nematodes). The spider collection is housed on the fourth floor of the Neatby building, in a room that seldom has its lights turned on.  Canada’s National Spider collection has been without a curator since the 1990s, when Dr. Charles Dondale retired. In fact, his name is still on the door.

Dr. Dondale

The spider collection has historically been one of the finest, world-wide. It contains numerous type specimens, and houses thousands upon thousands of vials, all within stand-up cabinets. These vials contain rich biological information – they contain a spider with a species name, where it was found, who collected it, and when. These kinds of museum data are absolutely vital as we try to understand our biodiversity, and how it might be changing in the face of environmental stresses. Museum data form the basis of taxonomic revisions, and museum specimens (identified to species, by experts) are an important way for someone to learn taxonomy (that is how I did it!).

Our goal in the spider collection was to data-base some specimens – this means taking what is written on (old) labels, and entering data into a data-base (one that will eventually go on-line). On this trip, we were looking for some records of purse-web spiders in North America, and for northern black widow spider records. We also worked to database the jumping spiders (Salticidae), with a particular focus on those species occurring in Canada.

The task of data-basing.

The task of data-basing.

You might wonder why we would take time away from our own (busy) laboratory in Montreal to drive up to Ottawa to enter data; surely there are better uses of that precious resource of time (and money)?  Nope: A visit to the CNCI is always worth it.  Here’s why:

1. Label data are useful data! I have quite a few projects ongoing this summer, including a better understanding of the distribution of jumping spiders in Quebec. There’s no better way to find certain species than going to where they have been found before.  How do you know where they have been found before? Although much can be gleaned from publications, there are hundreds of specimens that have been collected and stored at the CNCI, but whose data has never been used in a publication. Looking at vials and reading labels is a good place to start, and while doing this, it only makes sense to enter the information into a data-base. It’s not exciting work, but having data digitally accessible allows my own research interests to move forward more effectively.

Treasures in the cabinet.

Treasures in the cabinet.

2. I’m an Arachnologist in Canada, and as such, I feel a responsibility to use the collection in Ottawa. The spider room at the CNCI is where (historically) Canada become a global leader in spider taxonomy. Charlie Dondale and others (notably James Redner) wrote some of the most important papers and books about spiders in North America, and their (free!) books remain a critical resource for Arachnologists throughout North America.  The hallowed grounds of the spider room are where much of this work occurred. It’s a special place, and one that is worth visiting.

3. If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. The future is not bright for this spider collection. Surprisingly, a replacement for Charlie has not be hired. We need an Arachnologist in Ottawa (I’ve written about this before). I worry deeply for this collection, and even a few visits per year are better than none at all – it shows there is still broader interest in the spider collection, and that it remains an important resource for people from other regions of Canada. Showing continual use and interest in the collection is a great way to show its value.

4. If it’s lost, let’s hope the data are not. Time for thinking about ‘worst case scenarios‘:  every time I am at the CNCI I see evidence of further degradation of the spider collection. Spiders are stored in ethanol, long-term, and without  curation the ethanol degrades, discolours, the specimens get brittle or break apart, the labels fade or become unreadable, or perhaps a vial or two break.  The spider collection has not receive high consistent curation for a very long time. At the very least, we better have the data from those specimens, and that requires data-basing.

Trouble in the collection: A vial with a cracked glass lip.

Trouble in the collection: A vial with a cracked glass lip.

In sum, the spider room at the CNCI is a national treasure and it was really great to be there. We didn’t get much done (only about a hundred specimens databased – and, truthfully, I did very little of the hard work – my students did all the heavy lifting).  But it was a start, and means that we’ll need to come back. I sincerely look forward to the next visit!

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Expiscor (20 May 2013)

This week’s Expiscor is coming to you on a holiday Monday across much of Canada. This is the day that many Canadians feel that the ‘warm season‘ has officially arrived. We can plant things in our garden without fear of frost; the lawn shall be mowed, the birds are busy, the butterflies are flying.

What is Expiscor? …it’s a weekly digest of discoveries from the world of entomology, biology, and so much more.

  • It seems that every week there’s a story about ‘dangerous spiders‘ – this week, Bug Girl wrote a post to help FIX THE INTERNET – in this case, to discuss a bogus spider poster.
  • On the topic of jumping spiders – they can make you look twice – WOW, WOW and WOW again. (thanks Alex Wild, for that photo, and permission to use it)

Screen Shot 2013-05-19 at 3.17.12 PM

  • Biodiversity under foot – great video about threats to soil biodiversity (thanks to my former MSc student, and recent PhD graduate, Zach for posting that link.
  • Fireflies: I always find the larvae of the Lampyridae beetles to be odd-looking, and I sometimes have trouble reconciling their habitus with adults.  This is a lot easer thanks to Derek Hennen for this lovely photo of an adult – check out that abdomen! (and thanks, Derek, for allowing me to use this photo)

Screen Shot 2013-05-19 at 3.33.34 PM

  • Scale it. This is VERY worth checking out. I personally like 10 to the power of -2.5
  • A worthy ordeal: Another great post from one of my heroes, Simon Leather – a terrific tradition in the British University system.
  • Lego geek-fest. Star Wars, LOTR, Arrested Development & so much more.
  • To finish, as usual, with some music. I’ve been a fan of Steve Earle for quite a long time, and his latest album (the Low Highway) does not disappoint. Here’s a video from one of the songs from that album. Worth a listen (and a good lesson in there, too)

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What is loss?

I’m not sure I have much comprehension or real understanding of loss. I’m healthy and happy, as are my kids, as is my wife. I’ve lived a life that has so far been full of joy, love, opportunity, laughs and I have been surrounded by family and friends. I live in an amazing community – I work in an amazing place with good people. My parents are still alive. In short, I’ve not suffered any tremendous personal loss.

But loss can be small and I have surely felt it at times. Loss can be a kind of disappointment or inconvenience. Loss can be in sports, a broken leg or dislocated shoulder; it can be an inability to get that paper published, or a graduate student deciding to leave the laboratory, or some form of rejection. Small losses can sting for a little while. They are not insignificant when viewed at small scales, but they are small.

Loss can be significant. Life throws curve balls, gives some pretty sharp kicks and pays no attention to ‘good timing’. There are big losses that take up larger chunks of emotion, and affect us physically and mentally.  Kids get sick (…how many of us have stayed awake all night, laying next to our child who may have laboured breathing and suffering high fever?).  I’ve lost grandparents, I’ve had friends who have passed away, and I’ve had pets who have died. I’ve also been near to people who have suffered tremendous loss, especially recently. If it stings and hurts for me, it must be unbearable for them. I think I’m dreadfully scared of large-scale loss and I don’t know how people get through it.

From a broader perspective, this has me reflecting on what is constant about our lives. Are there any constants? Perhaps only that life is both fragile and unpredictable – that’s a difficult combination.  When things are good, at their most basic level (health, food, roof), things are really, really good. That is an important thing to remember. When things go south, life makes little sense, it seems unfair and we despair.  This is a confirmation of the fragile and the unpredictable.

When facing significant loss, why should we not despair and call it unfair?

Here’s why: the people I have seen go through significant loss, and who have been in dark places, do emerge from those places. The continue, they fight, they move on. They don’t forget, they don’t get over grief, they don’t get over the loss, but they do carry on. These are my heroes.  Of course, this is my view, from the outside, and I certainly don’t pretend to understand. But I do take inspiration from people who move on and eventually laugh and smile again, after what must be the unbearable context of tremendous loss.

I’ve talked and written before about the importance of ‘slowing down‘. I believe this more strongly now than ever before. Be mindful, be caring. Curve balls are coming. None of us will be be spared those sharp kicks.

To end, a few lyrics from Tom Petty – I heard these while driving in to work, after just learning of a friend who suffered tremendous loss.

Well I know what’s right, I got just one life

In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around

But I’ll stand my ground and I won’t back down

 

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Landing an tenure track job in entomology: perfecting the practice of academic kung fu

This is re-posted from the Entomological Society of Canada’s blog, and is written by Chris Buddle (McGill University) and Dezene Huber (University of Northern British Columbia)

Last autumn there was quite an interesting discussion on twitter among some entomologists in Canada about the ‘job search’ – more specifically focused on the process of seeking tenure-track academic appointments.  Many of us shared our sob stories, and although the time, place and characters varied, the common element was REJECTION.  Those of us who currently are lucky enough to hold faculty appointments remember the rejection to success ratio, and some of us still have stacks of rejection letters.  While most of us really enjoyed the academic freedom that came with working as a postdoc, the job-search process was more often than not discouraging and deflating, and a really difficult time in our lives.

Towards the end of the PhD program, most of us are riding high – our papers are getting published, we are truly ‘experts’ in our fields of study, we are being congratulated, buoyed by our peers and mentors, and we are ready to take on the world.   We found ways to get a post-doc and perhaps traveled to a different country for additional experience, with a sense of hope, optimism, and enthusiasm for the next stage of our careers.

Then, like the world supply of helium, our hopes were quickly diminished.

“I will easily get a job interview at THAT University”.

Nope.  Not even an interview.

“Perfect – that job advertisement was MADE for me – they will hire me.  It’s a perfect fit”.

Nope. A mass e-mail rejection letter instead.

“I’m the GREATEST in my field of study.  Universities will be asking me to apply”

Nope.  That never happens.

”I’m sure that I’ll be seriously considered for this position”

Nope. The rejection letter came back saying that there were more than 400 applicants for the position.

“Even if I don’t get the job, I’ll be able to get feedback from someone on the committee.”

Nope. It’s highly unlikely that, among the 400 applicants, anyone on the committee even remembers you.

There are really two ways to look at this.  It is possible to get discouraged and frustrated, and give up hope OR it’s possible to see that persistence can pay off and eventually the right job will come along, and you will be competitive.  Sure, the opportunities have to be there, but that kind of timing and ‘luck’ isn’t something you can control.

Here are a few pointers that will hopefully help you think about that tenure-track job search, and give you a sense of optimism:

  • It will take a huge dose of patience and persistence, but there ARE tenure-track jobs out there for people with Entomological interests, even in Canada. Recently, Manitoba hired an entomologist, and University of Ottawa just hired an assistant professor on the evolution of plant-pollinator interactions.
  • University professors do eventually retire! (…Although it needs to be noted that the reality in the current economy is that their positions are not always replaced)
  • You don’t have to restrict your options to only University positions.  We know of faculty members who worked in private companies, or in government, and made a lateral transfer, eventually, to academia.  Your holy grail may be a tenure-track job, but other opportunities are equally rewarding and could eventually get you a tenure-track job. Or you may find that life “beyond the ivory tower” is much to your liking anyhow. In fact, you may be interested in the advice column at Chronicle.com by that very name.
  • Be creative with your CV.  There are relatively few jobs for entomologists, sensu stricto, but there are jobs for evolutionary biologists, ecologists, or other more ‘general’ disciplines (Look: you can apply for a term position in biology at St Mary’s!)  Re-work your cover letters and CV to reflect your potential in these jobs, and that you use insects as ‘model organisms’. And always tailor your cover letter and CV to any job for which you apply. Don’t just send in the same material to every search committee. Search committees are looking for that elusive thing that we call “fit.”
  • Keep your eye on the ball:  to get that coveted university position, the peer-reviewed publication remains the MOST IMPORTANT item on your CV.  Publish, publish, publish. During this stage of your career, keep the focus on that part of the research process. In particular, enjoy the fact that, as a postdoc, you are relatively free to conduct research and publish without many of the other responsibilities (e.g., teaching, administration) that will come with a tenure-track post.
  • Be realistic. If a job ad states that the committee is looking for an acarologist specializing in the mites of toucans, and you are an acarologist who studies toucan mites, then you have a good chance of landing an interview. If the job ad asks for a “terrestrial ecologist working at any scale from microbial to landscape” and you fit somewhere in there, chances are so do a few hundred other recent graduates.
  • When you see something that looks potentially appropriate for you, apply. Rejection is painful but costs nothing; not applying to something that might have worked out is doubly painful.  People who have agreed to write you letters of recommendation will be patient with you (if they are not, perhaps they are not the right people to give you a letter…?)
  • Have another postdoc or your mentor read through your application material. Chances are your mentor has been on a few search committees and can give you useful tips.
  • Every time you apply for a job, consider it a chance to improve your application material.
  • When you do land an interview, prepare for it like there’s no tomorrow. You are a researcher, do your best to figure out everything that you possibly can about the department to which you are applying and, even more, the personalities that make up that department.  Once you get an interview, this means your CV is strong enough, and the job interview is about the ‘fit’.
  • Landing an academic position is not always going to be in the cards for everyone. It is best to have alternate plans so that you don’t get stuck in the so-called postdoctoral holding pattern for years and years. At least one of us (DH) committed to himself to start to explore alternate options at the five year mark after walking the convocation stage. Have a plan B. Your Plan B might actually turn out better than your Plan A in the end.
  • Rejection in terms of tenure-track jobs is really just a warm-up to the continual sense of rejection you will feel if you do end up working as a Professor.  You might as well get used to it.  This is not a statement to bring on doom and gloom: it’s the reality.  You must develop broad shoulders.

Rejection is a fundamental and core part of the academic life: The publication process is becoming so difficult that you can pretty much assume that your paper will get rejected the first few times around (check out this paper about rejection rates…).  Funding agencies are cash-strapped, and it’s getting harder and harder to find ways to fund research projects.  High caliber graduate students will ‘shop around’ for the best graduate program, and will often reject your laboratory. Be a practitioner of academic kung fu – use the weight of rejection against rejection itself by learning from it and applying it to your next attempt.

Depressed yet?

Don’t be.  A tenure track has so many advantages, and these far outweigh the annoying stream of rejections. And the other options available to a bright, young researcher are often as appealing (and usually pay more) than being on the tenure track anyhow.  ..but that’s a topic for another post.

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Expiscor (13 May 2013)

Start your week with some discoveries: from entomology to natural history, Academia & beyond! Expiscor – a weekly digest. (you can find past editions here).

  • In other entomology news, a paper about fatigue of insect cuticle. Yes, insects do wear out, eventually (mind you, it took 100,000 cycles before the wing samples failed!).
Photo by D. Llavaneras, reproduced here with permission.

Photo by D. Llavaneras, reproduced here with permission.

  • Hipsters – that was so last year. The current fad is clearly THRIPSTERS (again, Ainsley Seago show up in Expiscor!).
  • A milestone I’d rather we did not reach: Carbon dioxide levels pass 400 ppm. Not good news. So, I suppose I should not let my car idle while I stop in for groceries, right?
  • Muzzled Government scientists in Canada – here’s a must-read article on the topic from Maclean’s Magazine.  Here’s a quote from David Schindler: ‘They’re [the gov't] all for science that will produce widgets that they can sell and tax, but it’s clear that environmental scientists are lumped right down there with Greenpeace in their view’
  • Speaking of food, this photo essay has been around for a while, but worth a look – it’s all about how groceries for a week, from around the world.  Clearly quite a lot of us overeat.
  • Achoo! Allergy season is upon us here in the Montreal area – pollen counts are apparently ridiculously high this year (yes, you can get a ‘pollen report‘).  Here’s the hood of my car one morning last week:

Screen Shot 2013-05-11 at 3.16.29 PM

  • Where in the world am I?  Great little game using Google Street View. I spent a lot of time playing with this on the weekend – amazing to see what ‘clues’ tell you where you might be. Street signs, styles of the cars, electrical lines (above ground, or not?).
  • Here’s a nice idea: suspended coffee.  Buy an extra coffee for someone who may later come along and need a coffee but be unable to pay for it.
  • Good news for Dale Boyle (a guy with more than a few McGill connections). He’s a heck of a songwriter and that was recognized recently. Incidentally, he also sold me a guitar a few years back and that was a catalyst for me to start playing music again. Although this particular video doesn’t display his songwriting skills, it sure is lovely:

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The case of the missing genitalia: copulation costs for male spiders

This post is written by Chris Buddle (Associate Professor, McGill University). This article was originally published in “The Canadian Arachnologist” – a newsletter about Arachnology in Canada (this newsletter is no longer being published). 

Spider sex can be a dangerous and costly venture, the classic example being the (often) misunderstood act of sexual cannibalism (e.g., the black widow spider). However, many of the costs for males are not always so obvious: during copulation, the emboli of some male spiders may break off, which results in the male being unable to properly re-fill his palpal organ and mate again (Foelix 1996). Without this ability, the male’s future is essentially an early retirement. While sorting and identifying spiders for my dissertation research, I noticed that male Cybaeopsis euopla (a ‘hackledmesh’ weaver spider) seemed to frequently be missing one or both of their pedipalps.  Could this be another example of a copulation cost?

Looking to the literature, missing pedipalps are documented with some species – tiny males from the sexually dimorphic genus Tidarren (Theridiidae) will remove their own palps and this increases their running speed considerably (Ramos et al. 2004). Working with the same genus, Knofach and van Harten (2001) observed that females remove one of the male’s palps ‘after achieving genitalia coupling’. The female then proceeds to eat the male, while the detached palp acts as both a mating plug and continues to inseminate the female! Something similar happens with the species Nephilengys malabarensis and this fascinating biology was reported by science bloggers such as Ed Yong. In the wolf spider (Lycosidae) Pardosa milvina, frequent palpal losses were observed and effects on courtship and mating were studied by Lynam et al. (2006). Perhaps not surprisingly, these authors report that ‘intact males were less likely to be cannibalized and suffered fewer predatory attacks by females than autotomized males’.

With that background, I began counting the frequency of missing pedipalps for a sub-sample of the specimens of C. euopla. The objective was to assess the percentage of males were missing right, left, or both pedipalps and see if this related to phenology or other life-history events.

The samples came from a mixed-wood forest at the George Lake Field Station, located about 75 km NW of Edmonton, Alberta. This mature mixed-wood forest is dominated by trembling aspen and balsam poplar. Samples were collected using standard pitfall traps, and were part of several other projects on spider assemblages in mixed-wood boreal forests (e.g., see Buddle 2001).

Cybaeopsis euopla - lovely little spiders! (Photo by C. Buddle)

Cybaeopsis euopla – lovely little spiders! (Photo by C. Buddle)

Cybaeopis euopla (Amaurobiidae) (formerly Callioplus euoplus) is widespread in Canada, ranging from the Maritimes to the far north-west (Leech 1972). Males are about 3.5 to 5 mm in length, and are pale orange to light brown in colour. Specimens are typically collected from the leaf-litter of closed-canopy deciduous forests (Leech 1972; Buddle et al. 2000). From a sample of 653 male C. euopla, I found a total of 309 (or 47%) to be missing either one or both pedipalps. This is an impressive number, and essentially means that about half the males in the population are missing the very parts of their bodies that are required for reproduction. Of the 309 that were missing pedipalps, 124 were missing the left pedipalp, 97 were missing the right pedipalp, and 88 were missing both. In virtually all cases, the pedipalp was severed at the trochanter-femur joint. So the most plausible explanations for missing pedipalps are:

  • Pedipalp autotomy occurs during the act of copulation
  • The female may remove the pedipalps before, during or after copulation
  • C. euopla males may use their pedipalps in antagonistic courtship behaviours
  • Perhaps pedipalps are frequently used to grapple with aggressive prey, and are thus damaged.

It would be difficult to relate missing pedipalps to the act of copulation without detailed studies of courtship and copulation in C. euopla. However, the fate of pedipalps could be determined indirectly if the frequency of missing pedipalps increased during the reproductive period. The period of reproduction for ground-dwelling spiders, such as C. euopla, can be assessed from the peak activity period for male and female spiders, inferred from a passive sampling technique such as pitfall trapping. Using a larger data-set for male and female C. euopla collected by pitfall traps set at the George Lake Field Station, it is evident that males are most active early in the season (early May through the end of June) (Figure 1). Females were found throughout the spring and summer months over two years, with a slight increase in late June (Figure 1). These results generally agree with Leech (1972), who suggests May and June are the main periods of activity for C. euopla. Thus, it is inferred that this species will mate primarily in the spring in central Alberta.

Fig 1

The next step is to ask whether the frequency of missing pedipalps is related to the hypothesized mating period. This was done by calculating the average percentage of males with missing pedipalps as a function of sampling date (Figure 2). In both sampling years, the percentage of males with missing pedipalps increased as the season progressed (Figure 2). Although the sample size for July samples was low (12 individuals), the average number missing pedipalps was over 80%. Furthermore, the earliest sampling date in 1999 (6 May), which collected over 200 individuals, had the lowest average percentage of males with missing pedipalps (< 20%). These results indirectly suggest that as the season progresses, and the spiders mate, males begin to lose their pedipalps. I can therefore likely exclude the possibility that palpal loss is related to aggressive prey, and the explanation is likely related to courtship or copulation.

Fig 2

This small study has raised as many questions as it has answered, and there are certainly other explanations that I have failed to mention. I invite fellow Arachnologists to comment on the phenomenon of missing pedipalps in C. euopla, and in other species.  I suspect pedipalp loss is widespread, but seriously understudied. Given this importance of palps to the fitness of spiders, future research is certainly warranted.

References:

Buddle, C. (2001). Spiders (Araneae) associated with downed woody material in a deciduous forest in central Alberta, Canada Agricultural and Forest Entomology, 3 (4), 241-251 DOI: 10.1046/j.1461-9555.2001.00103.x

Buddle, C., Spence, J., & Langor, D. (2000). Succession of boreal forest spider assemblages following wildfire and harvesting Ecography, 23 (4), 424-436 DOI: 10.1034/j.1600-0587.2000.230405.x

Foelix, R.M. 1996. The Biology of Spiders. Oxford University Press.

Knoflach, B., & van Harten, A. (2001). Tidarren argo sp. nov. (Araneae: Theridiidae) and its exceptional copulatory behaviour: emasculation, male palpal organ as a mating plug and sexual cannibalism Journal of Zoology, 254 (4), 449-459 DOI: 10.1017/S0952836901000954

Leech, R. 1972. A revision of the nearctic Amaurobiidae (Arachnida: Araneida). Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Canada 84: 1-182.

Lynam, E., Owens, J., & Persons, M. (2006). The Influence of Pedipalp Autotomy on the Courtship and Mating Behavior of Pardosa milvina (Araneae: Lycosidae) Journal of Insect Behavior, 19 (1), 63-75 DOI: 10.1007/s10905-005-9008-x

Ramos, M. (2004). Overcoming an evolutionary conflict: Removal of a reproductive organ greatly increases locomotor performance Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101 (14), 4883-4887 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0400324101

ResearchBlogging.org

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Expiscor (6 May 2013)

Welcome to May! Expiscor is still going strong, and thanks to everyone for the continued support and interest. I’m certainly thrilled about this, and will continue to post weekly links about entomology, arachnology, natural history, biology and a dash of the curious and odd.

  • Silk farming and biotechnology: the future is here. This paper describes some things that I don’t fully understand, and I am partially fascinated by, and partially terrified about, the idea (anyone read Margaret Atwood‘s book, Oryx & Crake?).
  • On the death of a bug blog? Ted MacRae posts about waning interest by readers, and perhaps by him, with his fabulous Beetles in the Bush blog. Ted will keep posting (phew!) but less regularly. Actually, I have noticed that over the past six months or so quite a few bug blogs have been less active.  This saddens me – high quality entomology blogs are an important way for this discipline to reach a wide audience.  Come on, folks – keep them going!
  • Palpal action. and check out this stunning photo from Chthoniid!  Yes, Harvestmen are among the most lovely of the Arachnida.
A charming harvestmen. © Chthoniid, reproduced here with permission.

A charming harvestmen. © Chthoniid, reproduced here with permission.

  • Worried about the decline of bees and colony collapse disorder?  Read this –> an important message (thanks Bug Girl for posting this)
  • On-line reading – I have been enjoying Nautilus this past week. Here’s their motto: “Nautilus is a different kind of science magazine. We deliver big-picture science by reporting on a single monthly topic from multiple perspectives. Read a new chapter in the story every Thursday”.  Definitely one to follow. And it’s a lovely site to look at.
  • Avoid that mumbo-jumbo.  Here’s Alan Alda’s take on scientific jargon.  Here’s a great quote from him:  ”There’s no reason for the jargon when you’re trying to communicate the essence of the science to the public because you’re talking what amounts to gibberish to them“.  He’s right.
  • Think you’r a pretty big deal? What to think about your place in the Universe? Think again. (thanks Sam Heads for tweeting that link!)
  • Kids have an interesting fashion sense. Here’s a photo of my 9 year old, en route to school.  I wish we could all worry a little less about whether or not things might clash, and just be happy that we have clothes to wear and food to eat.
Fashion. That is all.

Fashion. That is all.

  • Unless you’ve been off the grid for months, you have probably heard of the great Canadian Chris Hadfield, up on the International Space Station. He and Barenaked Ladies frontman Ed Robertson teamed up a while ago to write and perform a song (yes, Chris was in SPACE during the recording). Well, this was all leading up to MUSIC MONDAY, which is today. A fabulous celebration about music – all the details are here.  And the video of the Hadfield/Robertson song is below. Worth a listen.
  • ….on a related note, Chris Hadfield has more twitter followers than Canada’s Prime Minster (and for good reason).