Ceratium, Alberta's Carnivorous Alga

Ceratium hirundinella, featured above, is a single-celled dinoflagellate, which may very well be the coolest non-dinosaur name given to a creature. Its name is well-deserved: Ceratium is a monster. It is the fastest moving of the algae, and it is a carnivore, actively hunting down other algae while also generating food from the sun. During periods of stress, they can form cysts that are resistant to winter temperatures and dehydration. The hardiness of these cysts has enabled Ceratium to spread throughout the northern hemisphere. It is apparently also making inroads in South America.

Dileptus, the Carnivorous Elephant of Albertan Ponds

I'm getting more comfortable using my microscope to identify the incredible diversity of organisms living in Alberta's ponds. Rather than keep this to myself, I thought I'd post every now and then on some critter I've identified. Of everything I have seen so far, the species featured below has given me the greatest heebie-jeebies.

Home: A Sermon

The following is a sermon I gave at Pine Lake Life Camp (formerly family camp) over the 2012 May long weekend.

Read Luke10:25-37

HOME: What images or words does this word conjure?

The point for this morning’s talk is quite simple: we all desire home, so loving your neighbour as yourself, being a neighbour to others, means bringing home to the world.  That is the church’s mandate, and it needs to be the basis of our daily living decisions.  We’re going to go through Genesis 1 and 2 to see what home is.  We’ll see how humanity became homeless, but not just humanity; and then we will consider the work of Christ to make this world home again.  Finally, we will see that as Christians we are called to restore this home for others.

Crazy @%%&^ Life in a Pond

Creation Groans was on Saturday, and it was a huge success.  As part of the day, I brought out my microscope and showed life in a drop of water, as an example of my 'Ecological Happy Place'.  Below are some videos that I took the day before and after the event, of some really amazing creatures.

Creation Groans

Should Christians care for the environment?  This is the leading question at a workshop being put on by myself and Ryan Scruggs on June 23 at Bow Valley Christian Church.  Yes, that's right, a scientist and a theologian are working together to discuss the environment!  If you know anyone who might be interested, please pass this on to them.  It should be a rewarding but challenging discussion, as we discuss the tension between evangelism and environmentalism, climate change, overfishing, the theology of creation care and much more!  Snacks will be provided.  See the poster for more information, or go to http://www.bvccweb.ca/creationgroans/index.htm

We are asking that people register ahead of time so we have an idea of numbers, but we will certainly accept people at the door!  If you have questions, please let me know.

Life in a Pond

Yesterday a new toy arrived in the mail for me (as a graduation present!) - a Celestron digital microscope!  I immediately acquainted myself with the denizens of a pond at the University of Calgary - below are my first images, as I attempted to master this amazing piece of technology.  The main lesson from this is that there is a lot of life in our ponds (these images come from about seven drops of water), and that I am terrible at identification:

The Great Invisible Pale Blue Dot, and Slug Sex

This weekend I am extracting RNA (it is 8:30 pm on a Friday night and just now have a 15 minute break as my RNA precipitates in isopropanol) and simply could not write a lengthy article, which I am sure upsets you all.  But never fear!  I wouldn't leave you with nothing.  So below are two fascinating videos.  It is your homework to watch them and reflect on their theological significance.

For the first video, the first Youtube comment was '266 evangelical christians were scared off by this video.'  Why would someone immediately think negatively about evangelical Christianity when seeing this video?  Is there anything in it for evangelicals to fear?






What is the theological significance of this video?  I promise you, one exists.