Changes in Latitudes

Work is going fine. My boss has given me some lab activities to keep me interested in my work, so I'm testing antibodies. The positive control turned out as expected, but it is such a pretty staining that I have to share the picture. This is an embryo of a starlet sea anemone ( Nematostella sp.) approximately 30 hours old. The green is actin (a protein in cell walls), the blue is nuclei, and the red/pink is clusters of DNA. There are some pretty examples of cell division in this embryo! Also, as of a couple weeks ago I'm officially a published scientist! ....well, the paper has been accepted for publication, so it will likely not be in the journal before next year. The journal is called ICES Journal of Marine Science. Furthermore, this weekend the mountains got a nice thick layer of snow, so I took Pancho up for his first time in a proper bit  of snow (not counting the icy leftovers that were on Jutenheimen this summer). He's now 6 months old and weighs bout 34...

Under the Surface of Gjelvågan from Justine Diaz on Vimeo .

Back in February I was contacted by Cheil Worldwide, an advertising agency, about using a clip from one of the videos I made from my underwater adventures for a bottled water commercial in South Korea. We weren't sure whether this was a scam or the real deal. Mom was convinced it must be a scam, and Marius was also skeptical. For a couple valid reasons: How would they find my video among the thousands of others on the internet? They couldn't send a check and Pay-Pal was "unstable" in Korea, so they would have to do a bank transfer...a little strange for Americans since we live in the 1950s and still use checks when the rest of the developed world doesn't. I felt confident after a series of email exchanges that this was the real deal. I was offered $300 for 2 seconds of footage that I took while snorkeling in Mexico. The footage will be aired for 6 months. And ta da! Here you have it. The commercial for jeju samdasoo bottled water in Korea. I tried to s...

Marius and I are about 90% moved in at the apartment we are renting in an area of Oslo called Sagene. The living room is mostly finished, except for the bare walls. There's some open holes from the previous owners that I'll cover up with pictures that we have. The kitchen is much smaller than we're used to, but it's good at making us clean up right after cooking to have space to do other things. The couch is a pull out - visitor ready!  [Those boxes should be gone once we get a bookshelf and TV table] [Old pictures from the early 80's taken by Mom and Dad are on display - how Hipster of me] The bathroom just needs a shelf and towel rack, but it was messy so I didn't take a picture of it. The bedroom is also a bit of a mess with clothes that have to be sorted into summer and winter clothes...this is a dilemma for Marius since he has so many shirts.  The area is really nice. Only about 2 miles from downtown Oslo. I have yet to master the pub...

Yesterday the World Cup of sprint skiing was in Drammen - a short 30 minute train ride from Oslo. I wore my 2006 USA Torino Winter Games shirt and had my American flag. I can imagine there was another fellow patriot at the event, but I was not able to spot them in the sea of Norwegian flags. P.S. I have posted similar stuff on Facebook, so I'm sorry if this is a repeat. Anyways...I got there while the skiers were warming up. There were many familiar faces and names from the recent Olympics in Sochi, Russia. On the US squad, I saw the one and only Kikkan Randall warming up - definitely in the zone. She has won the world cup sprint title the last two years, so she is a fairly well known name in Norway. Also on the line up was Ida Sargent and Sophie Caldwell. Caldwell placed 6th overall in the sprint competition in Sochi. On the men's side, we had Andy Newell and Simi Hamilton. And of course, the Norwegians were ecstatic when they saw Marit Bjørgen and Therese Johaug -- and ...

2014 was kicked off with a snorkel trip with Marius, his parents and his sister (Katrine), followed by a 2-dive scuba trip with Katrine the next day. The visibility was awesome and the variety of marine life that I had not yet seen in the wild was remarkable!  [One of the best pictures from the GoPro] [Marius] Marius was supposed to go diving with us, but he woke up feeling ill. Katrine and I had two dives. The first one was around 19 m depth at an area called Tortugas. In the first five minutes once we had descended, we spotted two bull sharks! There were also multiple sea turtles; I think they were hawksbill or green sea turtles. I couldn't see the difference. Green and spotted moray eels were also a highlight! The second dive was around 12 m, much more shallow, and mainly reef fish and sea turtles. Spotted a few lion fish - invasive and poisonous! After the dive I bought the video that the dive shop's videographer made, but I have uploaded my footage from my ...

This weekend I earned my dry suit certificate. Dry suit diving proved to be quite a challenge, and I definitely need more practice. There seemed to be so many things going on! Marius and I took the course together out in an area slightly west of Bergen city center called Laksevåg (Salmon Bay) with Nemo Classic Diving. The course consisted of: A couple hours of theory: our instructor went through the manual with us and showed us the different exposure suits. Then 2 dives. The first dive was on Saturday, and the primary purpose was to get us used to diving in the dry suit. I was given a dry suit that turned out to be one size too big! I was getting air leaking out of my neck and water seeping in towards my chest. Every time I would add air into my suit it would escape through my head and then suddenly I found myself either rapidly sinking or shooting up to the surface! Marius and the other girl in our group had a great dive, meanwhile I was bobbing from 10 m depth to the surface. Wa...

GoPro video from our snorkel/sunset cruise in Key West. Click Here!