Bevan's Blog

A new post

2012-01-19T23:03:00.001+13:00

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 !

2008-11-16T21:08:00.002+13:00

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

2008-07-02T14:25:00.004+12:00

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

2007-12-04T15:46:00.000+13:00

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

2007-09-10T22:25:00.002+12:00

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

2007-07-17T23:56:00.000+12:00

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

2007-05-08T23:13:00.000+12:00

Wedding

2007-04-28T13:21:00.000+12:00

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

2007-03-28T17:31:00.000+12:00

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

Thesis published

2006-11-17T16:36:00.000+13:00

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.

Passed PhD Oral Exam

2006-09-18T12:56:00.000+12:00

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 !

2006-08-14T19:34:00.000+12:00

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

2006-05-04T14:47:00.000+12:00

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

New Host for website

2006-05-01T18:02:00.000+12:00

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

2006-04-26T11:15:00.000+12:00

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

2005-11-27T22:23:00.000+13:00

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

2005-11-18T16:14:00.000+13:00

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!

2005-10-13T21:49:00.000+13:00

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

iframe

2005-09-28T15:06:00.000+12:00

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

2005-09-28T14:31:00.000+12:00

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.

Sinorhizobium to Ensifer

2005-05-30T15:36:00.000+12:00

This blog replaces the news page on my website. One major change I have made is changing all Sinorhizobium names to Ensifer. Ensifer is the earlier heterotypic synonym and thus takes priority (Young, 2003). This means that all Sinorhizobium spp. must be renamed as Ensifer spp. according to the Bacteriological code.

Reference:

Young J. M. (2003). The genus name Ensifer Casida 1982 takes priority over Sinorhizobium Chen et al. 1988, and Sinorhizobium morelense Wang et al. 2002 is a later synonym of Ensifer adhaerens Casida 1982. Is the combination "Sinorhizobium adhaerens" (Casida 1982) Willems et al. 2003 legitimate? Request for an Opinion. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 53, 2107-2110. (IJSEM Link)

Matt's Wedding

2005-05-25T22:29:00.000+12:00

From left to right: Dave, Gareth, Matt, Dean, and Me at Matt's wedding

Bibliography database

2005-03-15T15:22:00.000+13:00

My latest addition to my website is a HTML dump of my endnote bibliography database, currently this has 466 papers listed. These are some of the papers I will cite in my PhD thesis, however the list is incomplete.

If I have a paper missing that you think I should have read, please tell me about it.

10,000 Visits

2005-03-14T16:10:00.000+13:00

My website http://www.rhizobia.co.nz has now had over ten thousand visits since August 15, 2003. Most popular are my rhizobia taxonomy page and my step by step modeltest guide.

Spam and Viruses

2005-03-04T20:47:00.000+13:00

This graph shows the number of spam and viruses I have recieved over the last ten months.

Three Years

2005-03-01T11:41:00.000+13:00

On the first of March 2002, three years ago I officially started my PhD thesis. Now it has officially ended, along with my pay.

Fortunately I am nearly finished the experimental work, and then will just have the writing to go.

Gmail invites

2005-02-07T20:23:00.000+13:00

Gmail is a free web based email system that gives you 1000 MB of storage, but is invite only - currently you can't sign up. However, I now have 50 invites to give away. Leave me a message if you want one (with email address).

Skype

2005-02-03T18:43:00.000+13:00

I found out today about an interesting program called Skype http://www.skype.com. It is a program that allows you to talk (actually talk not type) over the internet at very high quality. But its most interesting thing is that can call land line phones as well (for a few cents a minute). My Skype user name is: onco_p53

http://download.skype.com/share/skypebuttons/buttons/add_blue_white_194x52.png"
class="c1" width="194" height="52" alt="
Add me to Skype" />

Wikipedia

2004-12-29T23:56:00.000+13:00

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

2004-12-12T21:00:00.000+13:00

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

2004-12-12T20:57:00.000+13:00

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

2004-12-12T20:36:00.001+13:00

A street next to the hotel.

Mountain range

2004-12-12T20:36:00.000+13:00

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

Beihai park

2004-12-12T20:34:00.000+13:00

Beihai park in Beijing

Hero

2004-12-12T20:32:00.000+13:00

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

2004-12-12T20:26:00.000+13:00

Hills surrounding the Wall

Yes that's me

2004-12-12T20:24:00.000+13:00

Here I am at the Great Wall

Climbing

2004-12-12T20:23:00.001+13:00

Climbing the Great Wall of China

2004-12-12T20:23:00.000+13:00

Building at the Ming Tombs

Statue

2004-12-12T20:22:00.000+13:00

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

Skyline

2004-12-12T20:21:00.000+13:00

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

Sunset

2004-12-12T20:20:00.000+13:00

Sunset in Beijing

Vertigo

2004-12-12T20:19:00.000+13:00

Looking down from my hotel room

Chinese power points

2004-12-12T20:17:00.000+13:00

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

2004-12-12T19:52:00.001+13:00

A thirsty Monkey

Tucan

2004-12-12T19:52:00.000+13:00

A Tucan

Cancun street

2004-12-12T19:50:00.000+13:00

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

2004-12-12T19:46:00.000+13:00

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

2004-12-12T19:40:00.000+13:00

Climbing down the pyramid, its really steep.

Moved news page here

2004-11-28T16:18:00.000+13:00

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

2004-10-05T16:39:00.000+13:00

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

2004-09-22T22:49:00.000+12:00

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

2004-09-21T13:17:00.000+12:00

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

2004-08-09T13:00:00.000+12:00

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

2004-07-01T12:00:00.000+12:00

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

2004-04-06T13:00:00.000+12:00

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

2004-01-09T13:00:00.000+13:00

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

MicroNZ 2003 Conference over

2003-10-03T13:00:00.000+12:00

On Thursday MicroNZ 2003 finished.
It was a good conference, I personally learnt that quorum sensing is much more complicated than I had first thought - the host can intercept bacterial signals, and bacteria can interpret host cytokine signaling. I also learnt about integrons - 59bp transposable genetic elements.

This photo is of some of the delegates standing around the trade stalls.

2003 NZMS / AMS Conference

2003-09-04T13:00:00.000+12:00

In about one months time from the 28th September to the 2nd October, will be the MicroNZ 2003 Conference.
This is a joint meeting of the Australian and New Zealand microbiology societies. I will be presenting a poster of my work to date there.