

Rochelle graduates
Congrats to Rochelle Silverman, a lab member for almost two years, for graduating with a physics major. Rochelle will be moving on to grad school (to be determined). We hope she'll have her pick of the litter! Thanks for all the help in our lab, Rochelle.


Cover of PNAS
We got the cover of PNAS, highlighting our dog drinking study. Our first! I prefer this version of the photo, rather than the one that is out in the media—the dog here is muted, highlighting the water column attached to its tongue. This is Sean Gart's dog Ellie, who was quite a champ in the photo shoot (and data collection).


Matt passes prelim
Congrats to Matt Giarra for passing his ME prelim. Here, Matt sends some love to the grasshopper for giving him good data, contributing to his passing. Note the proper use of safety goggles, lest the hopper spurn him and spit in his eye.


Dog drinking paper in PNAS
Congrats to Sean Gart, whose research on how dogs drink was just published by PNAS. This was one of Sean's dissertation chapters. Not bad, is an understatement! The paper can be found here, and Virginia Tech's press release can be found here. Here's the Significance statement from the paper: Cats and dogs are assumed to drink similarly, but little is known about the actual physical mechanisms that dogs use to transport fluids when lapping. We observed the drinking be- havior