Mechanical Engineering of Wet-materials (MEOW) Laboratory

During the first week of March, we attended the second Quantum Biology Gordon Conference in beautiful Tuscany, Italy. More details are here.

Due to the rules stipulated by GRC, we did not take photos to commemorate the posters and the talks given by us. But we had a lot of fun learning new and exciting research, exchanging notes and discussing future plans together.

We also found time to have some wine tasting and take a group photo of MEOW lab members on our way to the vineyard. We were very happy to celebrate the news that Alejandro will join us as a postdoc very soon! Can you tell that our smiles were brighter than the Tuscan sun? Welcome aboard again Alejandro!

We made new friends. Hiking with new friends was an adventure through wooded paths and flooded trails. It was great to see so many kindred spirits from other countries who find quantum biology interesting!

Overall, we had enjoyed the GRC very much, despite knowing there was some troubling news  and a lot of uncertainty waiting when we got home. Discussing with our long-term collaborators Drs. Woodward, Bowen and Kim, and many more old/new friends psyched us to move forward bravely!

(We love Mike!)

We also visited Florence before heading home.

Hopefully, one day, our work will be remembered, like Michelangelo’s!

We are very delighted to have Prof. Raimon Sunyer at University of Barcelona visit us. Raimon is an old friend and a collaborator. His visits brings warmth in the cold month of December. And the stimulating discussion with Raimon lights up our day despite the absence of sunlight.

We chatted over pizza about the projects in MEOW lab.

We also learned the exciting new projects from Raimon’s group. The seminar was a sold-out event!

Of course we celebrated the strong and long friendship over good food with Profs. Sergey Plotnikov, Jean Liu and Ana Pasapera.

Thank you Raimon for visiting us and sharing your research with us!

After an intense week, we went hiking, a group event only occurs every seven years,  to regroup our thoughts and appreciate the fall colors at the end tail of the Fall season.

We walked along the Jones Fall trail by the creek. We saw wildlifes: deers, ducks, other birds and bugs. The weather was mild and the sun was light. It was a good afternoon on Friday.

The nature gave us serenity. With the recovered peace of mind, we gathered at a local brewery to share our thoughts.

With the special beers of pumpkin flavors, we looked forward to a hectic winter of travels, presentations and more lab works. Hooray!

To celebrate Hoff’s success in passing her DQE, we had a celebratory outing to commemorate this happy season.

At Weber’s PeachBerry Farm, we picked pumpkins.

We tried on crab hats.

We studied mechanics of apples.

Of course, we also ventured to the orchard and picked bushels of apples.

As usual, Hoff took no prisoner even when picking apples. No apple in the world is out of Hoff’s reach.

In contrast, Tony is focused on lower hanging fruits.

We really collected a lot apples- probably enough for the whole season!

We had fun!