Nana Li is now in China while Liu Yu is off this week. Their first field seasons are soon to start, which means it must be spring - even though the weather does not feel like that here. Greg has also made great progress having been able to make his first experimental modifications to SORTIE which means that he is taking the first steps towards adding climate forcing to SORTIE. The things on my plate have progressed somewhat, the TREE article has been under fire - odd since it was resubmitted a few weeks ago. Unfortunately one of the authors has taken exception to this and in an extraordinary move rather tan expressing this to his co-authors took things up with the journal. Never mind, the situation seems to be resolved now and hopefully things are back on track. The other paper I had submitted has come back from PLOS One with requests for revisions but nothing too terrible, so this may also see the light of day. The Evolution and Ecology paper on breeding season evolution fared less well and was rejected but after a helpful conversation with Andrew Beckerman - the editor, we have rewritten the paper and it will be resubmitted soon. Aris’ other piece of work on TB in badgers is going brilliantly. We have a really exciting story to tell and have put aside a few days in April to make sure we get time to write what will be an exciting manuscript. We are also working on a grant proposal for submission in July, which emerged from a conversation I had after the Kavli Meeting with Kate Lessells - always a good source of challenging thoughts. Talking of the Kavli Centre - the paper that got drafted after that meeting is now making progress again and circulating among a set of co-authors.
