Edward, the Baby Rhino

Victoria and Edward from http://endextinction.org

It’s been a frustrating couple of weeks, and it’s been a little tougher for me to stay positive. Thanks to social media (which I am pulling further and further away from except for Instagram; feel free to follow me at @RumpleDumple there), it is harder and harder for me to avoid all the bad news in the world. I mean, I don’t want to bury my head in the sand, but I get that the world is currently a literal dumpster fire. but I don’t need to know all the details all the time. Fortunately, in the past month or so, we’ve seen some really good news: the birth of Edward, the first baby rhinoceros born by artificial insemination in North America. Watching the videos from San Diego Zoo Safari Park have filled me with so much joy, I thought this week I would share them with you.

Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, AZ

At the end of July, I took a quick trip to Tucson to attend the Botany 2019 conference. Well, to attend just a tiny bit of it: my dad was a prominent botanist, and my family is funding an award to help fund the work of graduate students in his name. That award was announced at the Botanical Society of America’s annual conference this year. My mother and brother weren’t able to attend, so I decided to head out there to represent the family.