Going away

Evening at the gymkhana grounds

I'm going away for a while. If all goes well, I will be in Bristol tomorrow. I'll try and be good and regular on the blog, but we'll see how it goes. I've packed a very unusual camera bag by my standards, so let's see where this takes me.

I'll be away from IISc longer than I have been in nearly nine years! And I expect a lot to have changed when I return. The landscape has slowly been changing anyway, and occasionally walks in IISc feel almost lunar. But even the people I know and have spent so much time with may not be around. It feels a little disconcerting.

Babies

Ladybird larvae hatching

"Any organism has only a finite amount of time, energy and resources that it can acquire and expend during its lifetime. Its own life, like that of its babies, is also fraught with uncertainties and risks. It must when reproducing decide how best to distribute its efforts with these in mind. Several decisions have to be made. At what age must the organism begin reproduction? How many young would be ideal to produce at each reproductive event, how many reproductive events should it have in its lifetime? What is the ideal size for the young? Even deciding the sexes of the young can form part of the optimisation process."

From the Babies chapter.