White-winged diuca finches nest on glaciers.....

....the only birds other than penquins known to do so. Doug Hardy has spent a lot of time setting up and maintaining remote weather stations on mountain-top glaciers with Ray Bradley (UMass.) and Lonnie Thompson (Ohio State, where he studies ice cores that suggest Global Warming is human-induced [sorry], nicely summarized in Mark Bowen's book "Thin Ice" [2005, Henry Holt, NY]). Doug's 12-yr old son is a co-author on the peer-reviewed "ice-bird" paper. Not sure how long this link will stay up as a freebie.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/11/17/paper_is_a_feather_in_young_birders_cap/

Go Spencer (who is 14, not 12, but that doesn't really matter, he's impressive as hell)!

Getting a peer-reviewed academic paper published is no mean feat, especially if you're not yet attending college or University.

That's awesome, I'm sure this kid has a bright scientific future ahead of him.

This was on a segment of WBUR news this morning. Doug and Spencer were interviewed. More info on the WBUR website.

Very cool! I love how his "institutional affiliation" was his elementary school. Hopefully he's got the writing bug now. I keep on trying to get my colleagues at work to write more... maybe I'll show them this.

Weatherman