I feel like all successful field campaigns require a drone sacrifice sooner or later!

I went last year (Berlin) and going this year too (Helsinki), I have 4 submitted abstracts (there's no limit!). They kindly awarded me EC bursaries both times.
Highly recommend it, it was very well organized. For me, it's also a good opportunity to go back to Europe to visit family.

Europlanet offers numerous student and early career bursaries, which cover registration costs and some travel. Registration is cheaper than LPSC for students. Virtual registration is cheaper for everyone.
Also, new hosting city every year instead of the corporate swamps of The Woodlands.

If you burn down a forest, you don't miss out on lumber for just that season. You have to replant all the trees, nurture them, and wait for them to grow.

The science and research budget cuts happening now are wanton, senseless arson. Recovery, if it ever happens, will take generations.

Those nodules look like mylonites!

Yup!

Funny enough, the rats were in the ceiling, where cats used to live a few years ago.

We had this problem in our building at UA, but with rats. The finally tally was over 30, it took a few months to catch em all (plenty of pokemon and Mickey jokes). Pest control started working on it within a few days of the first sight.

"Each year, NIH awards over 60,000 grants that directly support more than 300,000 researchers at more than 2,500 different institutions. In fiscal year 2023, every $1 of NIH funding generated approximately $2.46 of economic activity" www.nih.gov/about-nih/wh...

It's the beginning of compliance and appeasement. Last time this happened, it didn't go well.