Biggest news of the summer is that the outrageously talented and insightful Alec Downie successfully defended his Ph.D. and is now officially Dr. Alec!!! His dissertation is possibly the only one in the universe that includes data on both mice and elephant seals — but of course there may be a Dr. Alec in a parallel universe who also has such broad interests and such a wide size range of study organisms?!? Congratulations to you, Alec — we will miss you when you head to Germany.