Last year, I revisited Michael Levin's labs at the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology for the Verge. Previously, for New Scientist, the focus was on Levin's work with frogs. For this piece, an interesting article by Arielle Duhaime-Ross, the focus was on Levin's research on memory in flatworms. Levin designed a mechanical apparatus for training flatworms to find food in a specific location and then cut off the heads of those worms. A few weeks later, after the flatworms regrew their heads, they were put into the apparatus again and those that contained parts of the trained worms could easily find the food again. The research has roots in 1950s-era science that was treated with substantial skepticism for years.

Be sure to click through to see the article at The Verge's site; it's a beautiful layout with historical images, some video of flatworms swimming, an article brimming with history and cutting edge science, and a few of my photos. You can also see more of the photos, available for licensing, at my PhotoShelter archive: Michael Levin - Tufts University - Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology

This week's blizzard in New England got me thinking about warmer times, and I realized I hadn't shared any pictures from my 3 days in Saint Petersburg a couple summers ago for a meeting of the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission’s Sub-Working Group on Media. It was a whirlwind in the city, filled with late-night river rides, strolls down Nevskii Prospekt and the Palace Embankment, a quick tour of the Hermitage and Peterhof, and a beautiful summer afternoon on the beach outside the Peter and Paul Fortress. The last time I was in the city was, if I remember correctly, December of 2003. It was wonderful to spend a few warm days exploring the city.

The visit ended on a sour note when, about 12 hours before my flight back to the US, pickpockets surrounded me at the Gorkovskaya metro station and stole one of my lenses from off the front of my camera. I wrote a bit about that on dvafoto. Thankfully, the police were helpful in giving me a theft report (and they were very thankful that I could speak the language!) and my insurance got me a replacement within a week. I won't let the experience spoil Saint Petersburg for me. As always, looking forward to the next trip.

As I've done periodically since childhood, I spent a couple weeks in Montana hunting deer and elk with family. The weather was bitterly cold for most of the time I was there, and we didn't get anything besides some photos and walks in the cold wind. Here are a few landscapes taken while out walking in central Montana, mostly around Cascade and Judith Basin Counties.

I've got a lot more of this sort of work from the past few years in my photoshelter archive of Montana images.

Harvard students and community members gather for a "die-in" protest outside of Memorial Church in Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Many protestors wore face masks with the phrase "We can't breathe," a reference to the last words of Eric Garner, a young black man who was killed by a police officer in New York City. The protest was meant to draw attention to the Garner's death and other recent police killings of black men, including the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

You can see more images available for licensing at my archive: Die In - Eric Garner Protest - Harvard - Memorial Church

For The Verge / Vox Media, I photographed the Recovering Warrior Employment Conference in Boston last month. The event was a hiring event featuring 20 or so employers and put on by the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation's Hiring Our Heroes initiative. And while the employers included organizations such as Bank of America, GE, the Boston Fire Department, and others, my focus was on Uber, a company that's been in quite a bit of controversy lately and which is currently aiming to hire 50,000 US military veterans as part of the UberMILITARY initiative.

The event was open to the press, and while most companies had no issue talking with me or the writer of the piece, the representatives from Uber would not give me their names or share any of the brochures or pamphlets they were giving out. I typically gather information while taking pictures so I can include relevant context in the captions I submit to publications. I hate photographing people that actively don't want to be included in coverage; the Uber reps were very friendly to me, but would not provide any information after repeated inquiries by me and the writer. So, while I photographed the event, I also photographed their table and some of the veterans who listened to the Uber pitch and we gleaned whatever information we could about how the company is presenting itself to military veterans.

You can read the article by Avi Asher-Shapiro that features a few of my photos or see more of the photos in my online archive.

I'm a big fan of public gatherings, so when I heard about the Topsfield Fair, I knew I had to go. It's a long-running tradition started in 1818--one of the oldest fairs in the US, in fact--and it's host to the famous giant pumpkin contest. This year didn't beat the record two ton pumpkin from 2009, but this year's pumpkin still weighed in at 1900 pounds. Unfortunately, the day I attended was pretty rainy, but that didn't stop the crowds from checking out the performances and demonstrations.

I don't know what exactly draws me to these sorts of events. I love the sense of community, for one. And while I grew up going to rural fairs, I never expected to find such an agriculturally-focused fair so close to Boston. While a lot of the outdoor activities were hampered by the weather, it was great to see the beeswax craftmaking, milking demonstrations, model railroads, award-winning flowers, fancy chickens and rabbits, giant pumpkins, and everything else that comes with a fair. Oh, and there was a giant pink elephant there for some reason!