Every now and again you have to step back from the daily grind and realize that there’s more to life than just “working for a living”. If you are lucky like me, you have a wonderful wife and a beautiful bunch of kids that are growing up fast to remind you of the good things in life.

When your kids succeed you feel even better – you feel good for them for overcoming their obstacles and you feel good for yourself for having had at least a small influence on their life choices.

My eldest son, Ben, who is into his last 18 months of graduate studies at USC, before he receives his PhD, has just had his first official publication in a scientific journal. His article is titled “Metagenomic analysis of a complex marine planktonic thaumarchaeal community from the Gulf of Maine” and it has just been published in the journal of Environmental Microbiology. Please DO NOT ask me what the paper is about! It runs to 14 pages and goes over my head from the very first word. But it has been published and so he deserves to receive all the credit in the world for it.

Because of copyright issues I can’t link to the paper here but if you are interested in reading more please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Posted by John Tully (proud parent!)