10 Feb 2005, 10:09 am
Hi All Aspies & Co,
I've just found this site surfing the web, and it looks great.. I think I've landed on the "rightplanet" 
I am an Italian 28 yo male, graduate student in Biology. I've always had the sensation I had something different from other people, that other persons couldn't fully understand me and that my way of looking at the world was somehow different..
... Then a few years ago I came accross an article about Asperger syndrome and the description seemed quite a familiar one 
Since then I've searched in the web, read articles and self descriptions of other Aspies, and I got more and more convinced that I must have an ASD; finally I took an online test and response was positive.
Well, something more about myself: I took a degree in Biology cause since I was a child I've alway been attracted by animals and other life forms; I remember that since the age of 4, I used to spend even hours warching animal pictures in zoology books , and wandering about exotic or phantastic places.
Now I am a student in behavioral ecology, and so far I've worked mainly with birds. And yes, that's where my nickname comes from; actually I have the impression that in the community there are quite a few people with biological interests, isn'it? (could be another diagnostical character 
)
Besides natural sciences and Biology, my major interests are history, anthropology, travelling, literature, music (mainly rock - Tool is my favourite band)...
Ok, that's all for now. Looking 4ward to get in touch with other members,
Enrico
10 Feb 2005, 10:25 am
Welcome to wrong planet Enrico- hope you have fun
10 Feb 2005, 7:56 pm
11 Feb 2005, 6:41 am
Hi Hale_Bopp (well I guess this is not your real name but a comet name if I remember well)
So you lend support to my theory 
... actually I think it would be interesting to launch an online investigation among members to assess and quantify major field of interests, don't you think?
Regarding your first question, it depends: for sure I like to do it, then if it's work and if for example you need to achieve certain results and things don't go as you wish.. it can be stressing, like with every other work.
Withing biology, and zoology in particular, my main field of interests is behavioral ecology, so I deal with animal behaviour, its functions, adaptive values and evolution; I am focusing on social and especially reproductive behaviours: last year for example I worked for a project studying extrapair paternity in a songbird species (yes, even animal can be unfaifthfull 
...); aim is to understand why birds (and animal, including humans 
) do it.. ok, you will say probably because they like it -fine, that' s likely, but this is a proximate explanation, while as an evolutionary biologist I am most interesting in understanding the adaptive value of this (one of the major hypothesis is that females choose extrapair patterns because these have better genes compaired to their social mates..) So, coming back to things I do, field work is an essential part: this means observing and quantify birds behaviour, catching of birds to mark them and get biometrics and blood samples for genetic and hormonal analysis and searching for nests - which is essential to quantify the frequency of extrapair chicks (having DNA from chick and social parent)
And then of course there is a lot of theoretycal work behind, from making hypothesis to testing and discussing them, which is how science works.
Hope I satisafied your curiosity, and if you want to know more.. just ask
And what do you do in NZ? Ever tried some birdwatching?
Your country s really an interesting place for an ornithologist (well, it was even more before our conspecifics drove to extinctions a lot of native birds species 
probably you have heard of moas & co) there are quite a lot of oddities there. Would like to pay a visit someday
