Ice has become (pardon the pun) something of a hot topic lately. Professional and amateur scientists alike have studied the timing of seasonal ice formation on lakes and rivers for hundreds of years, and the patterns that have emerged from these studies provide a window into the progression of climate change. Overwhelmingly, the data show that lakes and rivers are freezing up later in the winter and their ice cover is melting earlier in the spring than in the past.
This weekend, Australia will have a federal election. My country will vote, not on an individual leader, but on the party that will form government for the next 3-4 years. We’ve been led by the conservative Liberals since 2013, and that time in Australia has not been kind to the environment.
If you’ve lost track of what’s going on in US politics (very excusable), you might have missed out on yet another issue that is dividing people. I’m not talking about the Mueller report, or gun legislation, or health care. I’m talking about the Green New Deal.
The concept of interdisciplinarity (essentially, scientists from different backgrounds working together to solve scientific questions) has played a major role in the development of ecology, and science in general, in the last few decades. A great example of this is the Experts in Teamwork program, which runs on an annual basis at the Norwegian university of Science and Technology.
Dr. Shelley Adamo is a full professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. An internationally recognized expert in the field of ecoimmunology and comparative psychoneuroimmunology, Dr. Adamo has an enormous amount of scientific experience in both the lab and field. In addition to her stellar career in academia, she has also brought her expertise and knowledge to the public, as she was recently asked to testify before a Canadian senate committee to discuss whether or not insects feel pain.
Supervisors: they’re our mentors, bosses, idols. Sometimes, they can seem almost super-human – they know everything, and find every single flaw in your work. So it can be easy to forget that your supervisors and various other higher-ups are not necessarily a species of perfect, paper mass-producing, hyper-creative geniuses, but in reality just experienced people, who still make mistakes and have “brain-farts”. The following is a personal encounter I had which serves as proof.
This week we study the effects of a ‘stepping-stone’ approach to releasing captive-bred endangered species back into the wild.
The Plankton and Policy Research Group at Plymouth University. PI: Dr Abigail McQuatters-Gollop
Research, teaching, and mentorship in the sciences
Science for the Environment
ice age ecology, early career academia, and diversity in STEM
Conservation, management and planning in contested landscapes
Multa novit vulpes
Behavioural ecologist and science communicator at Deakin University
Conservation research ... with bite
