In anticipation of a remote and highly-sanitised new academic year, with a new cohort of virus-carrying PhDs, Chris wonders: What do you do if students come from different cultural backgrounds where student participation and discussion is not valued? Dear Chris, Easy: you jump three times and clap with joy as you just hit JACKPOT! Do you finally have a student who does not question your great wisd ...[Read More]
What controls Victoria microplate rotation in the East African Rift?
This week in News & Views, Anne Glerum, postdoc at GFZ Potsdam, discusses how her numerical models support a lithosphere-driven mechanism for the rotation of large continental microplates, like Victoria in the East African Rift System. The East African Rift System (EARS) is a newly forming divergent boundary between the Nubian and Somalian plates (Fig. 1). The plate boundary system includes se ...[Read More]
The Sassy Scientist – Egghead Entertainment
Yu-Seok has depleted his streaming service queue, thrown all of the stocked board games off the table, and eagerly seeks new ways to squander his energy after a long workday of couch-surfing underneath his laptop: What should a scientist do as a pastime? Dear Yu-Seok, Where can you find the time? And the energy? Aren’t we all simply working continuously? I go to extremes to even find the energy an ...[Read More]
Understanding intraplate earthquakes
One of the basic tenets of plate tectonics states that deformation occurs along plate boundaries while plate interiors remain almost undeformed. Intraplate earthquakes defy this principle and hence are quite enigmatic. In this week’s News and Views, Prof. Attreyee Ghosh from the Centre for Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, tries to explain the reasons behind intraplate ea ...[Read More]