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Maria Scheel

Maria Scheel is a Postdoc at Aarhus University (Denmark), working at the Wageningen University (Netherlands). Her current postdoc focuses on identifying permafrost microbial life and its impact on carbon fluxes when that permafrost thaws. She uses genetic tools to discover how Arctic life responds to climate change related stressors. During #EGU24, she is a press assistant besides being a regular author and chief editor for the EGU CR blog. Please contact her via maria.scheel@envs.au.dk.

The EGU Great Debate: About the Anthropocene, scientists and comfort zones?

April 19, 2024
The EGU Great Debate: About the Anthropocene, scientists and comfort zones?
Are we as scientists still in an elitist bubble, or do we need to glue ourselves to streets and buy tractors for protest? Somewhere along the lines of finding and leaving comfort zones versus the need to become uncomfortable while many globally already are, is the setting of this year’s EGU great debate (Image Credit: Maria Scheel).

  EGU has hosted a Great Debate with world-renowned climate scientists and activists about the growing human impact on our natural and social environment for many years. There are many aspects to the debate, from voting bad politicians out, to communication duties of scientists, the interconnection of a need for social equity and decarbonization, and more. In this blog post, I want to focus o ...[Read More]

Past ice and future predictions – scanning and drilling the changing Antarctic ice

April 17, 2024
In front of the blue EGU press conference background, Olaf Eisen (left), Robert Larter (middle) and Emma Pearce (right) are engaged in discussion.
Fig. 1: Olaf Eisen (AWI, Germany), Robert Larter (British Antarctic Survey) and Emma Pearce (British Antarctic Survey) during the #EGU24 press conference “Unveiling Antarctica’s secrets: new research brings us one step closer to predicting the future of the icy continent” (Photo credit: Jakub Stepanovic).

Did you know that some of the scientists of each General Assembly get invited to a press conference to face a group of curious journalists? I did not – but as press assistant for the #EGU24, I had the unique chance to attend the press conference “Unveiling Antarctica’s secrets: new research brings us one step closer to predicting the future of the icy continent”. Prominent scientists (Fig.1) ...[Read More]

Soil bacteria that hunt like a wolfpack? Myxobacteria and their role in the food web

April 16, 2024
A photo of a wolf in the middle and four microscopic images of colourful bacterial cultures around it.
Fig. 1 The resemblance between bacteria and a hunting wolf might not be obvious, but come take a dive into the weird ecology of Myxobacteria (Collage with photo credit Garcia et al. 2010 and Julien Riedel via pexels.com).

Picture this: bacteria that can slime their way around the soil, finding their prey, circling it, closing in on it and lysing it (or making their cell pop), just to feed on their prey. It sounds like a far stretch from a wolf to a bacteria, but even other soil predators, the comparably huge nematode worms ( up to 100 times bigger!), are afraid of these bacterial “wolves”. I went to the Soil System ...[Read More]