Geoscientific Methods

Footprints reveal climate’s mark on mudflats

Sara Mynott April 13, 2026

Soft-shell clams are found in tidal flats throughout the northern hemisphere. This clam shell sits on a UNESCO-listed tidal flat in The Netherlands: Nationalpark Schleswig-Holsteinisches Wattenmeer. Credit: Markus Hallmann.

Tidal flats, the muddy reaches of estuaries unveiled at low tide, support rich ecosystems and fisheries worldwide. But these habitats are under threat from climate change, as sea level rise overwhelms the landscape and heavy rainfall scours away the sediment – impacts that scientists are only just beginning to explore. In an effort to understand how shellfisheries are affected by climate change, a ...[Read More]

The existential modelling crisis – and how to overcome it

Lucia Layritz September 5, 2025

Photo depicting wildflowers and resprouting shrubs after a desert wildfire, taken by the author, Lucia Layritz

Recently, we had a big name in fire ecology visiting our institute. He had come, among other things, to look for records of a certain fire-adapted shrub in my university’s herbarium. While myself and a colleague helped him go through the stacks of pressed and archived specimens, I asked him why there were so little contributions to the herbarium in recent years. His response was: “People sto ...[Read More]

A leap of faith: Should we trust AI with a million-year problem?

Asmae Ourkiya August 8, 2025

Photo by Dan Meyers. Source: Unsplash

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been here a while, and it isn’t going anywhere, not any time soon. It has become an integral part of many lives and businesses. When I speak of AI, I am not referring to GenAI (generative AI) that writes your emails for you: Think about the algorithms that suggest what movie you should watch next, the voice assistant that adds milk to your shopping list, and ...[Read More]

AI: the good, the bad, and the forgotten

Lucia Perez-Diaz May 1, 2025

AI: friend, or foe? (Credit: Lucia Perez-Diaz, www.luciaperezdiaz.com / @DrLPerezDiaz)

AI is here, and when I say here, I mean e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. For all you know, this blog may have been written by an algorithm (it wasn’t — I’m not a robot, promise. Or am I?). In what feels like the blink of an eye, AI has gone from a curiosity to a fully-fledged co-pilot in science (and out of science). It’s generating satellite imagery, helping compute paleo-climate predictions, or writing your ...[Read More]