The small landmass of Easter Island (164 km2), the southeasterly point of Polynesia in the Pacific Ocean, has achieved iconic status in the world today as people wonder how its colonisation was physically possible by settlers journeying through the vast ocean in tiny boats, how and why the enormous moai s were constructed and, most …[Read More]
Geology Jenga
Making the Most of your PhD: Think about the next move
Welcome to the second post in this series of how to make the most of your PhD. If you missed what these posts are all about, check out last week’s post to get all the details! For this post, I wanted to talk about getting some generic (and very transferable, also known as soft) skills. …[Read More]
Make the Most of your PhD
People decide to do a PhD for a whole host of different reasons. Some are driven by wanting to explain the unknown, whilst others see it as a means of securing a better job. No matter what your reasons are there is one certain thing, you’ve got to enjoy learning and you’ve got to be …[Read More]
10 Minute Interview – Promoting Earthquake Education amongst Persian Communities
During the summer I took part in a fantastic public engagement activity, I’m a Scientist, Get me Out of Here! It’s an X-factor style competition where school students get to meet and interact with scientists. The students are the judges and vote for their favourite scientist to win a cash prize to communicate their work …[Read More]
A DYNAMITE journey around western Ireland
The four-year DYNAMITE project (DYNAmic Models in Terrestrial Ecosystems and Landscapes), a teaching and research cooperation programme between the School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK and the Departments of Geology and Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science at Lund University, Sweden, recently ended with an excursion for PhD students, postdocs and academic staff from …[Read More]
Making the most of your PhD – Part I
It’s been a busy few weeks and one of the reasons for it has been that I’ve recently taken part in an entrepreneurship competition. I attended a three day workshop, where me and my team were given training and guidance on innovation and how to commercialise research. At the end of the three-day workshop, teams …[Read More]
10 Minute Interview – Volcanic Lightning, amongst other things!
It has been a while since our last 10 Minute Interview, we thought it was time to post another. They are proving to be some our most successful posts. Sourcing people to take part hasn’t been too difficult (yet!) but if you think you might like to contribute, Dan & I are always looking for …[Read More]
Soliciting peer reviews from PhD students
This post does not discuss science per se but the topic is important from a personal point of view and hopefully useful to others in a similar position (i.e., PhD student currently putting together their first papers and hoping to learn more about the peer-review process). Feedback from those at a similar stage as well …[Read More]
10 Minute Interview – Life as a Museum Curator
Fridays are hard enough, so we thought we’d help you get through the day with a really interesting 10 minute interview, all you need now is a spare 10 minutes and your favourite hot drink! This week, we speak to Gillian McCay, assistant curator at the Cockburn Geological Museum at the University of Edinburgh. The …[Read More]
Reporting on a recent visit to the NERC Radiocarbon Facility (East Kilbride, Scotland)
I (Daniel) recently had the opportunity to visit the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Radiocarbon Facility – Environment (NRCF-EK), hosted at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), a collaborative facility between the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. The lab is located in East Kilbride, a 30-minute train ride south of Glasgow city centre. The …[Read More]