My first day at EGU 2014 in Vienna was principally spent listening to various speakers describe the life and death of tiny particles in the atmosphere, known as aerosols. These aerosol particles come from a variety of sources – one of the major sources is through burning of fossil fuels, which produces a cocktail of pollutants that form these particles. They can also arise from natural sourc ...[Read More]
Geology Jenga
10 Minute Interview – Live from EGU 2014
Today I had the great pleasure of interviewing Cindy Mora-Stock. It was a great success as I was finally able to put a face to the twitter handle that I’ve been following almost from my first days on Twitter. What’s even better is that I can safely say I’ve come away from the interview having made a new friend, as Cindy and I hit it off straight away. The final bonus of choosing ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Are there issues when industry and academia team up for research?
As an academic palaeontologist within a university, I have almost no industry links or prospects in my present or future. However, Dr. Alice Bell, science-policy aficionado, has invited me to join several distinguished guests in sparking a discussion about the links between industry and academia. This was following a twitter discussion (a twebate?) we both had following her post on the genesis of ...[Read More]
Geology Jenga
EGU DIARIES: Day One (Monday 28th April)
It is only the first day and my diary is already jam packed! There is so much on offer at the conference that I’ve found it difficult to choose how to organise my day. However, I followed some of the tips on Will Morgan’s blog: Conference Top Tips for EGU2014: 1)Chat to people – check; 2) keep up to date with goings on in social media – check; 3) spread my wings- check. I must admit, I’ve failed ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
GfGD at EGU 2014 – ‘Hazards Education in the Himalaya’ Talk Reminder
In Session NH9.8 TOMORROW (Tuesday 29th April) Rosalie Tostevin will be talking about GfGD’s hazards education project in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, Northern India. (Please feel free to copy and share this image via Twitter/Facebook)
Green Tea and Velociraptors
Spice up your science with these 10 simple steps
What an awful title, eh. Well, you can avoid making this mistake! A recent Guardian post by Conversation UK’s Akshat Rathi (he’s popular on the blog today!) discusses some of the common mistakes in popular science writing and how best to avoid them. It’s fairly general, and by no means exhaustive, and mainly for more writing about science than science writing (er, the latter bein ...[Read More]
Green Tea and Velociraptors
The greatest mass extinction in the history of life
In palaeontology, there are so many things more important than dinosaurs. For example, the study of large-scale patterns in the history of life on Earth, commonly known as macroevolution, is all about uncovering patterns of speciation and extinction. We are currently about to enter the sixth mass extinction within the last 542 million years of life on Earth, so figuring out exactly what happened d ...[Read More]
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Alumnus profile #6 – Dr Susan Little
The latest in our mini-series chronicling the after-(PhD)-lives of University of Bristol Earth Science alumni… Dr Susan Little Post-doctoral researcher, ETH Zürich PhD title “‘The Oceanic Biogeochemical Cycling of Cu and Zn and their Isotopes’”
Polluting the Internet
Conference top tips for EGU 2014
Vienna hosts the 2014 European Geosciences Union this week so I thought I would post my own top tips for getting the most of conferences. These are very much my own opinions on this; feel free to disagree and/or add to them in the comments or on Twitter! 1. Don’t go to too many talks The number of talks at a conference varies somewhat but using EGU as an example, you would be looking at atte ...[Read More]
Geology for Global Development
European Geosciences Union – General Assembly 2014 (Part 5) – Natural Hazards Discussion
If you’re coming to the EGU General Assembly, and interested in natural hazards, we highly recommend this opportunity to join a discussion session related to the broad theme of ‘Natural Hazards Education, Communications and the Science-Policy-Practice Interface.‘ You can register to give a 2 minute ‘pop-up’ talk and find out more information here.