There is a strange phenomenon on the internet called unboxing. Unboxing is when a person receives a new package of something and takes a video or pictures of the process of opening it for the first time and posts it online. Mostly, from what I can see, people “unbox” electronics or hockey cards or things of that nature. However, what I have today could be called the granddaddy of all ...[Read More]
There’s a lot of talk these days about science communication. Some people spend their lives debating the differences between outreach, public engagement, and science communication, and how they all mean different things. As a scientist, and I’m quite sure I can speak on behalf of the entire community, we don’t give a toss what you call the model – let us interact with peopl ...[Read More]
Last year, a throng of palaeoecologists from the world around descended into Oxford to discuss what the 50 most pressing questions in palaeoecology are. I was happy to see some great scientists and communicators among them, including Anson Mackay, Jacquelyn Gill, and Gavin Simpson, which gives me real hope that these questions were crafted with more than just ‘science for the sake of science ...[Read More]
Scientists studying earthquakes should be prepared to put themselves forward to reduce the risk of earthquake damage. This was one conclusion from a meeting of scientists and engineers in London last week. Picture yourself here. You are an earthquake scientist. Years of research conclude that a capital city lies close to active fault that has the potential to generate a large earthquake. The local ...[Read More]
Dr Duncan Muir Post-doctoral research assistant, Uppsala University PhD title “Investigating Magma Storage Conditions at Uturuncu Volcano, Bolivia”
I have used storify.com to put together a synopsis of the February eruption of Kelut, Java, Indonesia. There are some additional links to more detailed posts and related information below. Related posts Fascinating technical analysis of the satellite data from Nicarnica Aviation Erik Klemetti on Wired Volcano Discovery updates on Kelud Satellite imagery collated by Imageo on Discover Magazine Coll ...[Read More]
A new initiative has just been announced that could help to revolutionise palaeontology. PaleoDeepDive is essentially an automated version of the Paleobiology Database, which is an online, professionally crowd-sourced and curated database of fossil occurrences pulled from the literature. They have a launch video here: I have a couple of reservations about this. Firstly, how do they expect to mine ...[Read More]
A glimpse of the spectacular Kameni or ‘burnt’ islands of Santorini, Greece from the air reveals in intricate detail the overlapping lava flows, explosion craters and fields of volcanic ash from which the islands have been built in successive eruptions over the past 2000 years, and more. Of course, what we can see from the air is just the literal ‘tip’ of the present-day vo ...[Read More]
Lava Flows on the Volcano Pacaya, Guatemala (formed in January 2014) (Credit: Joel Gill, 2014)
Sorcha McMahon is a third year PhD student in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. Sorcha is investigating how strange igneous rocks called carbonatites may have formed, using both natural samples and high-pressure experiments. The word Angkor is derived from the Sanskrit term Nagara meaning “Holy City”, and was the capital city of the Khmer. It consists of successive city fo ...[Read More]
