Part of a good workplace vibe is good contact between colleagues, as well as good contact between you and your supervisor – or between you and your supervisee. A potentially complex ingredient is the power of compliments. Compliments, per definition, are meant well. However, they can backfire enormously, when they are not received in the spirit in which they are meant. Additionally, part of being ...[Read More]
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Geodynamics
Continental drift in academia
After spending about three decades in the hustle-bustle of Asian megacities, I landed up in a quiet European town to continue my research work as a postdoc. When you know you will not meet your family soon in person, you know that you will not get the food you love and, the climate that has guided you in the sun and shadow will be very different; you may expect a life struggle. Yet, people have di ...[Read More]
Seismology
seismoART: Visualising earthquakes through their ground motions
Martijn van den Ende, a Postdoctoral research fellow at Université Côte d’Azur, takes us through his seismoArt project – a new and colourful way of visualising the ground motions of earthquakes! First of all: how does it work? Imagine that you have an incredibly steady hand, holding a pen, and a piece of paper on a table. Once you put your pen on the paper, an earthquake happens ...[Read More]
Atmospheric Sciences
Parenting in Academia: Challenges and Perspectives
Trying to juggle teaching, advising, publishing, finding a new (or permanent) job, relocating, attending conferences, and actually doing research sometimes requires more hours in the day than exist (oh and that global pandemic situation is sticking around). Additionally, many scientists have children or are starting a family at the same time as maintaining and building a career. In this week’s blo ...[Read More]
Climate: Past, Present & Future
Parenting in Academia: Challenges and Perspectives
Trying to juggle teaching, advising, publishing, finding a new (or permanent) job, relocating, attending conferences, and actually doing research sometimes requires more hours in the day than exist (oh and that global pandemic situation is sticking around). Additionally, many scientists have children or are starting a family at the same time as maintaining and building a career. In this week’s blo ...[Read More]
GeoLog
The James Webb Telescope may forever alter our view of the universe
Where is Webb? This seemingly simple question is quickly making its way into everyday conversation, and not just in scientific and astronomy circles. After a long 32-year wait, NASA officially launched the James Webb Telescope a couple of weeks ago on 25 December 2021. More recently, the telescope deployed its final primary mirror segment on 8 January this year, a crucial milestone in its mission ...[Read More]
Geodynamics
The Sassy Scientist – The Dark Side (No … Not The Moon One)
Onnem is a big fan of a certain movie franchise about intergalactic space travel, heroism and self-development (with scenes that are depicted not very close by, and which did not occur recently *wink *wink). He smirks: Is there a dark side to obtaining a PhD? Dear Onnem, I think you’ve been spacing out a little too much these days. You’ve actually got things backwards: obtaining a PhD ...[Read More]
Cryospheric Sciences
Parenting in Academia: Challenges and Perspectives
Trying to juggle teaching, advising, publishing, finding a new (or permanent) job, relocating, attending conferences, and actually doing research sometimes requires more hours in the day than exist (oh and that global pandemic situation is sticking around). Additionally, many scientists have children or are starting a family at the same time as maintaining and building a career. In this week’s blo ...[Read More]
Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology
Challenging racism in the geosciences
The hard truth is, that the geosciences are among the least diverse disciplines in the wide fields of the natural sciences. When we look at the time span from 1973 to 2016, we find that 14,246 PhD degrees were given to white men, while “only” ~5234 were earned by white women in the US. These numbers are already quite shocking, but I promise you it will even get worse: a total of only 163 PhD degre ...[Read More]
GeoLog
What if a tsunami’s magnetic field could predict the height of the wave?
It’s been well established that tsunamis generate magnetic fields as they move seawater (which is conductive unlike freshwater) through the Earth’s magnetic field. Although researchers previously predicted that the tsunami’s magnetic field would arrive before a change in sea level, they lacked the means to simultaneously measure magnetics and sea level to confirm this phenomenon. Now, a new study ...[Read More]