What got you hooked to science in the first place? More importantly, what or who persuaded you that making science your career was, not only worth considering, but should be actively pursed? I’m sure, I am preaching to the converted; we all think science is not only cool, but a worthwhile and rewarding career path; so why is it that we can’t enthuse the younger generations that it is the case too? ...[Read More]
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Green Tea and Velociraptors
Swing and a miss by the AAAS for open access
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest scientific organisation, recently announced their latest journal, the fully open access ‘Science Advances‘. While superficially this seems like a good move for them, digging into the details reveals many inherent flaws with the journal, that at worst portray the AAAS as a money-grabbing organisation and ...[Read More]
Seismology
Perhaps toads can do that
Probably every seismologist has been asked the question “Can you predict earthquakes?”, or “Is it true that animals can sense an imminent earthquake?”. Despite the crushing answers from some trying to explain that not all seismologist work on earthquake predictions and that there is far more other areas of specialisation, the truth is that researchers are still trying to an ...[Read More]
Geology Jenga
A much shorter review of flood stratigraphies in lake sediments
Earlier this year my PhD supervisors and I (Daniel) had a paper accepted for publication in Earth-Science Reviews entitled ‘Flood stratigraphies in lake sediments: A review’ (Schillereff et al., 2014). It’s been fairly popular in terms of downloads but it occurred to me the other day that many of those prospective readers may be put off somewhat by its hefty word count. Thus, putting together a sh ...[Read More]
WaterUnderground
1200 words to make sense of chaos: The Selker Scheme
This is an inspiring article by John Selker (Oregon State University) that was first published in the latest AGU Hydrology Section Newsletter (July 2014). John graciously offered to re-post it here… make sure you make it to his rules and a secret at the bottom. Being elected a fellow of the AGU was an amazing honor, and I thank those who so kindly nominated me, somehow crafting a silk purse ...[Read More]
Geology Jenga
10 Minute Interview – The new Science of Geocognition
We are back! After a few weeks without posting, we thought it was about time we blogged! I have a HUGE backlog of 10 minute interviews that I have to transcribe from EGU 2014. The General Assembly was a great place to meet lots of young scientists doing all sorts of diverse and extremely interesting research. I’ve already posted a couple of interviews I carried out at EGU 2014 (you can read ...[Read More]
GeoLog
Open geoscience
Not so long ago I was in a meeting with EGU’s young scientist representatives, who had gathered online to discuss the issues facing those early in their academic careers. One member of this dedicated team put forward a compelling notion: that the future of open access is in the hands of today’s early-career researchers. This post aims to answer the question that followed: “how could EGU’s te ...[Read More]
WaterUnderground
The home of our hearts day 5: The Sydney Tar Ponds and keeping the spark alive
[part six of a special six-part blog series by Mark Ranjram, MEng student at McGill University. From June 8 to June 13 2014, Mark had the privilege of being a part of the Canadian Water Network’s (CWN) Student and Young Professionals (SYP) Workshop in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Here is the prologue to this series.] The fifth and final day of the workshop started off with a tour of the Sydney ...[Read More]
WaterUnderground
The home of our hearts day 1 – twenty-five strangers walk into a Mi’kmaq talking circle…
[part two of a special six-part blog series by Mark Ranjram, MEng student at McGill University. From June 8 to June 13 2014, Mark had the privilege of being a part of the Canadian Water Network’s (CWN) Student and Young Professionals (SYP) Workshop in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Here is the prologue to this series.] When I first decided to attend this workshop, I made a commitment to myself t ...[Read More]
Geology Jenga
Moraines in Costa Rica? Really?
During a recent trip to Costa Rica in May, I had a conversation with some family and friends in which I uttered those words: “Moraines in Costa Rica? Really?” as they were describing a trek they’d undertaken earlier this year to the summit of Cerro Chirripó. This is the highest peak in the country (3819 m a.s.l.), part of the Cordillera de Talamanca (9°30′ N, 83°30′ W) in southern central Costa Ri ...[Read More]