November 2012
“Toxic” nectar and pollen in an invasive plant species
For the longest time floral nectar was considered to be made of two components: simple sugars (such as sucrose, fructose and/or glucose) and water. Research carried out in the past two decades however has repeatedly shown this paradigm to be incorrect. As analytical techniques such as high resolution GC-MS and HPLC have become commonplace, the […]
Thinking small to think big
The concept of using bacteria and other microbes to test some of the big questions is creeping more and more into the world of ecology and evolution. Evolutionary biologists have been coming around to this idea for many years now (see Lenski’s experiment for a wonderful example of this) but the concept is still hard for […]
"See you later, pollinator”
Scientific conferences can be a great way of meeting people, getting and sharing new ideas, and networking with people from, often, all over the world. And they can be good fun too! On October 25th-28th several people in the School travelled to Norway for the annual conference held by the Scandinavian Association for Pollination Ecologists […]
The scariest object in my office
As it is Hallowe’en season, I thought I’d write a blog post about the scariest and most horrifying object in my life at the moment – my To-Do list. This monstrous beast lurks on my desk full of tasks ranging from the mundanely specific like “write reference letter for student X” to the vague and […]
Consciousness cut down to size
Adam Kane recently wrote a blog post on the problem of consciousness. I disagree with most of what Adam said so thought I'd write a reply post. Adam's post smacks of a dualism that has persisted since the earliest musings on the problem of consciousness. In essence dualism is the claim that mental processes are in some ways non-physical, that there […]