October 2013
To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question…
This August I celebrated one year of being on Twitter. On the auspicious occasion of my Twitter-versary I decided it might be useful to reflect on the year. Did I get what I wanted to get out of the experience? Did I get other things I didn’t expect? Or did I just find myself […]
A Raptor-ous Reception
Thanks to the DU ZooSoc, TCD staff and students were treated to an exhibition from Dublin Falconry last week. Set against the busy backdrop of joggers and Pav-frequenters, six beautiful birds of prey were the stars of their own lunch time show. Here's a few pictures from the event, just a flavour of the stunning […]
Night in the Research Museum
On Friday the 27th of September, as part of the Discover Research Night we opened the doors of the department to the public. We decided that since we have a museum full of some really cool stuff, we could use it to demonstrate some of the research in the department. Since the research night had […]
The Placental mammal saga; special summer double episode
As I wrote in a previous post last winter, O’Leary et al. added their oar into the Placental Mammal origins debate. For anyone who missed that episode, they argued, with the backing of masses of morphological data, that placental mammal orders appeared right after the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs (also known as the explosive model). […]
Sulawesi Bird Expedition 2013
Ah the summer, how I miss it! In mid-June I departed (on the horrendously long journey) to the beautifully sunny, tropical islands off the south-eastern coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia. No, I wasn't on holidays; I am fortunate enough to call this part of the world my study site. During the six week visit, I aimed […]
Big is better!
Reflections on geeking it up at Intecol 2013 by Jane Stout Having not been to a 2000+ delegate, multi-session, international conference for several years, I was a bit nervous in the run up to INTECOL2013 “Into the next 100 years: advancing ecology and making it count” – would it be possible to see all the talks, […]
When Perseverance Pays Off
The history of science is, as the name suggests, the study of the historical side of science: the people, the process and the development of the knowledge and techniques that have made science the dominating force it is today. In popular culture the history of science is often told through individuals: the mavericks and geniuses […]
What I did this summer: Tortured some bees
Among the multiple pressures currently driving decline in bee populations, little attention has been given to naturally occurring toxins in plant nectar. We carried out research this summer on invasive Rhododendron ponticum, a plant that contains neurotoxins in its floral nectar. We found this toxin to be lethal to honeybees, but apparently benign to the […]
Radio Ga Ga Science: a student’s point of view
I was planning to write a blog about our new paper recently published in Animal Behaviour however something relatively unexpected seemed to scupper those plans, the media! For those who haven’t come across an article talking about the best way to swat a fly or heard me rambling away on radio, our paper has been […]