January 2014
NERD club transferrable skills: reviewers, rejections and responses
Academic publishing: the currency of any research career. It’s all very straightforward; take your most recent ground-breaking results, wrap them up into a neat paper, choose the perfect journal, allow said paper to persuade an editor and reviewers of your brilliance and bask in the reflective glow of getting your research out into the world. […]
Seminar Series: Kendra Cheruvelil, Michigan State University/Queen's University Belfast
Part of our series of posts by final-year undergraduate students for their Research Comprehension module. Students write blogs inspired by guest lecturers in our Evolutionary Biology and Ecology seminar series in the School of Natural Sciences. This week, views from Kate Purcell and Andrea Murray-Byrne on Kendra Cheruvelil's seminar "Understanding multi-scaled relationships between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems". (See Kendra's blog about her trip […]
SoapBox Science Dublin!
Are you a woman in science? Are you passionate about sharing your research with the public and increasing the profile of female scientists generally? Do you let out a sigh when these events are always arranged in London? Well sigh no more, this year SoapBox Science is expanding to other parts of the UK and […]
Science and Journalism
As scientists with access to hundreds of peer reviewed journals its easy to forget that we are a privileged bunch. We get to read science straight from the horse’s mouth without anyone to get between us and the research. Yet for the majority of people journals are hidden behind paywalls and even open access journals […]
Seminar Series: Fiona Doohan, University College Dublin
Part of our series of posts by final-year undergraduate students for their Research Comprehension module. Students write blogs inspired by guest lecturers in our Evolutionary Biology and Ecology seminar series in the School of Natural Sciences. This week, views from Gina McLoughlin and Joanna Mullen on Fiona Doohan's seminar, "Plant-Microbe interactions - the good, the bad and the ugly" […]
NERD club transferrable skills: academic authorship and journal submissions
We rolled out of bed on January 6th, 2014, with the somewhat comforting- but mostly jarring, give-me-a-cup-of-coffee-immediately-inducing- knowledge that the holiday season was over and it was time to get back to our normal schedules. And that happily means everyone once again gathers for Nerd Club before lunch on Tuesdays. Aided by left over boxes […]
Killing in the Name of Science (Part 2): What About the Bunnies?
In my last post I wrote about the case for scientific whaling. I tried to be objective and leave moral and ethical considerations out of the discussion to focus solely on the science. Yet it is impossible to avoid these considerations for long. The use of animals in scientific research has a long history […]
Seminar series: Tom Ezard, University of Southampton
Part of our series of posts by final-year undergraduate students for their Research Comprehension module. Students write blogs inspired by guest lecturers in our Evolutionary Biology and Ecology seminar series in the School of Natural Sciences. This week; views from Sarah Byrne and Sean Meehan on Tom Ezard's seminar, Birth, death and macroevolutionary consequences. Splitting Hares […]
A brave new world of monkeying around with trees
I’ve spent the last few days writing an introduction for my first PhD paper on the practical issues of adding fossils to molecular phylogenies (full recipe here). This is my starting point: most people working in macroevolution agree that we should integrate fossils into modern phylogenetic trees. Of the many possible methods that are available, […]
Killing in the Name of Science (Part 1): The Science of Scientific Whaling
“The research reported here involved lethal sampling of minke whales, which was based on a permit issued by the Japanese Government in terms of Article VIII of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. Reasons for the scientific need for this sampling have been stated both by the Japanese Government and by the authors.” […]