February 2014
Gould Mine
The career of Stephen Jay Gould eludes easy definition because of his prolific output in so many areas. Michael Shermer characterises him as a historian of science and scientific historian, popular scientist and scientific populariser. The popular science writings of Stephen Jay Gould (20 of his 22 books and hundreds of articles) are responsible for making me want […]
School of Natural Sciences Postgraduate Symposium 2014: Part2/4
On the 20th and 21st of February we had our annual School of Natural Sciences Postgraduate Symposium. Over the course of two days many of our PhD students presented their work to the School. We also had two interesting plenary talks from Dr Sophie Arnaud-Haond (Ifremer) and Dr Lesley Morrell (University of Hull). Unfortunately our third speaker, Dr Fiona Jordan (University of […]
School of Natural Sciences Postgraduate Symposium 2014: Part1/4
On the 20th and 21st of February we had our annual School of Natural Sciences Postgraduate Symposium. Over the course of two days many of our PhD students presented their work to the School. We also had two interesting plenary talks from Dr Sophie Arnaud-Haond (Ifremer) and Dr Lesley Morrell (University of Hull). Unfortunately our third speaker, Dr […]
Killing in the Name of Science – Dying for Conservation
Conservation. Noun. From the Latin verb conservare, to protect from harm or destruction. Dallas safari club auctions off permit to hunt rare rhino. Giraffe unsuitable for breeding killed at Copenhagen zoo . Six Lions at Longleat safari park destroyed due to excessive population increases. What on earth is going on? These stories have gone around […]
Systematic Reviews
Before I came to TCD, I spent my last six months at Lancaster University working with Dr Georgina Key on a systematic review of methods to make agricultural soils more resilient to threats like climate change, and erosion. What is a systematic review I hear you cry? Allow me to elaborate, and share some of our […]
3D dinosaurs are bringing down the Ivory Tower
Adam raised the point of science communication in his last blog post of how science should be communicated to a mainly interested and receptive public. The main question when thinking about science communication is “how should we do it?” However a second question, arising from this one would be “who should do it?” I believe […]
A review of the ecology of the common zombie
Abstract In recent years fear of the zombie apocalypse has been an increasingly important subject in public media. Cinema, television, novels, both graphic and written, as well as computer games cover this subject more and more frequently. Public awareness of zombies has reached an historic height. However, within the scientific community this topic has rarely been investigated at […]
Seminar Series: Nathalie Pettorelli, Institute of Zoology, London
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 Sharon Matthews and Sinead Barrett on Nathalie Pettorelli's seminar, "Monitoring biodiversity from space: a wealth of opportunities". Space, […]
The Heat and Light of Science Communication
The recent debate between Bill Nye, the Science Guy and Ken Ham, the Young Earth Creationist got me thinking about our methods of science communication such was the controversy it generated. There is value in communicating science to the lay public when our society is so deeply ramified by its discoveries, its ideas and its risks. And […]
Please consider this a polite spanking
The recent hilarious #SixWordPeerReview hashtag on Twitter got me thinking about the first ever review I got for my first ever paper (thanks @Phalaropus for the reminder!). I thought I’d share it here (and if you want to see if you agree with the reviewer, the paper was eventually published in Global Ecology and Biogeography: Cooper et al 2008). […]