The South Downs green fair is on this Sunday at the Sustainability Centre. Find out more here www.southdownsgreenfair.org
Staff contributor of the week this week is Gareth Dyke, who sent a link to a blog written by one of his PhD students about their recent expedition to Romania to find fossilised pterosaurs (thank you Gareth!) http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/28/dwarf-dinosaurs-vs-giant-pterosaurs/
Rob Gandola sent in this link about the importance of paternal care in glass frogs (thank you Rob!) http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/04/when-dads-go-missing-frogs-start-hatching. You can find the original article here – http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1785/20133237
I carried out my sustainability questionnaire in BIOL1003 last week. Several students commented that they don’t vote. It’s a choice which, as Patrick noted, it’s not in itself sustainable. It’s widely reported that the RSPB has a membership greater than all the political parties combined but no party specifically targets those RSPB members. Read more in the article http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2014/may/02/what-do-britains-political-parties-say-about-wildlife-in-their-manifestos
Beards are an example of negative frequency-dependent sexual selection, the more men that have them, the less attractive they become https://royalsociety.org/news/2014/to-beard-or-not-to-beard/?utm_source=social_media&utm_medium=hootsuite&utm_campaign=standard
Why are zebras stripey? Â http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-zebra-got-its-stripes-according-science-180950367/?utm_source=facebook.com&no-ist
There are long-term effects of a major oil spill http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/10/4/20131041.full
Climate change means that we are more likely to experience extreme weather http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-makes-extreme-weather-more-likely-to-hit-uk-1.15141 (an update from the Somerset levels, where I was at the weekend, the floods at Muchelney have now gone but the fields still had flood water until very recently, far later than normal).
The Centre for Biological Sciences was awarded a bronze Athena SWAN award last week. The Athena SWAN charter recognises commitment to advancing women’s careers in science. Although many of our undergraduates and even postgraduates are women, there isn’t the same representation amongst senior staff. You can read more about the Athena SWAN charter here http://www.athenaswan.org.uk/ and one example of why it is so important here http://www.nature.com/news/women-and-minorities-still-face-uphill-struggle-in-uk-science-1.15177. More here http://www.nature.com/news/specials/women/index.html
Posted By : Judith Lock