I am willing to bet most people have never heard of paleotempestology before. I hadn’t heard of it before I took a marine geology course. In a course I am taking this semester, we decided to reexamine the topic because a lot of individual studies are debatable. So, if the title of this post didn’t already give it …
Have you ever noticed a rip current at the beach? If you or someone you know was caught in a rip current, would you know what to do? If you’ve been paying attention to the coastal news along North Carolina recently, you may have noticed recent stories about rip currents and rip current safety. Dr. …
Having no publications to my name and only nebulous drafts of several (hopefully) publishable papers, I am not an expert on how to get published. This is why I attended a student workshop on this very topic at the 2018 ASLO summer meeting in Victoria, BC. In this workshop a panel of editors in chief …
Martín Benavides is a PhD student in Marine Sciences at UNC Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the variability of coastal shark communities in both time and space. He is also interested in the movement ecology of sharks in estuarine systems. Martín is a proud father of two boys and provides a unique prospective to …
Applications have been submitted. Recruitment weekends are near (or have already come and gone). Funding source notification dates are coming up. And most exciting of all–graduate school acceptances are around the corner. It is an exciting time to see your hard work pay off. But wait. Hold your horses. Here are some things you should …
The ocean is home to some strange and mysterious critters – including some that could give the Justice League a run for their money. From immortal invertebrates to flying fish, here are four super powered ocean animals. The one that can walk on land While there are a number of amphibious fish out there, …
The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP) application season is here. I was fortunate enough to receive a fellowship for my application is 2017 after an unsuccessful one in 2016. From one rejected and one accepted, here is a list of resources that helped get me through it, a bit of my personal …
Most productivity gurus say that when you hit a wall, you should switch tasks. This is how I ended up reading a paper about beavers who managed to hijack a wetland restoration for their benefit. So congratulations! You’re in the right place to learn some fancy philosophy terms and think about wetlands from a whooole …
As modern marine scientists, we spend a lot of time learning to effectively communicate science to various audiences. That’s mostly so we can make friends at parties, but has some nice side benefits like educating the general public, whatever. Sometimes though, and I’m probably admitting to a cardinal sin of outreach here, there’s a certain …
This guest post was written by Ben Maxie. Ben is an undergraduate researcher at Old Dominion University who studies zooxanthellae genetics with Dan Barshis. Aside from marine biology, he is interested in beer brewing, car modification, and hiking. It’s estimated that 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons of plastic ends up in the oceans per … Continue reading
Sometimes, science doesn’t always go as planned. Larisa Bennett explains how to make the best of a not-so-great situation in her latest guest post. If you haven’t visited us in a while, Larisa is a UNC undergraduate student spending a semester at the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences. See her first three posts, here, here, … Continue reading
We are exactly one month away from the ‘Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’! That’s a mouthful. But what it really means is: the 2015 United Nations Climate Submit begins November 30th. Which is kind of a big deal and could finally (?) mean an international (and even … Continue reading
As anyone who’s tried to keep a fickle houseplant alive knows, plant cultivation is not easy. While Matt Damon is growing potatoes on Mars, most of us are struggling to figure out why our bromeliads are drooping despite our unfettered attentions. Now imagine growing those plants in slightly less hospitable conditions- say, a few days … Continue reading
For the past two weeks, I feel like I have been jet setting around the country: New Orleans, Philadelphia, Atlanta. While some little part of me wishes I had been on some elaborate vacation, what I was doing in my opinion was so much better. So what could I have been doing that is better … Continue reading
Science job perk #4182: scuba diving at work. In today’s adventure, guest blogger Larisa Bennett takes the plunge into scientific diving at the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences. Read more about her semester with the Institute for the Environment’s Field Site program in her first two posts! We sleepily loaded our gear onto the R/V … Continue reading
This guest post was written by Ben Maxie. Ben is an undergraduate researcher at Old Dominion University who studies zooxanthellae genetics with Dan Barshis. Aside from marine biology, he is interested in beer brewing, car modification, and hiking. All over the world, coral are under attack, and the biggest threat seems to be high sea surface temperature. … Continue reading
Graduate school is a big commitment. Often times you move to a new place and begin a new program of study. You have to take a bunch of required coursework, do research, and maybe TA (or teach). On top of that, you get a pretty meager stipend in most cases and your research may or … Continue reading
It’s UNdertheC’s second birthday!! Two years ago, we made our Internet debut with this post about open-access publishing, and it’s been quite the adventure in science communication ever since! We’d like to thank our loyal readers, from our grandparents to UNC folks to strangers who found us through Google. With over 22,500 unique visitors to … Continue reading
Welcome to the second guest post in Larisa Bennett’s series about her semester at UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences (IMS) through the Institute for the Environment Field Site program! Today, Larisa takes us out to sea for a shark research expedition. For more of Larisa’s aquatic adventures, check out her first post! Shark attacks along … Continue reading
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