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 …
Most science grad students can probably make more sense of genetic code or symbol-laden equations than phrases like “intellectual property” and “capital investments.” In a world awash with environmental problems though, there is sizable demand for individuals who are willing to make the leap from bench to business. UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences recently hosted … Continue reading
Estimating the wind resource available around the world is a major component of the development of wind energy technology. Not only do we need to know how much wind there is to meet the energy demand, but we also need to know what specific locations have the most wind when compared to others. So what … Continue reading
Oftentimes in my attempts to write blog posts I tend to fall back on the science-fiction and fantasy writers’ stories that drew me to study science in the first place. Today is no different. But rather than draw you in with the excitement inherent in a Game of Thrones anecdote only to then hit you … Continue reading
Scientists have been talking about global climate change for years, but sometimes it seems like we are speaking a language that no one else understands (otherwise, there would have been major changes by now, right??). Well it turns out, we have been speaking a foreign language. Most scientists are familiar with Climate Change 101, but … Continue reading
Some days I really love my job. Today is one of those days. I just returned from a 2 week field research trip to Belize with 5 of my friends. I’ve been to the field several times in the past, but only to help other people with projects. This trip was organized and planned by … Continue reading
On Thursday November 13th, 2014 the first annual SciREN Triangle workshop took place. This event was hosted by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh. SciREN (The Scientific Research and Education Network) is an outreach organization run entirely by graduate students. It has its roots in marine sciences and graduate students from Duke … Continue reading
It amazes me that humans are capable of doing the math to send stuff into outer space (which might say something about my own math skills, if I’m being honest). I’m still impressed that we can land things on the Moon or Mars, so you can imagine my excitement when the European Space Agency landed a probe … Continue reading
If you don’t use phrases like heteroscedasticity, dynamic convection, or quantitative polymerase chain reaction in your everyday life, join the club. I don’t either. But words like these can make scientific articles seem abstract and inaccessible. Have no fear, dear readers, I am here to tell you that you too can enjoy the pleasure derived … Continue reading
Yesterday The European Space Agency (ESA) did something really awesome. They landed a probe on a moving comet. Let’s just think about that for a minute. ESA has been running the Rosetta mission for 13 years and it has traveled over 6 billion Km to reach its destination (Comet 67P). This is obviously much more … Continue reading
I don’t study fish. It’s one of my limits. I don’t study anything with a face. Or cells. So when I first learned the word “fisheries” I threw it into that chum-bucket of knowledge I’ve grown accustomed to knowing the existence of, but essentially ignoring. But there’s an aspect of fishery study that I connect … Continue reading
UNder the C 