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 …
Things have been a little slow as we ease into summer schedules here at UNdertheC, but check back next week as we resume our regular posting schedule! Until then, today’s Film Friday ushers in the first official beach weekend of the year with a neat infographics video about oyster restoration. The video, made by a … Continue reading
Check out what a recent UNC Marine Science graduate is doing: sailing and teaching science in the Great Lakes! Continue reading
By now you have probably heard of the proposal to build solar roads. It has been making the rounds for a week or so and has reached viral status online. Some very enthused and ambitious engineers out in Idaho are attempting to fund a project to build roadways that also act as solar panels. If … Continue reading
Tomorrow, May 10th, is International Migratory Bird Day, and you may be worried that your expertise in diatoms or turbulent mixing just won’t cut it at the big ornithology party tonight. Well, UNdertheC is looking up and so is your evening, because we are here with a snapshot of a bird impressive enough to entertain … Continue reading
Here’s some raw footage of one of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) buoy deployments last week. This buoy (and one other just to its north) is managed by UNC Chapel Hill’s marine science department. That’s us! NOAA and the National Weather Service (NWS) are government agencies that monitor and research weather, climatological, and environmental … Continue reading
Today I have something a little different to share–my first ever podcast! It’s diatom-themed (of course) and in it I discuss what diatoms are, what it’s like to research them, and why you should care about them in the first place. I’m far more used to writing blog posts than creating something audio-based, so this … Continue reading
With finals week upon us, all those affiliated with a university may be feeling a little exhausted at the moment. If the internet has taught us anything though, it’s that there’s nothing like a fun animal video to lift your spirits/help you procrastinate. This clip combines the improbably buoyant sunfish with a little inspiration as … Continue reading
This is the third and final installment of our guest blog by Kevin Wolfe, a PhD student at TAMUCC How marine science benefits by studying a simple brain The biomedical benefits of studying Aplysia are fairly obvious; learning about the human brain is easy using a simpler analogue. Parkinson’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and … Continue reading
Part II of III in a series of guest posts by TAMUCC grad student Kevin Wolfe! How a marine snail became a cornerstone in learning and memory research I cannot emphasize enough how important Aplysia has been for the fields of learning and memory. Though the structure and function of the neuron itself was obtained … Continue reading
Today we have another guest post. This time from Maya, a fellow graduate student at UNC. Hello there, readers of UndertheC!! My name is Maya Nadimpalli, and I’m a PhD student in Environmental Microbiology at UNC’s School of Public Health. I’ve been taking a great Science Communication class this past semester with some of the … Continue reading
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