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Author: Michelle Jewell

Trading blue collars for scarlet robes, my working-class experience of academic life

Posted on June 9, 2016 By Michelle Jewell
Trading blue collars for scarlet robes, my working-class experience of academic life
Academic life, Science

More people are going to college, graduate school, and obtaining PhDs in STEM fields than ever before (Figure 1), and a growing minority of these PhD candidates are non-traditional or not white affluent males. While we celebrate this change, let us not forget that academia was built by – and for – the “traditional” student. My favourite analogy to explain this type of ingrown privilege is bicycles on USA streets. Bicycles are legally allowed to be on streets, some streets even have extra space just for bicycles, but streets were designed for automobiles. You may be allowed and, in some areas, encouraged to get on the street with your bicycle, but biking a street is going to be intrinsically more difficult than if you were driving a car.

fig1

Like Marconi and La Bamba in a city built on rock and roll, you will inevitably end up in situations that conflict with your way of life. You will not receive a warning before you stumble upon these bumps, and you will be judged by how quickly you accept traditional standards (if you can).  I remember a conversation with traditional tenured and tenure-track scientists discussing proposals for a large grant scheme. One tenure-track scientist was lamenting the process of shopping for editors for his proposal. He talked about it freely, how there were two companies that charged different rates and he was in talks with one but that company felt a conflict of interest that he had worked with another rival editing company. The rest of the traditional scientists nodded in mutual understanding. Finding good, cheap editors to improve your work is hard. My working-class ethos was busy screaming inside my head.  How can hiring someone to edit and improve written works that you will ultimately be rewarded for be so blithely acceptable? You’re not allowed to hire editors for any task throughout your training. You learn how to write from earning disappointing grades (or failing grant applications). You read more, you study written works, you develop a voice, and you try again. The results get better until you are at an appropriate level to move up another notch on the ladder, right? Not for traditionals.

Here are some more bizarre “traditional” customs you should expect if you are biking down the academic street:

Read More “Trading blue collars for scarlet robes, my working-class experience of academic life” »

Learn what whale harassment looks like (GIFs)

Posted on May 6, 2016May 6, 2016 By Michelle Jewell
Uncategorized

It’s nearly summer, which means the shores will soon be filled with SUP boards, drones, and self-professed whale whisperers.  This authentic lifestyle is an obnoxious time for marine mammals, and soon your online feeds will be flooded with aerial footage of people “sharing the water” with marine megafauna.  Some of these shots are innocent but an … Read More “Learn what whale harassment looks like (GIFs)” »

The tuna that ate a seagull, and other bird swallowing marine megafauna

Posted on April 26, 2016April 28, 2016 By Michelle Jewell 2 Comments on The tuna that ate a seagull, and other bird swallowing marine megafauna
The tuna that ate a seagull, and other bird swallowing marine megafauna
Uncategorized

Once again, the internet is in a fervour over a rarely documented, but pretty common, animal interaction.  The video below shows fishermen at a pier in L’Escala, Spain tossing small fish to a tuna.  A nearby seagull went for the same fish and was ingested by the tuna, much to everyone’s surprise.  Naturally, the tuna spat out … Read More “The tuna that ate a seagull, and other bird swallowing marine megafauna” »

Behaviour Bites: The uncomfortable truth about that penguin video

Posted on March 31, 2016 By Michelle Jewell
Uncategorized

A brilliant thing about the internet is how natural events are immediately accessible to the world-wide public.  Someone can record a cheetah jumping onto their safari car and I can watch it in my Netherlands office less than 24 hours later.  Sadly, most animal videos that go viral are ones that feature animal behaviour that … Read More “Behaviour Bites: The uncomfortable truth about that penguin video” »

Singing Science: Weather vs. Climate with lyrics for teachers

Posted on March 14, 2016 By Michelle Jewell
Singing Science: Weather vs. Climate with lyrics for teachers
Uncategorized

The month of February 2016 just broke a global temperature record, previously held by… January…2016.

While the Trubama climate plans are being praised, the comments section of this Guardian article was still inundated with “Well, it’s cold where I am” posts.  Perhaps we need to create more awareness about the difference between weather and climate…

I know, I’m not supposed to talk about this, but I love to sing.  Every neighbor, flat mate, and unwilling car passenger knows this.  In fact, the only thing I love as much as singing is teaching science, but the metaphorical light bulb didn’t come on until I attended a SciComm workshop in Portugal.  Why not sing about science like many others?  Maybe even weather and climate??

Adele songs were the obvious choice, both for singability and availability of karaoke versions on YouTube, so I began my research.  I asked facebook if this would be a valuable addition to the internets, or best not to talk about it ever again, and the response was significantly positive.  Thus, #SingingScience was born and with it a commitment to do more of these when I have free time.

Enjoy, Weather vs. Climate set to Adele’s “Hello”

**Note (because evidently it’s not obvious):  This is not real meteorological data.

Here are the lyrics for any science teachers who would like them:

Read More “Singing Science: Weather vs. Climate with lyrics for teachers” »

Remember when sexism in science died? Me neither.

Posted on January 28, 2016January 26, 2016 By Michelle Jewell
Uncategorized

On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the contemporary database, we are, at this time, unable to remove these Field Notes from the Future or prevent the uploading of additional posts. Please enjoy this glimpse into the ocean future while we attempt to rectify the situation.


Any female scientist my age (Generation Pre-Internet) can remember when sexism was a standard rite of passage.  Truly, you hadn’t ‘made it’ in science until you could one-up your colleague’s harassment story.  I remember being enlisted into the Sisterhood of the Travelling Confidants (to quote an old classic), where we laughed at the futility of filing complaints while helping new members process their anger.  We were powerless back then… but many.

Then came the advent of ‘social media’, sharing and liking posts, hashtags, connectivity and a voice.  This led to the realization that all institutes of every field of science had their own Sisterhoods.  One by one, reluctantly, these groups came out of the libraries on the second floor (there’s a second floor??), hidden basement kitchenettes, and forgotten conference rooms.  New members, who were younger and more internet savvy than the old guard, took to social media to process their anger.  The sisterhoods became solidarities when male colleagues used their position to amplify the messages.  Soon, a spotlight was put on our inside joke that reporting harassment to higher-ups was as effective as one of David’s remote petitions, and titans of torment began to fall, one by one, each story more disturbing – at least to those outside of the sisterhood – than the last.

Read More “Remember when sexism in science died? Me neither.” »

Why that ‘genius’ 6-year-old’s solution to Rubbish Delays will make things worse

Posted on January 21, 2016January 4, 2016 By Michelle Jewell
Uncategorized

On January 1, 2016, the Southern Fried Science central server began uploading blog posts apparently circa 2041. Due to a related corruption of the contemporary database, we are, at this time, unable to remove these Field Notes from the Future or prevent the uploading of additional posts. Please enjoy this glimpse into the ocean future while we attempt to rectify the situation.


We’ve all been there.  You’ve spent an extortionate amount of your travel budget on an atmojet so that you can reach NYC from London in 3 hours, but your launch ends up being delayed an additional 3 hours by an endless airbourne rubbish vortex (ARV).  Research has shown that much of the particles that make up an ARV are pieces of garbage bags that date to the early 2000’s, when effective grocery bag bans ignored the elephant-in-the-room large black garbage bags that continued to be used.  Additionally, the disastrous Rubbish Catchments instalments along highways that were designed to reduce blowing rubbish have unintentionally encouraged people to be even more careless with their litter.  It seems that these dreaded Rubbish Delays at airports aren’t going away anytime soon, and may become even worse.

Enter The Complete Air Cleanup, an engineering project created by the latest kid ‘genius’.  This large plastic net design is an interpretation of the latest viral DreamOracle image, created by the subconscious doodlings of 6-year-old Cassis Wigan.  These 3D rainbow-coloured scribbles created by recording brain electron movement during REM sleep are probably the most obnoxious soothsaying mediums for tech-parents used to confirm that they, indeed, have birthed the next Nikola Tesla.  Neurobiologists have consistently denounced these images as just as effective for predicting intelligence as the pattern your child creates during an explosive bowel movement, but nonetheless this hasn’t stopped parents from interpreting their child’s entire DreamOracle Diary to unsuspecting vitacoffee break victims, worldwide.

Read More “Why that ‘genius’ 6-year-old’s solution to Rubbish Delays will make things worse” »

Polar bear feast on seabird eggs is reason we can’t have nice things

Posted on September 29, 2015 By Michelle Jewell
Conservation

Several images circulate on the internet that capture the plight of rapid Arctic climate change, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification.  This image, for me, is the most alarming:

Read More “Polar bear feast on seabird eggs is reason we can’t have nice things” »

Are you suffering from FOBLAB?

Posted on September 22, 2015 By Michelle Jewell
Uncategorized

Warning: The following blog post contains some language that is NSWF. 

You are sat at a table of professionals within your field and they are discussing a topic you are very experienced with.  The group keeps mentioning common beginner errors that you could easily correct, but you don’t.  You sit quietly and sip your coffee.

Read More “Are you suffering from FOBLAB?” »

One of the world’s rarest birds is also the squee-est

Posted on August 19, 2015August 23, 2015 By Michelle Jewell
Conservation

Introducing the spoon-billed sandpiper:

(c) Roland Digby/WWT/PA Wire, originally published http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/world-s-rarest-birds-hand-reared-experts-returned/story-27630995-detail/story.html#ixzz3jFOW6Q43
(c) Roland Digby/WWT/PA Wire, originally published here.

Spoon-billed sandpipers are migratory wader birds that breed in the sub-Arctic and winter in southeast Asia.  Best estimates point to less than 100 breeding pairs left in the wild due to a decrease of breeding habitat in the Arctic and increase of bird-hunters in Asia.  Don’t worry, this is a story about #OceanOptimism…

Read More “One of the world’s rarest birds is also the squee-est” »

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