BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT MATTERS | April 3,  2015

Dear all,

I hope you enjoyed a lovely long weekend. On account of the semester break, the Department meeting will move to Tuesday April 14, 1-2pm. Agenda will follow!

cheerio

Mariella

General News and Announcements

Clean up Campus Day – Winners!!!

Congratulations to Team Carbonites who won a truck load of chocolates for their excellent effort cleaning up the campus. See photos here:

Easter break arrangements for diving / marine fieldwork

As we are preparing for the two-week easter break, please note that both Andrew and Amanda will be away without any email access from the 6th until the 19th of April. It is therefore recommended that you contact us before Thursday COB this week to get any fieldwork approved.

During the break:

For all diving activities, email diveofficer@mq.edu.au and your email will be picked up by:

Robert Harcourt from 06/04 until 12/04

Matthew Kosnik from 13/04 until 19/04

For all snorkeling / marine fieldwork, email fieldwork@mq.edu.au

Your email will be picked up by Sarah Collison from 06/04 until 19/04.

Please be patient as Sarah will be on Heron Island with BIOL379 from 06/04 to 13/04, with access to her emails once a day. If your query can wait until she returns, please consider waiting to email her then. Tarun Rajan will be able to hand out any field equipment during that time as he will be on campus.

If anything is unclear or if you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact either of us through fieldwork@mq.edu.au

Thanks, and have a lovely break everyone!

Amanda Sordes, Dive Officer

Marine Field Work Chats

Andrew, Amanda and Matthew are trying to encourage chats about marine fieldwork by setting up a weekly informal tea – we want to make sure we pick the best date/time for all interested staff or students.

We’ll have the first one on Tuesday 21/04 at 2pm at the MGSM cafe, everyone welcome. Subsequent day/times will be chosen according to feedback from the Doodle poll.

http://doodle.com/4kguqzey2fhnhnfs

New Biology FAQ page

The enrollment committee has developed a new FAQ page to which students with enrolment questions can be directed to: http://bio.mq.edu.au/undergraduate-studies/biology-faqs/

Easter has come to the Biology Museum

Easter has come to the Biological Sciences Museum with a donation of Australian bird’s eggs. A member of the public collected the eggs about 50 years ago, and they have come from a variety of species, including water birds, raptors and small passerines. If anyone would like to view the collection please feel free to drop by the Museum.

Hyundai i30 for sale

Contact details in the ad.

2010 Hyundai i30 Hatchback for Sale

http://www.carsales.com.au/private/details/Hyundai-i30-2010/SSE-AD-3335486

Conservation Cafe in April

SCB Sydney is hosting the next Conservation Cafe on April 11th with Dr. Daniel Ramp, Director of the Centre for Compassionate Conservation at UTS whose interests lie in landscape ecology, behavioural ecology, road ecology, human-wildlife conflicts and ethics in decision-making. (See attached flyer).

Conservation Cafe April 2015

Disney Dominos from Wollies

Culum’s kids are collecting Disney dominos from Woolworths. If you have some and want them to go to a good home please dump them in Culum’s pigeon hole.  The kids will really appreciate it.

April 9 graduation

if you want to partake in the procession, please register:

https://docs.google.com/a/mq.edu.au/forms/d/1VnrJDireShvO9oMvYygC6jFpb3wSiqvWTSmIRCflUWo/viewform?c=0&w=1

Room For Rent in Gladesville

It’s a self-contained flat, sharing with only one other person (28 year-old PhD student from MQU). Details can be found at 

http://www.flatmatefinders.com.au/view/95895 or 

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/gladesville/flatshare-houseshare/large-bedroom-for-rent-with-shared-access-to-study/1067303448

Looking for a place to stay

I’m looking for a place to stay for the 2 last weeks of my stay there: from the 27 of April to the 9th of May. Conact Simon Klein if you have something: simon.klein.ens@gmail.com

Marine Field Work Chats

Andrew, Amanda and Matthew are trying to encourage chats about marine fieldwork by setting up a weekly informal tea – we want to make sure we pick the best date/time for all interested staff or students.

We’ll have the first one on Tuesday 21/04 at 2pm at the MGSM cafe, everyone welcome. Subsequent day/times will be chosen according to feedback from the Doodle poll.

http://doodle.com/4kguqzey2fhnhnfs

New Learning & Teaching strategy Green paper

After an extended period of development, the Learning and Teaching Strategy green paper has been released today.  This document is intended for wide discussion over the next couple of months before the white paper is produced.  There will be opportunities to discuss it within Departments as well as at Faculty committees, and an online form is provided for individual feedback.

You will find the green paper here:

http://mq.edu.au/about_us/how_mq_works/executive/deputy_vice-chancellor_academic/learning_and_teaching_green_paper/

Cakes for Climate fundraiser – April 22

Hi everyone, it’s about time we get together again to show some support for the Climate Council by indulging in some delicious cakes (and tea/coffee!). The next fundraiser will be held on the 22 of April – EARTH DAY – and I encourage everyone to please come along, have some cake and make a donation. I am also looking for baking volunteers so if you’re keen to try out a new recipe this is your chance! Savoury, gluten free and dairy free treats are most welcome. Just as a fun challenge I’d like to suggest baking volunteers to try a recipe with a low carbon footprint i.e. use locally sourced ingredients that are in season or that you can get from your local market instead of using swiss chocolate or italian olive oil!

If you’d like to bake please email Julieta: julieta.martinelli@mq.edu.au

Looking forward to seeing what creative and sustainable treats people come up with!

Thanks 🙂

Two-day postdoc retreat, Q&A panel on getting a faculty job

A few of us have organised two upcoming events for postdocs in the biology department.

The first is a Q&A panel discussion with a number of academics in the department on what academic selection committees are looking for when hiring new faculty. The event is on Wed 15th April, 3:00-4:30pm in W19F Seminar Room (home of Animal behaviour building on northern side of campus). The panel includes current and former head of department (Marie Herberstein, Lesley Hughes), recent recruits (Rob Lanfear) and other established academics from the department (Andy Barron, Mark Westoby, Simon Griffith, Jenny Donald).

The second event is a two-day retreat on Tue 22 – Wed 23 April designed to provide opportunities for professional development, networking and mentoring in a relaxed and peaceful setting. Our vision is to provide two days where each of us can focus on our own specific professional development tasks whilst getting to know the other postdocs  around the department. For more information see attached flyer.

Please register for either event by April 6th at http://bit.ly/1M7pKow.

We look forward to seeing you!

Daniel Falster

There is Crying in Science

Interesting blog: https://dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/there-is-crying-in-science-thats-okay/

Effects of climate change on dragon return…. 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/520042a.html

2015 Nikon Small World Competition

he Nikon Small World competition includes still images taken through the optical microscope and also welcomes movies which are separately judged under a contest entitled Nikon “Small World in Motion”.

We welcome entries from you, your colleagues, or others in the scientific field who are taking imagery through the microscope.

The deadline for entries is Wednesday, April 30th, 2015.

There is no “upper” size limit and if you prefer, you may also email entries directly via reply to this email.

Entries for the still digital image Small World contest can be uploaded through a web browser directly to the MicroscopyU servers at the following URL:

http://www.microscopyu.com/smallworld/registration/entrypage1.aspx

Entries for Small World in Motion contest can also be uploaded through a web browser directly to the MicroscopyU servers at the following URL:

http://www.microscopyu.com/smallworld/videoregistration/entrypage1.aspx

Anatomy.tv 3D module and Visible Body – in the library

The Unity Web Player has now been installed on all public PCs and selected staff PCs in the Library. It is also available in the Library consultation rooms, one training room and on the Service Zone PCs.

You can test the Player as follows :

• -Go to MultiSearch Databases tab and type Visible body
• -Select ‘Launch’ to launch the Player
• -Unity player may need permission to run indicated by a grey screen with puzzle logo. 
• You need to click on red X and tick to always allow plugin. 
• You may also need to tick the box which says Always allow pop-ups from ovid-visiblebody.com.
• The Player may take some time to launch while the graphics associated with the 3D images and videos load.
• Departmental Computer staff may need to load the Unity player onto PCs in your computer labs depending on the policy in your department.

Student Grant success

Congratulations to Anu Jayaweera for winning a Joyce Vickery grant from the NSW Linnean Society and to Tom White who won an Australasian Evolution Society Student Award.

Department Vehicle CO2 offset 

We have offset the CO2 emissions our Department vehicles have generated in 2014. See attached certificate.

2015_02_26_CERT_24024_Macquarie University – Department of Biological Sciences

New Publications

In the Media

Recent Completions