Metagenomics of urban sewage identifies an extensively shared antibiotic resistome in China
By: Su, Jian-Qiang, Xin-Li An, Bing Li, Qing-Lin Chen, Michael R. Gillings, Hong Chen, Tong Zhang, and Yong-Guan Zhu. Microbiome 5, no. 1 (2017): 84. | Find with Google Scholar »
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Dear all,
Not much to report from me – another busy week with teaching commencing for S2 and the new admin team settling in. For those unable to be at this week’s department meeting, you can find the slides here.
cheers,
Michelle
Save the Date
This coming week 7th – 11th August
Wed 9th: Department Morning Tea & Mettler Toledo Display; 10:30am – 11:30am; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Wed 9th: Dr Katherine Moseby, The University of Adelaide; 1pm – 2pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Thu 10th: Writing Workshop; 2:30-4:30pm, E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Following week 14th – 18th August
Wed 16th: STEM Careers Forum; AM and PM sessions; E7A-L8 and GF Atrium.
Wed 16th: Department Morning Tea; 10:30am – 11:30am; The Hill.
Wed 16th: Associate Professor Nigel Andrew, The University of New England; 1pm – 2pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Thu 17th: Writing Workshop; 2:30-4:30pm, E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Coming up
Every Thursday for the next few months: Writing Workshop; 2:30-4:00pm; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Aug 19th: Open Day
Aug 24th: Launch of Dick Frankham’s latest book ‘Genetic management of fragmented animal and plant populations’; Details TBC
Sept 19th: ECR Showcase; E8A-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Oct 2nd: Special Seminar: A/Prof Maren Wellenreuther “Women in Science: Highlighting the changing face of evolutionary biology”; 1 – 2pm; C8A 310 Senate Room.
Nov 13-14: Department retreat for academic staff; venue TBC.
Department seminar schedule
August 23rd: Professor Chris Johnson, The University of Tasmania
August 30th: Dr Ayesha Tulloch, ANU/UQ
September 13th: Dr Caragh Threlfall, The University of Melbourne
September 20th: Dr Kate Lynch, MQ Departmental ECR
October 4th: Dr Lesley Lancaster & Dr Maren Wellenreuther, University of Aberdeen/ Lund University & Plant and Food Research NZ
October 11th: Dr John Martin, Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney
October 18th: Associate Professor Matthew England, The University of NSW
October 25th: Associate Professor Carla Sgro, Monash University
November 1st: Dr Ajay Narendra, Macquarie University
November 8th: Associate Professor Bob Wong, Monash University
November 15th: Associate Professor Nathan Lo, The University of Sydney
General News and Announcements
Student Awards
Nicolette Armansin and Vanessa Pirotta were each awarded a student travel grant of $US1000 to attend the International Society of Marine Mammalogy in October. Well done to both!
STEM Careers Forum
Presentations | Q&A | Networking
The STEM Careers Forum showcases a diverse range of career options for FSE researchers at UG, PG and Research level. Come meet industry representatives who will present on their career journeys, provide tips/industry insights, and network with other STEM researchers and employers. Refreshments are provided.
Date: Wed 16th Aug
Venue: E7A L8 (Presentations) and GF Atrium (Networking that follows)
Hear industry speakers present on:
- How they made the most of their STEM degrees
- What they do and where they work now
- How they got there
- Any tips/advice/opportunities for STEM researchers looking for employment outside academia
10am – 12.30pm session for BIOL/CHEM/CBMS/ENVS/EPS researcher
2pm – 4.30pm session for MATH/STATS/PHYS/ASTR/ENGG/IT/IS researchers
DEPARTMENTAL SEMINAR SERIES
Day/Date/Time/Place: Wednesday, 9th August, 1-2pm, E8A-280 (Tea Room).
Speaker: Dr Katherine Moseby, The University of Adelaide.
Title: The role of predation in reintroduction failure; causes, consequences and novel solutions.
Abstract: Predation is a significant contributor to reintroduction failure, particularly in countries where exotic predators are present including Australia and New Zealand. In these countries, the majority of reintroductions outside of fenced reserves and islands fail due to predation by the introduced European fox and feral cat. The high predation impact is attributed, at least in part, to prey naivety where native species have evolved in isolation from eutherian mammalian predators. To date, methods to address predation in reintroduction programs have included exclusion or control of introduced predators, predator training of captive-bred individuals and acclimatization in release pens at the release site. These methods have produced mixed but often poor results, stimulating research into predation impacts and novel solutions. I present four novel solutions being tested to reduce predator impacts. Examples are presented from a number of reintroduction programs in Australia including the burrowing bettong and western quoll. Recent research suggests individual predators may have disproportionate impacts on reintroduced populations through specialization and this can be addressed using toxic implants placed under the skin of reintroduced prey. These Toxic Trojans may reduce the need for widespread, indiscriminate predator control and increase post release survival of the population. Another method, In situ predator training, involves releasing wild threatened prey into areas with low and controlled densities of introduced predators to stimulate learning and accelerated natural selection. Results suggest a significant improvement in anti-predator behavior of reintroduced populations. A third method that may reduce predation impacts is careful selection of source individuals through an understanding of differential survival based on physical, behavioral or release site traits. Finally, advances in species-specific predator control have also occurred including the development of a cat grooming trap “Felixer” that takes advantage of a cat’s compulsory grooming behaviour.
Welcome
Duncan Jaroslow joins the Ecological Neuroscience Group for a MRes2 program to investigate brain plasticity in the context of development and acquisition of information in ants. He did his Honours at La Trobe University where he studied population genetics in ants.
Visiting Scholar
Michal Kowalewski is in the department visiting the palaeobiology group for the next few weeks. Prof Kowalewski hails from the Florida Museum of Natural History / University of Florida and he is a widely published in the fields of taphonomy and palaeoecology (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HUfTMk0AAAAJ&hl=en). He will be giving a talk titled “Evolutionary History of Prey: 600 million Years of Predator-Prey Interactions in Earth’s Oceans” on the 11th as part of the Marine Science seminar series.
Find Out What’s New During Shark Week
Did You Participate in an Outreach Activity Recently for the Department?
Don’t for get to fill in the super-quick form here – – ACCESS OUTREACH FORM HERE
Of Interest to MRes Students
Dear MRes Year 2 students, there will be a panel discussion on August 10th from 2:15-4pm on thesis submission challenges. Topics to be discussed include:
– Time and expectation management
– Examination process
– Thesis formatting & printing
– Thesis submission
– Life after thesis submission
Come along if you have any burning questions or just want to hear sage advice from our panelists. See attached flyer for details.
‘Taming the Tangled Tau’:
“The laboratory has funded the development of the cryo-EM methods for decades, enabling the authors to make a giant step and give us the first molecular-level structure of tau fibrils from the brain of a patient. An implicit lesson emerges from this ground-breaking study: long-term support is essential for influential science”.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v547/n7662/full/nature23094.html
PhD Scholarships in Alpine Evolutionary Ecology at ANU
Nicotra Kruuk alpine evolutionary ecology phd
Media & Communications Training in Sydney – 31 August – Your life’s work in 30 seconds
Science in Public are running a media and communication training course for scientists in Sydney on 31 August.
Conveying the complexity of your research, your life’s work, into a 30-second grab for the media can be hard. The solution is to shape the essence of your science into a story.
Join Science in Public for their one-day media training workshop and get some help.
Two experienced science communicators will work with you to find the story in your research. Over the years we’ve helped Monash launch the world’s first printed jet engine, revealed the loss of half the coral on the Great Barrier Reef, helped CERN announce the Higgs boson, and revealed the link between CSIRO’s Wi-Fi patent and Aussie astronomy.
We will help you find the right words to explain your research in a way that works for the media, as well as for government, industry and other stakeholders.
Working journalists from television, print and radio will join us over the course of the day to explain what makes news for them. And you’ll get the chance to practice being interviewed in front of a camera and on tape.
The day’s insights and training will help you feel more comfortable in dealing with journalists when media opportunities arise.
We can also hold courses in other locations or on other dates. If you have at least four participants, we can probably find others in your area to make a course viable. If you can guarantee six participants, then we’re happy to confirm a course in your city/campus.
Media training courses are $800 +GST per person, and include lunch, morning and afternoon tea, and lattes on demand.
If you’d like to book a place in a course, head to www.eventbrite.com.au/o/science-in-public-8313184779 or contact Toni Stevens <toni@scienceinpublic.com.au>.
You can read more about our courses at www.scienceinpublic.com.au/training.
Summer Vacation Scholarship opportunities for undergraduate university students at CSIRO
CSIRO have 11 paid opportunities available in a wide range of areas including genomics, taxonomy and science communication.
The detailed descriptions of the Summer Vacation Scholarship opportunities for undergraduate university students are now live on the CSIRO career portal.
https://jobs.csiro.au/job/Various-CSIRO-Undergraduate-Vacation-Scholarships-National-Research-Collections-Australia-%28NRCA%29/416889300/
Please feel free to announce these paid undergraduate internships to your students and wider networks.
Discourse analysis for the social sciences (AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES)
Tuesday 22 August 2017
The use of language in society can be an important source of data and evidence in many fields of the social sciences. Many researchers in the social sciences already work with language data, either created in the research process (e.g. interviews), or sourced from natural contexts of interaction, such as media discourse (including social media), clinical consultations, political speeches, texts in law, pedagogic discourse, advertising, literature etc. This workshop will introduce some basic techniques on the use of language data in the social sciences, drawing on the growing field of “corpus linguistics”. We will look at some large publically accessible corpora (e.g. the Google Books Corpus, the Brigham Young Corpora, the British National Corpus). We will discuss the kinds of questions that can be asked of this easily accessible data. We will also review some publically available tools for basic discourse analysis, which enable us to search word frequencies and collocational patterns. Some essential concepts from linguistics – how words mean, how texts are embedded in social and cultural contexts, how linguistic form construes meaning – will be introduced to consider the enormous potential as well as the limitations of language as evidence in the social sciences.*Please bring your own laptop to this workshop as you will be downloading free software and setting it up on your computer.
Click here [https://hdrworkshops.mq.edu.au/registration/new/14541?year=2017 ] to register for ‘Discourse analysis for the social sciences (AND BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES)’
REP masterclass: Developmental Plasticity and Evolution
Wednesday 20th September (9:00 – 13:00 with short breaks).
Organised by David Wells, this offering will include substantial opportunity for discussion. Everyone very welcome to attend.
The Modern Synthesis has been the dominant paradigm in evolutionary biology since the 1930s and 1940s, but proposals to modify it, typically by extending it in various ways, have recently become more insistent. This workshop will examine the proposed Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by examining the work of one specific proponent, Mary Jane West-Eberhard, whose book, Developmental Plasticity and Evolution, arguably represents the most comprehensive attempt at synthesis. The work of others will be discussed as appropriate. Evolution by natural selection has three pre-requisites: variation, selection and inheritance. WestEberhard does not disagree with this, but argues that it needs to be seen in the context of development understood as all phenotypic change during the lifetimes of individual organisms or higher units of organisation. For example, she argues that some of what appears to be evolution by natural selection is actually the rearrangement of pre-existing developmental modules, with little or no genetic change. Where there is genetic change, it is genetic accommodation to the changes occurring in the phenotype. In general, West-Eberhard treats genes as ‘followers rather than leaders’ in evolution. How strong is the empirical evidence for this view, and does her synthesis hang together? WestEberhard’s focus is on the arrangement of components in a system, not on the action of any one component, specifically the gene. Particular attention will be paid to her liberal use of the concept of ‘emergence’, understood as a macro-level phenomenon such as evolutionary novelty arising from micro-level phenomena, while nevertheless having autonomy from the micro-level base on which it depends. There will be substantial opportunity for discussion.
Click here to register for ‘Developmental Plasticity and Evolution’
ScienceCareers.org (August 2017)
Featured Jobs
Employer Profiles
Career Features
Featured Forum Topic
New Publications
Digest: Strengthening the link between sexual selection and color polymorphism
By: White, Thomas E. Evolution (2017). | Find with Google Scholar »Anomalously High Recruitment of the 2010 Gulf Menhaden (Brevoortia patronus) Year Class: Evidence of Indirect Effects from the Deepwater Horizon Blowout in the Gulf of Mexico
By: Short, Jeffrey W., Harold J. Geiger, J. Christopher Haney, Christine M. Voss, Maria L. Vozzo, Vincent Guillory, and Charles H. Peterson. Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology (2017): 1-17. | Find with Google Scholar »Establishment of a taxonomic and molecular reference collection to support the identification of species regulated by the Western Australian Prevention List for Introduced Marine Pests
By: Dias, P.J., Fotedar, S., Munoz, J., Hewitt, M.J., Lukehurst, S., Hourston, M., Wellington, C., Duggan, R., Bridgwood, S., Massam, M. and Aitken, V., 2017. Management of Biological Invasions. | Find with Google Scholar »Moving in dim light: behavioural and visual adaptations in nocturnal ants
By: Narendra A, Kamhi JF & Ogawa Y. 2017. Integrative and Comparative Biology. | Find with Google Scholar »Polarized light use in the nocturnal bull ant, Myrmecia midas
By: Freas CA, Narendra A, Lemsle C, Cheng K. 2017. Royal Society Open Science. | Find with Google Scholar »Techniques to investigate the anatomy of the ant visual system
By: Ramirez-Esquivel F, Ribi WA and Narendra A. 2017. Journal of Visualized Experiments. | Find with Google Scholar »In the Media
Rob Harcourt featured in The Daily Telegraph, Gold Coast Bulletin, The Hobart Mercury and The Tasmanian Examiner
Professor Rob Harcourt from the Department of Biological Sciences featured in The Daily Telegraph, Gold Coast Bulletin, The Hobart Mercury and The Tasmanian Examiner in ongoing coverage of his comments regarding southern right whales in Okehampton Bay and the potential impact an industrial salmon farm could have on their habitat.
Juliano Morimoto featured in Food Processing
Dr Juliano Morimoto from the Department of Biological Sciences featured in Food Processing in relation to his new study which has found that the reproductive investment and success of a fruit fly mating pair was influenced by gut bacteria, as well as the body mass of the offspring.
Rob Harcourt was interviewed on ABC Radio Hobart’s Drive program
Professor Rob Harcourt from the Department of Biological Sciences was interviewed on ABC Radio Hobart’s Drive program about whale migration behaviour. See page 3 of the report.
Recent Completions
Farzana Raihan submitted her thesis entitled “The Impact of Climate Change on the Hydrology of the Halda Basin, Southeastern Bangladesh.”
Supervised by Dr Linda Beaumont