At-sea spatial usage of recently weaned grey seal pups in Iceland
By: Baylis, Alastair MM, Jóhann G. Þorbjörnsson, Eric dos Santos, and Sandra M. Granquist. Polar Biology (2019): 1-6. | Find with Google Scholar »
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Dear all,
Coming up this week – the monthly Department meeting on Tuesday, all welcome. Why not have a look at the BIOL364 Science Fair beforehand? See you there!
cheers
Michelle
Save the Date
This week 4th – 8th November
Tue 5th: BIOL364 Antimicrobial Resistance Science Fair and BBQ; 12pm – 2pm; Biological Sciences Courtyard.
Tue 5th: Monthly Department meeting; 1pm – 2pm; 14EAR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Wed 6th: Department Morning Tea; 10:30-11am, 205B Culloden Rd.
Wed 6th: Department Seminar – Dr Tatiana Soares da Costa, La Trobe University; 1pm – 2pm; 14EAR(E8A)-280 (Biology Tea Room).
Following week 11th – 15th November
Wed 13th: Department Morning Tea; 10.30-11am; (Biology Tea Room).
Wed 13th: Department Seminars have concluded for the semester. See you in 2020!
Thu 14th: Biology Social Club; 5.00pm – 7.00pm; Biology Courtyard.
Weekly Events
Wed: Shut up and Write Sessions; 11.00am – 12.00pm; 6WW(E8C)-212 or 14EAR(E8A)-360A.
Thu: Venture Café; 3–8pm; (map). Find out what is on each week here – https://venturecafesydney.org/
Fri: Writing Workshops with Prof Ken Cheng – to support HDRs and ECRs with scientific writing; 2–4pm; Ken’s office at 205b Culloden Road, G12.
Fri: Behaviour and Evolution Journal Club; Friday at 12:30pm (bring your lunch); 205B Culloden Rd Boardroom.
Weekly Biological Sciences seminar program is here
Future Events
Nov 18 – MQ Excellence Awards (Academic staff) – register here
Nov 20 – MQ Excellence Awards (Professional staff) – register here
Nov 20 – book launch for Frankham et al’s latest book – morning tea in the Biology tearoom
Dec 3rd: Department Formal Exam Meeting followed by End-of-Year Party 
.
Dec 5th: Department Research Retreat for academic staff.
General News and Announcements
BIOL364 Antimicrobial Resistance Science Fair and BBQ
November 5, 12-2pm Biology Courtyard
Come along and participate in activities designed by students in BIOL364 Symbiosis in Health and Disease to communicate the issues of Antimicrobial resistance while enjoying a BBQ lunch. One group has even arranged (in collaboration with the Hospital Pharmacy) for collection of old antibiotics / medications – so if you have any in your cupboard bring them along for disposal. The students have gone to great effort with this assessment so please try to pop along even in only for 10 or so minutes.
Jack’s Back! The Biology Discovery Centre (where the museum was located) has a new resident, a replica skeleton of a Tarbosaurus bataar. “Jack” was installed in the original library in 1996, but a planned new retail store resulted in Jack looking for new digs. A team from Victoria carefully took Jack apart, cleaned him up, repaired and repainted sections and put him back together in a much more appropriate pose. Jack will be on view in the next couple of weeks and is a fantastic addition to the Discovery Centre.
The installation in progress
Plant of the Week -click the thumbnails for larger images-
This week: Conostylis candicans – Grey Cottonhead
ottonheads (Conostylis spp.) are closely related to Kangaroo Paws (Anigozanthos spp.), those iconic plants of the south-west of Western Australia. Conostylis and Anigozanthos are endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. Seed germination both genera is enhanced by exposure to smoke.
Science In Public Newsletter – curious to know what science is doing the rounds in the public eye? Look no further than this Science in Public Newsletter, containing awards and prize opportunities, pub nights, and talking science to business, government and the media.
Green Bins in Biology Courtyard – The Arboretum Project has acquired 4 green bins. They are dark green with a lime green lid, and have a sticker on the front to show they are for green waste. They are stored behind the fern bed in the Biology courtyard. They are for any weeding, pruning and garden maintenance work in the Biology teaching gardens. They are not for general rubbish. If you would like to use these bins outside the biology garden for any reason, please contact Samantha Newton <samantha.newton@mq.edu.au>
Lunchtime Litter Collection – The days may be cooler, but they’re also clear and sunny. Lunchtime is a great time to go for a walk and get some vitamin D! It’s also a great time to join the Biology Litter Collection competition! The next event will be Tuesday 12th November, 1pm. Meet in the Biology courtyard, bring a bucket or bag if you can.
We’ll be holding events throughout the rest of the year, every few weeks. At each event you go out to collect litter, between 1 and 1:30pm. Collections will be assessed at the end of each collection and gold stars awarded accordingly. Event results are tallied at the end of the year with a prize for the best collector.
Event dates: Tues 12th November; Tues 10th December.
OPPORTUNITIES
Research on Plant-Pollinator Relationships – opportunities for involvement as student, volunteer or collaborator, with field trips scheduled to Port Macquarie during Nov/Dec 2019 and Jan 2020. If interested, please contact Professor Graham Pyke at <Graham.Pyke@mq.edu.au>.
For more details, please consult this word document
eFLOWER Summer School Down Under – Royal Botanic Garden Sydney and UNSW, Australia; 1-10 April 2020.
Applications are now open for the eFLOWER Summer School Down Under to be held at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney and the University of New South Wales (Australia) from 1 to 10 April 2020. The goal of the eFLOWER Summer School Down Under will be to deliver high-quality training in the modern comparative methods used to study plant macroevolution, while at the same time offering the students the opportunity to contribute to future targets of the eFLOWER project. While the methods are general and applicable to any group of organisms, all of our empirical datasets will be drawn from our recent work on flowering plants. A unique feature of this School will be that the students themselves will participate in the creation of the datasets (floral traits and fossil calibrations) in the RBG’s collaborative database PROTEUS, thereby gaining hands-on experience of the problems and questions associated with compiling data and building real-life datasets for comparative analyses. In doing so, it is hoped to further promote the rapidly evolving field of macroevolution among graduate students in plant sciences, while also conveying our experience in building high-quality datasets.
For all details about this event, please see the RBG’s webpage: https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/eflowerdownunder.
Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC): Ecology & Conservation Internship Program 2020 – The AWC have recruited interns who fit well with their organisation and it’s activities for many years, and these interns are regularly offered employment positions with AWC post-internship. Applicants are being sought for the 2020 cohort, with applications closing on 10 November 2019. Please see the attached documentation, or the AWC website.
SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS
Biological Sciences Seminar – Date/Time: Wednesday, 6th November, 2019; 1pm – 2pm. Speaker: Dr Tatiana Soares da Costa, La Trobe University. Title: Resistance is futile: Overcoming the rise of superbugs and noxious weeds Venue: 14EAR-280 (Biology Tea Room). More information on this and all department seminars ON OUR WEBPAGE HERE.
Fresh Science 2019 NSW – 6 November Pub Night
Lindsay Parker from MQU is a finalist. Her topic is “New ways to see pain in your brain.” – click image to enlarge –
Join Macquarie Bushcare Event – Macquarie Uni holds semi-regular bushcare activities on campus. The next event: Thursday 7th November, 2-3:30pm at the Learning Circle (west side of lake). Gloves and tools provided. Please wear appropriate clothing and bring water. The event will involve weeding and planting with like minded staff and students, under the guidance of a qualified bush regenerator. More information.
Calling all ecologists, geographers or remote-sensing researchers to attend the x-sensing conference in November!
When: Workshop, 22th Nov – 26th Nov; Conference 27th – 29th Nov
Where: National Marine Science Centre, Coffs Harbour
What: The ‘cross-sensing’ conference aims to unite scientists from diverse fields with industry professionals and experts in artificial intelligence. The week-long meeting is divided into two parts: a 2-day training workshop and a 3-day cross-disciplinary conference centred on a hack day.
Although the meeting has a technical focus, many of the tutorials and the hack-day are designed to appeal to non-coders too. We have some specialists from NVIDIA coming to teach us about their point-and-click machine learning software, which they say can be used by anyone. There will be plenty of technical expertise at the conference and hack-day, but we also need researchers who bring challenges and domain knowledge to define projects.
For more information, please visit http://x-sensing.net or get in touch with Dr Cormac Purcell <cormac.purcell@mq.edu.au>.
Molecular Sciences Seminar – Date/Time: Tuesday, 12th November, 2019; 1pm – 2pm. Speaker: Christopher Rodrigues from University of Technology Sydney (UTS).Title: New Biology Underlying the Development of Bacterial Spores. Venue: 4WW 322 Seminar room.
Shut Up and Write Sessions – every Wednesday 11am. It’s pretty simple, we shut up… and we write. Using the pomodoro technique we’ll meet at 11am to write, stop 25 minutes in for a 10 min break, then settle down again for another 25 minutes of writing. You’ll be amazed how productive you can be. More details on the concept here: https://thesiswhisperer.com/shut-up-and-write/
Room will be either 6WW(E8C)-212 or 14EAR(E8A)-360A, email <lizzy.lowe@mq.edu.au> to confirm or with any questions.
All welcome!
Venture Café – Want to know more about innovation, and how to achieve it? Come along to the Venture Cafe, Thursday, 3pm – 8pm, (map). Find out what is on each week here – https://venturecafesydney.org/
This week: 3.00pm: Demo Tables: 7 November Thursday Gathering; 3.00pm: Innovate Hear Workshop – Creating Space Conductive to Communication; 3.00pm: Thriving Urban Environments; 4.15pm: Talk: Understand Future Physical Climate Change Risks to Business and the Financial Sector; 5.00pm: Showcase: Tracing toxic contaminants in our home environment; 5.30pm: Panel: Urban Environments and Our Health; 6.30pm: Industry Future Tallen Night with the Australasian Land and Groundwater Association.
Wildlife at the Watering Hole – 3rd Tuesday of each month, 6:30pm @ Botany View Hotel, King St Newtown!
HDR NEWS AND OPPORTUNITIES
Writing Boot Camp – Date/Time: Monday 18th- Friday 22nd November; all week. Venue: on campus (TBC). Suitable for: HDR students who have already completed analysis for a manuscript/chapter, and have discussed with the supervisor the intended direction of the work, and have a target journal in mind.
This boot camp is designed to give you a block of time to work on writing. Help (including from your peers) will be available on writing structure, but this is NOT an introduction to writing, NOR will there be help with analysis. The idea is that you arrive with an idea for the manuscript and the analyses done, and that you will write the whole first draft in the week of the Boot Camp.
Space be available for ~12 students, so if you are interested and committed, please contact Simon: <simon.griffith@mq.edu.au>. Some meals will be provided.
Research Enrichment Program (REP) Workshop Series – The Department now has a fully fledged research enrichment program for 2019 – you can find out about upcoming workshops here (click on this PDF). All HDR students are encouraged to attend several of these workshops each year to develop their skills and track record for the post-PhD world. Supervisors please encourage your students!
PhD Students: got a grant? Dept. will co-fund up to $1500 – The Department would like to encourage students to seek external sources of funding, and has a small budget with which to support successful candidates.New limits from 2019:PhD students ONLY: Dept. will match up to $1500 of external (non-MQ) funding ONCE during the student’s candidature.
If you have received a grant (student as chief investigator) and wish to request co-funding, please forward a copy of the award letter to <sharyon.odonnell@mq.edu.au> and <wenjing.wang@mq.edu.au>.
Are You a HDR Student? Need Help with Writing? HDR Mentors in collaboration with HDR Learning Skills is running another round of Peer Writing Assistance (PWA) for the rest of the year! This program is designed to support MRES and HDR candidates in managing thesis writing and research-related concerns. All peer writing assistants have undergone training for their role and are current PhD candidates at Macquarie.
The PWA program is based on the principle of collaborative learning in which a more experienced research student helps you develop stronger academic and research skills. Peer Writing Assistants are not teachers. Rather, they are trained to function as a ‘friendly audience’ or ‘fresh pair of eyes’ to help you gain new perspectives on your writing or research ideas.
Registrations are now open for individual consultation bookings. If you are interested, please go to book in for a 45-minute session with a PWA here.
And:
Writing Workshops – Convened by Ken Cheng, running weekly for most of the year: Fridays 2-4pm in Ken’s office at 205b Culloden Road, G12.
These writing workshops are meant for HDR students and early-career researchers. In these face-to-face encounters, writing at any stage of any genre is welcome, from first draft to final polish, from empirical paper to literature review to popular news story. Ken envisages personal feedback linked perhaps with rounds of revisions on selected passages during the session. The aim is not just to get stuff written, but to write everything well.
Those interested in attending a session should email Ken Cheng <ken.cheng@mq.edu.au> by Wednesday 12:00-noon, preferably with a draft attached of what they are working on and some indication of what they especially need help with.
ADMIN THINGS
The Department’s Annual Report 2018 is now published and available here. It is packed full of news and events and showcases our people and achievements for the year. A cracker of a read! It will be available on the website very soon, so please pass on to your networks, colleagues and friends.
Need to Contact the Biology Admin Team via Email? Please send your email to <fse.bio-adm@mq.edu.au> or drop in and see us. The old google group (sci.bio-adm) email no longer works, if you have this email as a remembered address please delete.
Outreach Activities – Have You Participated in an Activity for Biology Recently? Don’t forget to fill in the super-quick form here – ACCESS OUTREACH FORM HERE
Building Name Changes – Cheat Sheet – If you are trying to identify buildings on campus with new names or old names, please use this link to convert them from old to new or vice versa.
THIS AND THAT
Accommodation Needed – A new cotutelle PhD student, Cecillia Hjort is arriving form Sweden in January to join Rachael Dudaniec’s lab for a project on bumblebees. She is looking to rent a semi-or fully furnished apartment OR a shared house/apartment, close to a train station or MQ. Minimum stay 6 months. Please contact <cecilia.hjort@biol.lu.se> if you are looking to rent your place from January 2020.
Weekly Fruit and Harvest Hub – The fruit you’ve been eating in department gatherings has been coming from Harvest Hub for the last few years. Harvest Hub has now closed and moved to a new arrangement called Box Divvy. The new arrangement doesn’t suit us so we will trial a few different fruit providers over the next couple of months. If you have any feedback on what you like and what you don’t, please email your comments to <samantha.newton@mq.edu.au>.
Box Divvy – You might be interested in signing up to Box Divvy for your home fruit and veg orders. https://www.boxdivvy.com/
What is Box Divvy? Harvest Hub has worked closely with NSW Health, Western Sydney Diabetes Alliance and various councils to re-develop Harvest Hub into an ordering platform that provides fresh, local produce that is easy to access anywhere, affordable to anyone regardless of income, and is easy to use.
The Benefits
- Reduce your food bill by 40% compared with regular retail
- Same quality produce and range as Harvest Hub, but even fresher as direct
- Growers are getting paid a fair price for their produce: 65c in every dollar you spend goes back to the farmers and food producers, and they get paid on order. (Supermarkets pay around 35c in the dollar, and usually pay after 30-60 days).
- A growing range of grocery products, and next year: dairy, sustainable seafood and meat
- Minimal packaging
- A 90% reduction in carbon emissions compared with supermarkets
How Does It Work? Box Divvy is a box-sharing App – everything that is supplied to the Hub is in wholesale-size quantities to the Hub to share but it’s shared through the App between those members wanting that particular item: a 10kg box of tomatoes or cucumbers; Groceries are about to change in the way they are sold so it will be a total minimum spend for the whole Hub – you can pick and choose with these.
Call for Cystic Fibrosis Christmas Markets Volunteers! Cystic Fibrosis Australia is in need of Volunteers for their Christmas markets on December 5th and 6th at Martin place. Volunteers are needed to sell Raffle tickets/Merchandise and all funds received support Cystic Fibrosis research and advocacy. All Fixed term and continuing staff are eligible to two days community volunteering leave. Such fund raising events are also great for team building. Please email queries or expressions of interest to Prasanth Subramani <prasanth.subramani@mq.edu.au>.
Volunteers CFA_Markets_Flyer CM_20191
Correct Method for Submitting to Department Matters
Department Matters submissions now have their own email address. Please send all your news items for the newsletter to <fse.bionewsletter@mq.edu.au>
Also, please see the following to correctly format your additions, and keep them rolling in!
You may have noticed that we try to keep all the articles to the same format for the Department Matters, however, rest assured, they do NOT all turn up in this format! To help keep your Department Matters looking as good as possible, when sending in additions to the Newsletter, please try to keep these formatting guidelines in mind.
- Please write in third person. The information is coming from the Newsletter, not directly from you.
- Do not use fancy text formatting. Bold heading, normal text, and only italics or bold to highlight. No font size changes will make it through, sorry.
- If sending via email, set your email output to basic. HTML output will add all sort of formatting that will have to be removed before your article can go into the newsletter.
- Keep your submission short and direct (two paragraphs) and if possible provide a document, email or link where readers can get more information. Any long submissions will be cropped.
Keeping to these guidelines will streamline your article’s addition to the newsletter. Thank you.
Have You Missed Out on an Issue of Department Matters? Back issues can be found at this newsletter archive link for your reading pleasure.
New Publications
A citizen science approach to long-term monitoring of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) off Sydney, Australia
By: Pirotta, Vanessa, Wayne Reynolds, Geoffrey Ross, Ian Jonsen, Alana Grech, David Slip, and Robert Harcourt. Marine Mammal Science. | Find with Google Scholar »Retinal topography and microhabitat diversity in a group of dragon lizards
By: Nagloo, Nicolas, João Paulo Coimbra, Daniel Hoops, Nathan S. Hart, Shaun P. Collin, and Jan M. Hemmi. Journal of Comparative Neurology (2019). | Find with Google Scholar »Environmental and biotic drivers of soil microbial beta-diversity across spatial and phylogenetic scales
By: Chalmandrier, L., Pansu, J., Zinger, L., Boyer, F., Coissac, E., Génin, A., Gielly, L., Lavergne, S., Legay, N., Schilling, V. and Taberlet, P., 2019. Ecography. | Find with Google Scholar »Protein Paucimannosylation Is an Enriched N-Glycosylation Signature of Human Cancers
By: Chatterjee, S., Lee, L.Y., Kawahara, R., Abrahams, J.L., Adamczyk, B., Anugraham, M., Ashwood, C., Sumer‐Bayraktar, Z., Briggs, M.T., Chik, J.H. and Everest‐Dass, A., 2019. Proteomics, p.1900010. | Find with Google Scholar »A Call for International Leadership and Coordination to Realize the Potential of Conservation Technology
By: Lahoz-Monfort, J.J., Chadès, I., Davies, A., Fegraus, E., Game, E., Guillera-Arroita, G., Harcourt, R., Indraswari, K., McGowan, J., Oliver, J.L. and Refisch, J., 2019. BioScience, 69(10), pp.823-832. | Find with Google Scholar »Incorporating future climate uncertainty into the identification of climate change refugia for threatened species
By: Beaumont, Linda J., Manuel Esperón-Rodríguez, David A. Nipperess, Mareshell Wauchope-Drumm, and John B. Baumgartner. Biological Conservation 237 (2019): 230-237. | Find with Google Scholar »In the Media
Vanessa Pirotta was featured on Channel 9 Sydney National Nine Early News
Dr Vanessa Pirotta from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured on Channel 9 Sydney National Nine Early News regarding the end of the whale migration season.
Rick Shine was featured in Female First
Professor Rick Shine from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured in Female First in relation to a study of the sea snake population in the waters off Noumea.
Vanessa Pirotta was featured on National Nine News
Dr Vanessa Pirotta from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured on National Nine News in relation to the annual humpback whale migration.
Jane Williamson provided comment to The New Daily
Associate Professor Jane Williamson from the Department of Biological Sciences provided comment to The New Daily about recent shark attacks off the Whitsundays.
Simon Griffith was featured in The Guardian
Professor Simon Griffith from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured in The Guardian regarding how birds across the world have adapted the colour of their eggs to the challenges imposed by environmental conditions.
Elizabeth Eyre was featured on Channel 9 News
Elizabeth Eyre from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured on Channel 9 News in relation to a dinosaur model named Jack which was relocated at the University.
Rick Shine was featured in IFL Science
Professor Rick Shine from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured in IFL Science in relation to a study of the sea snake population in the waters off Noumea.
Lesley Hughes was featured in The Guardian
Distinguished Professor Lesley Hughes, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research Integrity and Development was featured in The Guardian regarding a letter from leading scientists to the Prime Minister to stem the species extinction ‘crisis’.