Urban stormwater run-off promotes compression of saltmarshes by freshwater plants and mangrove forests
By: Geedicke, Ina, Jens Oldeland, and Michelle R. Leishman | Find with Google Scholar »
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Hi all,
Although next week will be quieter with the students on mid-semester break, there is still plenty going on in the department with the ECR workshop on Wednesday morning, Biology graduation on Wednesday afternoon, some PhD completion seminars on Thursday and the celebration of the 40th birthday of the Biology Garden on Friday – see you there!
cheers,
Michelle
Save the Date
This coming week 17th – 21st September
Tue 18th: Biology Garden Planting Working Bee; 1.00pm – 2.00pm; Biology Courtyard – RSVP to Samantha Newton.
Wed 19th: Biology ECR Research Showcase; 9.00am-1.30pm; 14EAR (E8A) 280 Biology Tea Room.
Wed 19th: Biological Sciences Graduation Ceremony; 2.30pm; Great Hall, MQU.
Thu 20th: HDR completion seminars – Kaja Wierucka; 4.30pm – 5.00pm; 14EAR (E8A) 280 Biology Tea Room.
Thu 20th: Biology Social Club; 5.00pm – 7.00pm; Biology Courtyard.
Fri 21st: Frank Mercer Garden 40th Anniversary; 12.00pm – 2.00pm; Frank Mercer Garden, behind Biology Courtyard – RSVP to Samantha Newton.
Following week 24th – 28th September
Mon 24th: MRes final seminars; 9.00pm – 5.00pm; 14EAR (E8A) 280 Biology Tea Room.
Wed 26th: Department Morning Tea; 10.30am; The Hill.
Thu 27th: R Users Group; 3.00pm – 5.00pm; 14EAR (E8A) 280 Biology Tea Room.
Future Events
Oct 2nd: REP Workshop ‘Conservation Conversations: Saving Our Smallest Species’; 9.00am – 11.00am; 14EAR (E8A) 280 Biology Tea Room.
Oct 10th: Faculty Safety Day; 10.00am – 2.00pm; Biology Courtyard.
Oct 11th: Darwinian Medicine; 10.00am – 3.00pm; Continuum room, level 3, 75 Talavera Road.
Want to know what Department seminars are coming up? You can check out the Dept webpage at any time!
General News and Announcements
Congratulations to Alex Carthey and Nola Hancock who were both recipients of the 2018 Milthorpe Memorial Award in Plant Biology. Well done to both researchers.
Indoor Planter Potting Event – Here are some images from the recent Indoor Planter activity, run by Rekha Joshi and M. Masood.
Biology Garden Planting Working Bee – Tuesday 18th September – 1.00pm – 2.00pm
Help add some new plants to the biology annexe.
We’ll be planting Grevilleas, Banksias and Hakeas among others.
These plants are from Alex Carthey’s research project.
Please wear clothes that can get dirty, closed in shoes and a hat. BYO water bottle.
Gloves and tools will be provided.
Snacks available at the end of the planting.
Please RSVP and direct questions to <samantha.newton@mq.edu.au>.
The Annual Biology ECR Research Showcase – is on this Wednesday 19th September 2018 9.00 am to 1.30 pm, have a look at the exciting schedule here.
Biology Garden 40th Anniversary – Please Help! – We’re celebrating the 40th anniversary of our garden on Friday 21st September.
We need your historic photos! As part of the celebrations we’ll have a display of how the garden, especially the courtyard, has been used over the past 40 years.
Please help by submitting images you have to Samantha Newton <samantha.newton@mq.edu.au>
We’d love to have a range of photos from across the decades: planting days, student pracs, open days, Christmas parties and farewells. Precious hard copies can be scanned. Please contact Samantha
RSVPs for Friday’s Garden party are due by MONDAY to <samantha.newton@mq.edu.au>.
Have Your Say on Open Day 2018 – If you were a contributor on Open Day this year please provide feedback on what worked and didn’t work so well on the day at this survey
Train Station Closure 30th September 2018 With the Macquarie University train station closure from 30 September 2018 for 6-7 months, this website offers information about bus options from your closest train station. http://www.mysydney.nsw.gov.au/stationlink It will be the first place to look for information and will be continually updated. https://staff.mq.edu.au/work/travel/station-upgrade
SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS
Biological Sciences Weekly Seminar – returning after the mid-semester break on 3 October 2018 – more info ON OUR WEBPAGE HERE
RESEARCH ENRICHMENT PROGRAM: Conservation Conversations: Saving Our Smallest Species
Date/Time/Venue: Tuesday, 2 October 2018, 9 am – 11 am, 14EAR (E8A) 280 Biology Tea Room.
Almost all animals are invertebrates, yet their vital role in maintaining the health of our environments and providing essential ecosystem services is systematically undervalued. These “other 99%” are under threat from a range of human activities but the need for their conservation is virtually ignored. In order to save our smallest species, we need increased public engagement, new ideas and improved collaboration between interest groups. Click here to register to attend.
Darwinian Medicine – Thursday 11th October (10am – 3pm) Continuum room, level 3, 75 Talavera Road. Organised by Steve Simpson, Helen Rizos and Marie Herberstein.
Evolutionary theory is a powerful approach to many phenomena encountered by practicing medicine, including antibiotic resistance, personalised medicine, tumour cell evolution. This half-day workshop will explore how an evolutionary approach and medical practice can be mutually informative by pairing evolutionary biologists with medical practitioners from the fields [tentatively]:
- Nutrition and the gut biome
- Virus/human interactions
- Cancer treatment
- Neuro degenerative disorders
- Infectious diseases
This workshop aims to:
- Explore research connections and collaborations between biological and medical researchers (with the possibility of further workshops to develop and foster collaborations around ‘wicked problems’)
- Increase opportunity to meet researchers working on similar topics across faculties
- Identify opportunities to embed Darwinian medicine principles into curriculum
- Build collegial and collaborative relationships across Faculties and with external groups.
Click here to register for ‘Darwinian Medicine’
Weekly Writing Workshops for HDR Students and Early Career Researchers – Convened by Ken Cheng – Running weekly for most of the year: Fridays 2-4pm in room E8B 111
If you are interested in attending a session email Ken Cheng (ken.cheng@mq.edu.au) by Wednesday 12:00-noon, preferably with a draft attached of what you are working on and some indication of what you especially need help with.
Molecular Sciences Seminar
Date/Time/Venue: Tuesday, 2nd October 2018, 1 – 2pm, 4WW (F7B) 322 Seminar Room.
Speaker: Prof Bostjan Kobe, The School of Chemistry and Biosciences, UQ. Title: Signalling by cooperative assembly formation (SCAF) by TIR domains in innate immunity and cell death pathways. More information on this and all department seminars at https://goto.mq/6q
ADMIN THINGS
Pure Training Registration – Date changed to 15 October 2018 – 1.00 pm to 3.30 pm
The PURE system is used to manage researcher profiles, outputs including publications, funding applications, awards, projects and reports. Do you feel like you could use some more PURE training? Please register for this session via an email to jenny.ghabache@mq.edu.au.
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.
Photo Competition – SEPTEMBER 2018 – go into the draw to win a $100 Gift Card this month! This month’s theme is Man Made! Your images could be used on our Department website, this newsletter, on our social media and in other biology publications. A lucky person’s name will be drawn each month, and they will receive a $100 Gift Card! Criteria: you must provide caption information including details of what/where/who(names of people)/date & you must have taken all photos & the image must have been taken in the last five years. Please follow the dropbox file request link to submit your images.
Submission close: 30 SEPTEMBER 2018. You can enter as many photos as you like – one entry to the draw per photo with caption info, good luck!
RESEARCH FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
Ecological Society of Australia Student Research Awards – closing date 31st October – Ten student research awards of up to $1,500 will be available to Australian postgraduate and honours students conducting ecological research. The award can be used to cover expenses such as field travel, research assistance, equipment or consumables. Applicants must be a member of the ESA and not have previously won a research award from the Society. Info here
Are You an Early-Career Researcher Who Loves Sharing Your Research? The NSW Office of Environment & Heritage (OEH) and the Ecological Society of Australia (ESA) have joined forces to establish a new prize for early-career researchers who are doing an exceptional job of communicating ecological research to the public. The OEH/ESA Prize for Outstanding Outreach is a $400 cash prize which will provide much-deserved recognition, and additional experience, for up to six early-career researchers who are doing an excellent job of communicating their research.
Applications are now open, closing at midnight Saturday 13 October. Details here
OPPORTUNITIES
Ideation Unit – Tackle the Unknown – Applications Now Open! Our Ideation unit provides a grounded understanding of the process of creatively transforming problems into compelling and impactful opportunities.
Ideation is a ten-week, blended unit consisting of online learning and face-to-face sessions. It is open to all students enrolled in 11 New South Wales universities and TAFE NSW colleges, from all locations, disciplines and interests. The core element of ideation is novelty. The mystery and ambiguity of the unknown is the cornerstone of innovation. Embracing novelty implies comfort with uncertainty and the courage to explore creative new paths in situations where detailed roadmaps are not available. Overall, this unit will equip you with the skills to articulate, investigate and reframe problems into opportunities, develop solutions through the creative process of ideation, and apply design thinking principles in practice. Applications close 20 September 2018. Apply here
SUPERSTARS OF STEM – Applications Open NOW!
The search is on for the next 60 Superstars of STEM! Applications are already open! Science & Technology Australia are particularly keen for articulate and passionate women to apply: the aim is to make sure as many STEM disciplines as possible are represented on the program. Each of the participants will be equipped with the skills, contacts and opportunities to become confident public spokespeople for their work, their discipline, and their sector. They will meet decision makers at all levels of government, media, business and academia, and we will provide them with opportunities to connect with thousands of students across Australia. Applications due 23 September 2018.
Mental Health support: Upcoming Workshops – One of the hardest parts of doing a research degree is giving your attention to the thesis each day. While students may face many kinds of obstacles, it is the ordinary experience of being with one’s work and oneself that often presents the greatest challenge.
This four-part workshop series focuses on the role that awareness and our states of mind play in the experience of being a researcher. It looks closely at the mind states – both positive and challenging – that students commonly report, and explores how these relate to experiences of self, research practice and the wider university culture.
The first workshop offers a basic introduction to mindfulness principles and their relevance to research. It discusses the importance of awareness for both our understanding the research experience, and how we face the challenges it presents.
24/09/2018 The Mindful Researcher, Part 1: Mindfulness and Research
02/10/2018 The Mindful Researcher, Part 2: The Research Environment: Busyness and Slowness in the Academy
08/10/2018 The Mindful Researcher, Part 3: Attention and Distraction in the Research Process
15/10/2018 The Mindful Researcher, Part 4: Cultivating Balance
Register by clicking on the course names here: https://myrdc.mq.edu.au/
Research Assistant in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational Photosynthesis at University of Sydney – Is This the Job for You? – https://sydney.nga.net.au/cp/index.cfm?event=jobs.jati&returnToEvent=jobs.home&jobID=97BAC2FB-F589-47D6-8490-A94B00F51D6D&audienceTypeCode=EXT&UseAudienceTypeLanguage=1
Research Assistant Looking for Work – Recently MARS hired a new P/T technician, Krista Verlis, who has a PhD: Interactions of Marine Debris with Selected Seabird Species of Eastern Australia and the Application of an Ecological Risk Matrix. She also has stacks of high-level experience, grant writing and other academic achievements that could be useful in your lab if you need an RA. Take look at her resume here.
First Aid Training Course – The Provide First Aid Course will be held on the following dates from 9 am – 4 pm here at Macquarie University on Monday, 8 October and again on
Tuesday, 11 December 2018. If you are able to attend one of the above dates, please complete the application form seeking your manager’s approval and send back to ohs@mq.edu.au. If you have a current First Aid certificate and are attending to complete as a ‘refresher’ please indicate this on your form and bring a copy of your current certificate to the training day. The refresher will only take 2 hours commencing 9 am on the day. As there is a maximum of 25 participants per course places will be allocated upon receipt of your application. For those of you who do not have a current First Aid certificate there will be some pre-work to be completed. A confirmation will be sent confirming your place.
BLOGS AND OTHER THINGS OF INTEREST
Plant of the Week – click on thumbnail to enlarge the image
Kangaroo Paws have long, velvety petals, hence their common name. They are only found in the south-west of Western Australia and of course, Anigozanthos manglesii, the iconic Red and Green Kangaroo Paw, is the floral emblem of Western Australia.
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.
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.
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By: Leu, Stephan T, and Stephanie S Godfrey | Find with Google Scholar »In the Media
Rebecca McIntosh was featured in Techly
Dr Rebecca McIntosh from the Department of Biological Sciences was featured in Techly regarding decreasing numbers of Australian fur seals.