Deadfall & Falling Over Dead, iNatting the Tchaikazan-Spectrum-Yohetta Loop

Mid-August of 2022 hubby Trevor and I took a leap of faith and completed the Tchaikazan River, over Spectrum Pass, Around Dorothy Lake, and through Yohetta Valley loop. It would turn out to be one of our favorite trips, and so-called “honeymoon.” This blog is a trip log, which may prove useful for those interested...

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Research support program La Tribuna in Colombia.

Great video about the research support program La Tribuna in Colombia.An exemplary participatory science exercise: This video shows how the inhabitants of this region become 'biomonitors', people from the local community who, by sharing their expertise, generate a dialogue of traditional knowledge with students from different universities in Colombia. In turn, they learn about modern...

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Thinking about cities: Were ancient cities greener than modern ones?

   *This is part of a series called ‘Thinking About Cities’ which are parts of a book I am working on about urban green space that I’ve decided to cut out of the book manuscript.   Picture a large modern city. Undoubtedly, your mental image includes a lot of grey. Grey buildings. Grey roads. Maybe...

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Itchy in the Itchas. iNatting in the Itcha Ilgachuz Provincial Park

Float plane. Woodland Caribou. Artic-like tundra. Old cabins. Interesting Insects. Those are just some of the things we experienced on a recent backpacking trip in the interior of British Columbia. Take a read, or just look at the photos of this trip log in the Itcha Range of the Itcha Ilgachuz Provincial Park, which we...

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Job announcement – NINA, Norway: Bioinformatician with focus on eDNA and DNA-metabarcoding

 NINA is among Norway’s largest applied ecology research institutes with approximately 300 employees. NINA´s staff conducts natural and social science research related to interactions between humans and nature. The company’s head office is located in Trondheim, adjacent to the Norwegian University for Science and Technology (NTNU) Gløshaugen campus. NINA also has satellite offices in Oslo, Lillehammer,...

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Alberta Palaeontology, a Summary

Alberta, more than any other part of Canada, is renowned for its dinosaur fossil record. In fact, it's one of the top places in the world to find dinosaur bones, a fact that too often escapes many citizens of the province who take it for granted.When it comes to the science of vertebrate palaeontology in...

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Sponges – one of the earliest forms of multicellular life.

I wrote this blog for the Nature Nanaimo newsletter published July 10, 2022. This is a slightly modified version. Photo Neil McDaniel, https://blueocean.net/glass-sponge-reefs-living-fossils-found-off-canadian-coast/ An excellent article by Sheila Byers about the unique glass sponge reefs that occur in the Salish Sea and the Hecate Strait appeared in the spring 2022 of BC Nature Magazine, and...

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Bugs for Birders: Learning to Love Invertebrates

Despite my diversity of interests, I have to admit to having a lifelong vertebrate bias. I've always been much more drawn to things like birds, mammals, reptiles, and their fossil kin than the all the creepy-crawlies buzzing and crawling around. In university I did take an invertebrate zoology course, but I took many more on...

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