It’s been a few weeks since I returned, unexpectedly and abruptly (thanks pandemic), from Galveston, Texas. I’d been there to study the stomach contents of blacktip sharks at Texas A&M University. When people ask me what I was doing out there, I usually say “rummaging around in shark guts”, but today I’d like to dive … More Guts and Glory: why I’m rummaging around in shark stomachs
The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is a great opportunity to recognise the critical role women and girls play in science and technology. On board the RRS James Cook a team of 10 women explore the ocean characteristics through water sampling, analysis and data modelling. Dr. Maria De La Fuente Ruiz Maria is … More Women in STEM
Why do we care about trace metals? As the name implies trace metals are the elements with vanishingly low concentrations in seawater. We could make the mistake of thinking that because there are such little amounts of these elements in the ocean that they are not important, but in fact, many have key roles in … More Trace metal team and their role in Custard
Increasingly in the field of oceanography, autonomous vehicles are being recognised and rapidly developed to allow for the collection of high-volume, high-quality data from regions of the ocean that previously data coverage has been sparse. With this however, comes the challenge of how to process such large swathes of data into something useful to data … More The Antarctic Circumpolar Current – what can Argo floats tell us?
Sitting on the plane to Oslo to spend 2 days discussing the state of our oceans and the effects of climate change, I couldn’t help but reflect on the hypocrisy of the situation – increasing my personal carbon footprint to go and brainstorm ideas on how to cut and sequester global emissions. Over the past … More An Injection of Ocean Optimism – Sustainable Ocean Alliance Youth Leadership Summit and Our Ocean Conference 2019
In May this year myself, Prof. Maeve Lohan from the University of Southampton and Dr. Oliver Moore from the University of Leeds travelled to Diamond light source UK in Didcot. Diamond light source is the UK’s national synchrotron facility, but what is a synchrotron and what is it good for? Many people will be familiar … More Using a particle accelerator to study hydrothermal particle plumes
As crowds hit the beach this summer the newspapers heralded the arrival of the ‘Pacific death worm’. This alien nematode worm, dubbed ‘more toxic than cyanide’, could spell trouble for a family day out. So how far off the mark were the press, and should we be worried about new species visiting our coasts? What … More Alien invasions and environmental DNA
Laurel and Lucy’s behaviours are alright today. Well, thus far. It’s only 8:21 AM and there’s no predicting when their mood will plummet or when they’ll throw a tantrum. All I can do it love them and give them little pep talks or play some soothing classical music. I’ve only been working with them for … More The Exciting Unknown
In 2016, the UK Government made a declaration, in partnership with seven of its Overseas territories (UKOTs), to establish enhanced protection and management of four million square kilometres of marine ecosystems. This programme, which will run for three and a half years up until March 2020, involves: Ascension, St Helena and Tristan da Cunha British … More The UKOT Blue Belt programme
A meeting called ‘The Ocean Tide and the Port of Liverpool’ was held at the Merseyside Maritime Museum on Saturday 11 May 2019 in order to mark the 100th anniversary of the Liverpool Tidal Institute (LTI). The LTI can be claimed to be the first component of the modern UK National Oceanography Centre (NOC). In … More The Ocean Tide and the Port of Liverpool
