The Non-Academic Scientist

Working in Science without the PhD

[thenonacademicscientist]

More from the Trees Of Life Project !

Other things we do at the Trees Of Life Project is volunteer at the Men Of The Trees  in Hazelmere, Perth. By working with them we have learnt a lot about the plants found in WA as well as how to care for seedlings!

They’re also been kind enough to offer to donate wetland plants to our wetlands project at Kaarakin Black Conservation Centre.

[thenonacademicscientist]

Wetlands up-date!

I’ve been a busy bee working with the Trees Of Life Project to build up an artificial wetland on their site. We have pretty much started to wrap up this part of the project, so far we have finished transplanting rushes from an already established wetland to our new little one.

We’ve also been exploring more of Kaarakin, found the Roos (Red and Grey)- but didn't manage to find the elusive deer named Barbara aka Barbs! And while checking out our future wetland sites we spotted a free ranging Wallaby!

Since this is the first project we have worked on, its basically functioned as our pilot project (who said pilot projects were a waste of time?!). Soon we’ll be expanding on fixing up the rest of Kaarakins wetland sites. Once we’ve officially wrapped up this little project we’ll probably be on hiatus for a few weeks and then start working on Kaarakins next wetland site when they’re ready for us to come in! Pretty excited to be helping them out, once they’re got their property in ship shape condition they’ll be able to open to the public and start to be more financially independent and not so reliant on intermittent grants and donations.

If you’re interested in helping Kaarakin Black Cockatoo Conservation Centre, feel free to drop me a line to get involved with the project, or check out their website! They are having an open day on May 10th in Martin, Perth.

[drhoz]

thenonacademicscientist : Hey, I was wondering if you could ID this for me? I found it at the front of my house in Huntingdale- any ideas?

- awesome blog btw :D Thanks!

Mole Cricket - Gryllotalpa sp. :)

[thenonacademicscientist]

Haha thanks for the ID, it was terrorising my housemates this morning! :-P

[theweekmagazine]

This is what will happen to your body in 2015

[currentsinbiology]

Brings new meaning to “busybody”.

[sdzoo]

Orange is the new silver - Our silver leaf langur family is growing. Photos by Angie Bell

[thenonacademicscientist]

One of my favourite primates

[therewasawolfwithso1deac]

Little project on insect pheromones for an insect biology class I’m taking this semester.

[thenonacademicscientist]

How insects use chemical signals- this is a really interesting and useful info-graphic!

[morbidology]

A clam with pearls inside.

[typhlonectes]

MONKEY PENISES IN THE NEWS:

New Species of Monkey Revealed Thanks to Distinctive Penis

by Paula Park

Meet the world’s newest monkey. The white-cheeked macaque, Macaca leucogenys, has been discovered in south-eastern Tibet, in biodiverse yet poorly studied forests in the politically volatile area.

It is distinguished from the other four macaque species in the region by its rounded glans penis and a dark, hairy scrotum. Other macaques there have a spear-shaped glans penis and white scrotums. It also has thick, long hair around its neck, unlike the other four species.

It forages in a wide range of habitats, from tropical forests at an altitude of 1395 metres up to at 2700 m in mixed forests of broad-leaves and conifers. The landscape of Tibetan state Modog, where it was found, encompasses low-lying grasslands, tropical and evergreen forests and alpine meadows, providing habitats for a great diversity of species.

“It is an area where there’s been very little scientific exploration, partly because of political conflicts,” says Paul Garber, executive editor of the American Journal of Primatology, where the discovery is reported…

(read more: New Scientist)

photograph by Mr. Cheng Li/Imaging Biodiversity/Tibet Forestry

[thenonacademicscientist]

Monkey penises are super interesting and more diverse than you'd think!

[thenonacademicscientist]

Chimerism in primates

Callithrix jacchus, common marmoset, Photo credit: Gustl Anzenberger.

Callitrichidae are a New World primate family that includes Marmosets (above) and Tamarins, one of the smallest primates around. They’re exceptionally interesting for a number of reasons such as obligatory fraternal twinning, increased paternal and alloparental care, reproductive suppression in subordinate females and chimerism.

Chimerism is when a single organism is composed of genetically distinct cells such as their own (self) and a sibling (twin). Normally in animals this causes problems that can lead to sterility so its no surprise that chimerism is normally selected against. However this is not the case in Marmosets, in about 95% of all pregnancies result in chimeric twins.

So how does this happen?

Marmosets fraternal twins come about because the mother releases two oocytes during each ovulation. As the embryos grow, during days 19- 29, the chorion of each embryo fuses together forming a single chorion with anastomoses connecting the embyros. While this fusion is occurring there is a delay in development to allow for 1) fusion of the chorion and 2) exchange of sibling hematopoietic stem cells. As a result any tissue derived from hematopoietic stem cells will likely show chimerism, including the gonads. This can lead to the interesting situation where a Marmosets brother can technically father his brothers offspring.

So why does this happen?

Well we don’t really know but there are some interesting evolutionary hypotheses out there such as:

“Marmosets share with prosimians such as the eastern fork-marked lemur (Phaner furcifer) some dental adaptations to exudativory, including lower anterior dentition with short can- ines and incisors roughly equal in length to the canines that are somewhat similar to prosimian tooth combs (75), lending to the notion that the development of these dietary specializations may have coevolved with miniaturization. Additional refinement in size among callitrichines could have been achieved by further functional genetic substitutions and reinforced both by diet and delayed early placental and embryonic development, resulting in the extremely diminutive size of modern callitrichines. If the developmental growth delay and timing of hematopoietic foci is tied to protection of the fetuses against common pathologies known to be associated with gestating litters in a simplex uterus, then litter production—the driving force for the delay—would precede developmental delay—the driving mechanism behind smaller size (Fig. 3- below). This outcome raises the question of whether increased litter size might, itself, have been an incident force for producing continually smaller monkeys.”  (R. Harris, S. Tardif, T.Vinar et al. 2014).

Read more at:

Harris, R.A. et al., 2014. Evolutionary genetics and implications of small size and twinning in callitrichine primates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(4), pp.1467–72. Available at: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=3910650&tool=pmcentrez&rendertype=abstract.

Ross, C.N., French, J. a & Ortí, G., 2007. Germ-line chimerism and paternal care in marmosets (Callithrix kuhlii). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(15), pp.6278–6282.

http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/factsheets/entry/common_marmoset/behav

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11464-marmosets-may-carry-their-siblings-sex-cells.html#.VSeznvmUd3k

[thenonacademicscientist]

My friend put me onto the greatest thing ever! 

Check out Serial its a podcast presented by Sarah Koenig and it tells a true story told chronologically over one season. Season one tells the story of the murder of Hae Min Lee in Baltimore 1999.

So addicted!

[thenonacademicscientist]

The Trees of Life Project  is a wetlands project a friend and I started in January this year. We both wanted to get involved with conservation and make a difference, so we did just that! We contacted a few conservation groups and figured out a project we could do to help the environment. 

So started the Trees of Life Project which aims to rehabilitate bushland for the native wildlife. Right now we’re creating an artificial wetland at Kaarakin Black Cockatoo Conservation Centre in Martin, Western Australia. 

Kaarakin is a not for profit organisation that rehabilitates and looks after injured Black Cockatoos found south of the river (Native Animal Rescue takes north of the river). The place is pretty much run by volunteers and only a handful of paid staff. They are currently closed to the public but are desperately wanting to open to the public to help become financial sustainable. So our little wetland project is helping them to get the place up and running. Its a great place, so if you’re keen to get some hands on experience I would highly recommend checking them out at Kaarakin Black Cockatoo Conservation Centre or Native Animal Rescue .

We’re currently looking for volunteers so check out the facebook page for more info! If you’re interested in starting your own project at Kaarakin, drop me a line and I can help you get it started, they’d really appreciate the help!

[thenonacademicscientist]

(via The smell of rain: how our scientists invented a new word)

The smell of rain is termed “Petrichor”, I always thought it was produced when rain droplets hit the ground and formed aerosols particles with the dirt and bacteria. Obviously I was wrong! Thanks GED study aids!

The smell is actually produced when moisture fills pores on the rock surfaces and release a yellowish oil. Thus when rain approaches, humidity increases releasing the oil and creating that oh so lovely rain smell! 

This was discovered by CSIRO scientists Dr Isabel (Joy) Bear and Dr Richard Thomas who also first described the odour in 1964.

Read more at: http://csironewsblog.com/2015/03/31/the-smell-of-rain-how-our-scientists-invented-a-new-word/

[thenonacademicscientist]

Having a background in primates and a love for the environment,Jane Goodall is probably one of my favourite Heros! I love how she just went out and did what she wanted without conforming to expectations.

Check out more awesome videos at: http://experimenters.squarespace.com/ 

[thenonacademicscientist]

 I left the field (literally and figuratively) about three months ago. This is one of the guys I was meant to study to earn my PhD. But with a combination of deteriorating mental health from the stress and a lack of support from my support staff I decided that earning my PhD at such a cost wasn’t worth it. 

It was hard to leave my PhD because I worked so hard to get there, but I’m glad I left because it just wasn’t working out. Kind of like a bad boyfriend, it was being a real dick to me. But thats not to say I wont ever do my PhD, I think in a few years time I’ll be ready to go back and start a new project- I just love science and I’m really getting into conservation biology. 

But in the mean time while I rebuild myself again, I’ve decided to just follow my passions and make something out of it myself. I’d say I’m a trained Biological Anthropologist (without the PhD) who has expanded into Ecology and Conservation Biology as part of my previous research into Primates. But because I dont have any official training or education in Ecology and Conservation Biology (and I dont want to get any more uni debt) I’ve decided to just go out into the field and teach myself! 

Since the start of this year I’ve started a Wetland Rehabilitation project with my friend up in the Perth (Western Australia) hills at Kaarakin Black Cockatoo Conservation Centre. Its been really empowering to just start a project on your own just because you want to. We’ve been helping the centre maintain and build artificial wetlands on their site- will post photos later!

Also I’ve decided to start a Biology based science outreach program to combine my two loves Biology and teaching science!

And I’ve really gotten into learning about Australian marsupials. They are crazy cool and I just want to know more about their evolutionary history! Anyway I will be posting about what has been going on in my life since I’ve left the field. I hope you enjoy my blog :)