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  Spent this morning at Kings Park for a tour of the orchid conservation program. We got to see the seed bank, the cell culture lab, the cryolab and the greenhouse. I even got to hold some cloned Queen of Shebas! Kings Park scientists are doing amazing work preserving our natural heritage. Sad to hear of the species that exist only in the cell culture lab, but inspiring to hear of some of the successes they've had in reintroduction. Of the 50 employees at the centre, only 5 are permanent. M...

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  A pleasure to have been able to see Prof Ben Newell present tonight on "Climate Risk and Response: A Behavioural Challenge?". A couple of things struck me. 1. There is a mismatch between risk and perception of risk, and survey respondents both over and underestimate risk. This has got to be related to education in the earth sciences. We need to keep our geology and geography departments running! 2. I really appreciated Ben's point in this "omnicrisis" that we actually...

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  Had time for a bit of wildflower spotting yesterday, but today is looking much less suitable for dilly-dallying. 28 mm so far, and it's still going. Not just a cold front, it's rotating! Great weather for ducks, and scientists trying to measure stream flow in ephemeral streams.

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  Very nice trip out to Kellerberin last week - the first fieldwork for my new position! Despite the dry July, the wheatbelt is looking lush, and we saw a bobtail!

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  Add another tally to the "things you can do on public transport." Amazing what the bus and train drivers will let you bring on board if you wait till off peak and give them a big smile. PS i know the Germans won't blink an eye, but Australia is so car centred it's hard for people to fathom taking the PT, let alone using it to move furniture. #CarFree #MidCentury #LowCar #NoCar #PublicTransport

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  Happy Census day, to all those who celebrate!

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  Pleased to share that applications for the Leanne Armand Travel Award are now open. This award honours the late Professor Leanne Armand, and is targeted at training the next generation of micropalaeontologists. The award is open to students, ECRs, and MCRs, and consists of a $3000 travel stipend to enable the successful applicant to travel to receive training from a domestic or international expert. Apps are due September 16th. Full details here: https://aqua.org.au/about-aqua/awards/the-leann...

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  Uni HR: book your flights directly, we'll reimburse you when you start. Uni relocation expenses procedure: book your flights directly, we'll reimburse you when you start. Uni Finance: we see you booked your flights outside the system, here are a bunch of extra hoops to jump through to be reimbursed. I love loaning my employer thousands of dollars, I truly hope this takes a few more weeks to sort out!

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  Ugh, this is so sad. First H5N1 mass mortality recorded in Australia. The WA Dept of Primary Industries advises what to do if you see unwell birds: Avoid. Record. Report to 1800 675 888 (all states). https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-03/first-bird-flu-mass-mortality-confirmed-in-australian-wildlife/106989536 #BirdFlu #H5N1

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  All eyes on the Australian Federal Court this week as Uncle Pabai Pabai and Uncle Paul Kabai appeal the 2021 finding that the Australian Government does not have a duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change impacts. Torres Strait Islanders are at great risk of cultural loss, and loss of their lands, due to sea level rise. Sea levels in the Torres Strait are rising twice as fast as the global average, and some of the islands are likely to be uninhabitable by 2050. #Aus...

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  UWA committing one of my pet peeves this morning - press releases which don't name the people doing the work! I'm selfishly motivated on this one, as I would like to know who's involved in the project from UWA, since I know a lot of the other contributors. https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/article/2026/july/western-australias-southwest-peatlands-ancient-wetlands-extraordinary-wildlife-and-the-science-helping-to-protect-them

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  It's pretty good to live in a biodiversity hot spot. WA has the best flowers. Not pictured, the male splendid fairy wren we saw in full blue fancy plumage! #SilentSunday #WesternAustralia #GlobalBiodiversityHotspot

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  I had a minute to read through the proposed changes to the National Competitive Grants Program (https://www.arc.gov.au/system/files/2026-07/ncgp-policy-review_finalreport-20262207_0.pdf). I think there are some positive things here. I like the emphasis on ECR support, and the splitting of the main ECR grant into early-ECR and late-ECR. This should make up for DECRA shortcomings, where most grants were awarded in the last year of eligibility. I also like the increased focus on Indigenous scholar...

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  In case you missed it, 3 new species of Australian cave cricket have been described! https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/flora-fauna/2026/07/endemic-cave-cricket-species-discovered/

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  First day back at UWA! Nearly 13 years exactly since I first walked through these doors, and a bit less than 8 years since I walked out these doors. Building smells the same 😅 I'll be here for the next couple of years (pending miraculous job permanency...), having taken a side step out of palaeoscience and back into hydrology.

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  I took some visitors to Heidelberg yesterday, always a lovely time. Heidelberg castle is a wonderful example of German humour. The castle hosts the biggest wooden barrel in the world (or something like that). It's wonderfully big. The comic genius is in the display of the barrel. You follow a sign into a cellar, and there's a pretty big barrel. It's quite impressive. You marvel at the big barrel, take photos. "Wow", you think, "what a big barr...

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  Nothing like a job mailing list calling you a 'strong candidate' for a graduate position when you've got a PhD and nearly 7 years of post-PhD experience...

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  As an out-of-practice Spanish speaker, my poor brain really struggles with listening to Greek. Some of the intonation and sounds are so similar to Spanish that I try to understand, but I don't actually speak Greek...

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  Despite the government announcing some extra $$ for CSIRO in the budget, it looks like planned cuts are going ahead. Worryingly, it looks like this will affect the maintenance and development of the ACCESS model - Australia's own earth system model, and the model we use to make contributions to international climate research efforts (including IPCC reports). "Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's i...

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  It's definitely the stage of the week before holidays where I regret not already being on holidays.

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  Good piece in the Conversation today about the impact of CSIRO cuts on the ACCESS modelling team - and the national and global implications. I appreciate the authors' commentary on the risk of brain drain. It increasingly feels like Australia just isn't a great place to have a science career. https://theconversation.com/csiro-is-cutting-climate-science-jobs-this-is-whats-at-stake-for-australia-283370 #CSIRO #CSIROCuts #AusPol

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  The #BOM is looking for a hydrologist - position sounds pretty applied, but interesting (and ongoing!!). Aussie citizens only, unfortunately. #GetFediHired #FediJobs #Hydrology #Australia https://bomcareers.nga.net.au/cp/index.cfm?event=jobs.checkJobDetailsNewApplication&returnToEvent=jobs.listJobs&jobid=1D1FDC5D-17D2-481E-D187-ECDA41CAEDCF&CurATC=EXT&CurBID=7B42A027%2D5B8B%2DCC7C%2D26F9%2DD1A55C114271&JobListID=22FC4F47%2DE994%2D46A3%2DB8C9%2D9BC901269...

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  Australian and Aussie-adjacent pals, I've just heard the AYCC is at risk of folding. They have an urgent fund appeal open right now (linked below). The Australian Youth Climate Coalition has been running for 20 years (!!), they specialise in mobilising the youth for climate action. I know so many people who've done a stint volunteering with the AYCC (including me, nearly 20 yrs ago...). It would be a huge shame if they were to fold. I swung them a melba, consider making a donation, to...

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  You'd think after nearly 40 yrs in development, Excel wouldn't continue to be such a menace. Interesting one today, as I downloaded some point data from silo, with the years as yyyy-mm-dd. I briefly opened it in excel to have a quick geeze, and unbeknownst to me Excel changed the dates from 1900 onwards to dd/mm/yyyy, but left the pre-1900 dates as yyyy-mm-dd. The most baffling part is that this persisted when I then loaded the .csv into R. HOW does that happen? Data science t...

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  I've just stumbled across this incredibly useful explanatory chart on mansplaining. Petition for this to be prominently displayed in every workplace. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180727-mansplaining-explained-in-one-chart

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  "Australia's universities are paying external consultants and contractors an estimated $1.8 billion a year without disclosing which firms they are hiring and what the money is being spent on." Call me crazy, but I feel like there are better uses for that money... 4 Corners tonight sounds like mandatory viewing for folks in the higher ed sector. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-30/university-consultants-fees-uts-kpmg-four-corners/106499192 #AcademicChatter #AusAcad...

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  Flinders Uni is appointing an ongoing Lecturer in Chemistry: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/unijobs/listing/408442/lecturer-in-chemistry/ No idea how the uni is doing, but Adelaide is great - definitely on my list of cities I'd happily live in :) #FediJobs #GetFediHired #AcademicChatter #Chemistry

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  The PM fumbling in the minute and labelling Grace Tame - survivor, advocate, past Australian of the Year, all round legend - as being "difficult" is whatever. Obviously not great, but I can forgive mis-speaking in the moment. The subsequent rubbish excuses of "she has had a difficult life" is extremely offensive. Women are not stupid. We know what it means to be called difficult. Most of us have been called difficult. We know what he meant, and it was not th...