“It’s ok to be gay – just don’t tell anyone.” That was the advice that a senior administrator gave me as I started my career as an assistant professor. My would-be mentor didn’t feel she needed to name the consequences of being out as they were obvious. As women we were already sorely underrepresented in … Read more
On June 17, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) will observe its World Day to Combat Drought and Desertification. The devastating impacts of drought and desertification on people are highlighted this year, as the UNCCD has made the linkages between desertification and human migration its annual theme. As noted by the UN[i], one billion … Read more
By Michael Mischna, Secretary of the Planetary Sciences section and Deputy Chief Scientist of Solar System Exploration Directorate at JPL Science and discovery are, fundamentally, social activities. They have the greatest impact when conducted in the open with a free exchange of ideas. Even discoveries made in seclusion still need to be shared with the world. … Read more
The San Andreas Fault takes its name from the eponymous reservoir that it crosses along the San Francisco Peninsula. The California Coast Range landscape owes much to the repeated deformation of earthquakes and subsequent landscape response. At 5:12 am on April 18, 1906 an earthquake rupture ripped along the San Andreas Fault from just offshore … Read more
April 7, 2018 marked the 70th anniversary of World Health Day, and the first week of April was Public Health week in the U.S., which I celebrated with by releasing a report on the impacts of climate change on the present and future health of Hoosiers (i.e., people from the U.S. State of Indiana). From … Read more
Annie Tamalavage, a member of AGU’s Council Leadership Team and a graduate student in oceanography at Texas A&M University in Houston, provides a video overview of the AGU Council meeting in March 2018 in which addresses AGU’s upcoming Centennial celebration, the inaugural Voices for Science program, meetings, publications and more. You can get involved in … Read more
Not only is April the month in which we celebrate Earth Day, but it also marks the commemoration of Undergraduate Research Week. This celebration was first created to highlight the valuable contributions of undergraduate research in making new discoveries, lifting up undergraduate research voices, and demonstrating to wider audiences the breadth and diversity of the … Read more
After a memorable edition in New Orleans, the 2018 Fall Meeting should take things to an even higher level. And while we have left behind doldrums of winter and entered the spring season, there is still time for you to be part of what will surely be a sensational meeting in Washington, DC in December. … Read more
This week marks the 19thannual National Groundwater Awareness Week, established in 1999 by the non-profit National Groundwater Association to bring public awareness to the water “beneath our feet.” The themes of this year’s awareness are “Tend, Test and Treat,” referencing the need to recognize the value and potential vulnerability of groundwater, the necessity of monitoring … Read more
Not many ideas in Western culture have generated as much enlightenment and simultaneous division as the concepts Charles Darwin outlined in On The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. The idea that variation and natural selection drive evolution is the main reason people get flu shots every year or need ramped up antibiotics … Read more