Here’s almost the whole crew – travel schedules didn’t mesh so we are unfortunately missing Katerina and Sophie, but otherwise we’re all in the line!  From left-to-right…

• Alex, leading the work on gene expression in snail sensory systems (collaborating with Daniel Jackson)
• Russell, just trying to keep up with the students while trying to carve out some time for electrophysiology with Kero
• Gabe, engineering support as needed
• Aaron, working on lobster behaviour and toxicology
• Amelia, leading our antifouling projects (more than one!)
• Ella, leading our lobster behaviour and toxiciology project (collaborating with Jim Williams)
• Kero, working on snail gene expression and behaviour and a little electrophysiology
• Areej, leading the work on snail olfactory navigation behaviours
• Michelle, working on novel antifouling options for use aquaculture (collaborating with Truis Smith-Palmer and Geniece Hallett-Tapley)

And missing are…

• Katerina and Sophie, both working on novel antifouling options for use aquaculture

WyethLab, going with the flow

Big kudos to Alexa Nicholson, Hannah Stevens, and Carmen Landry – the WyethLab graduation class of 2018! We’ll miss their scientific acumen, energy and dedication, but of course wish them all the best in their next adventures. They are destined for big things – Hannah and Carmen are heading off to medical school, and (probably) dentistry for Alexa.

Lots of congratulations to share…

Carmen Landry submitted the final version of her Honours thesis.

Amelia MacKenzie was awarded Holly E. Bartlett Memorial Bursary (in the StFX News)

Ella Maltby and Areej Alansari presented their MSc work in a split seminar to the Biology Department to widespread acclaim!

And RCW and Mar Wonham’s article on teaching the scientific method also was shared by StFX News (along with some nice comments from Carmen and others!)

Ella Maltby

Areej Alansari

Lymnaea juveniles used for in situs

I have just returned from a quick trip to Europe.  The first half was participating in Journal of Experimental Biology Symposium 2018: Linking brain and behaviour in animal navigation.  Spring time in the shadow of Mt Olympus in northern Greece was a great place to meet and discuss the forefront of navigation neuroethology.  And then the second half was quick visit to meet up with Alex (Wyethlab MSc student) and Dr. Daniel Jackson at University of Göttingen.  Alex is visiting Dan’s lab to learn in situ hybridization methods in the pond snail, Lymnaea.  Some good conversations with Dan – hopefully leading to further interesting collaborations in the future!

This has been a long time coming!  Almost 11 years since a fateful conversation at a picnic table at Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, Mar Wonham and I have just published our system to help students with their (scientific) logic.  The conversation topic was how to truly teach good scientific logic – something biologists do all the time, but rarely teach directly.  We ended up narrowing it down to two basic concepts: pattern and mechanism.  Starting from there, we have found that we can really help students generate good questions and hypotheses, and then design studies (surveys or experiments) to test those hypotheses and answer questions.  Along the way, we help stamp out fuzzy logic.  So, at the most basic level,  we are really just teaching critical thinking – which actually goes beyond teaching anything specific to science.