Pipefish: Who’s the best dad?

Across the animal kingdom, there is a wide array of ways in which parents care for their offspring. When we think about animals with “good parenting”, we quickly think of close-to-home examples from mammals like ourselves: species in which the female can produce milk to feed her children who stay with their mother for some […]

At the beginning there was bureaucracy

Last year in summer I finished my Master’s degree. I was, and still am, very much in love with science, and enjoyed my research-focussed program a lot. No surprise that I wanted to pursue a scientific career, and that I was very happy I had managed to secure a PhD position as the next step […]

The Perspective of a retired Hiwi

HiWi is the abbreviation for the German term ‘Hilfs-Wissenschaftler*in’, which translates to research assistant, and describes a job position for students, often offered by faculties or research institutes. I am definitely not talking about the second definition given by German Wikipedia. For nearly six years I’ve been one of many HiWis, going through research groups […]

Back to school with Rent-a-Scientist 2023

My experience with teaching geophysics to high-school students It all started with a rather inconspicuous email with the subject title: Do you fancy primary schools? I got quite confused. Why would I get such a message? I am not a teacher. Hmm. Luckily, I decided to read the email anyway. It said something about a […]