The “Backstage” of a PhD

Written by Chandrima Home A PhD is a memorable journey in many ways – a motley mix of experiences ranging from the excitement of doing field work to the frustration of data analyses, and endless tedium of formatting your thesis, especially if you are technologically challenged! All these experiences and choices we make are often…

Living with humpback dolphins and fishers: A photo story

Written by Rahul Muralidharan The Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar in Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu are home to humpback dolphins and artisanal fishing communities. Dolphins and fishers here have historically had an uneasy relationship: that is dolphins engage in depredation or in other words -plunder fish caught in fisher’s nets. But, on…

Biodiversity in Bangalore: Considering the value of “weeds” in the Garden City

Written By Daniel Phillips As urban ecologists and landscape designers, we like to view cities as complex, messy ecosystems. One of the phenomena we seek to understand is the growth of “spontaneous” urban vegetation.  What makes vegetation spontaneous you may ask?  These are the cosmopolitan species that are growing outside of the radar of cultivation,…

Book Review/Recommendation – The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life

Written by Vikram Aditya “Life on Earth: A fresh outlook to our common origins” Richard Dawkins needs no introduction to most students of science. An evolutionary biologist, ethologist and Emeritus Fellow at Oxford University, his books on the evolution of the natural world have inspired a generation of youth to study biology and take an…