MEEP PhD student profiled in Australian Geographic
Perry Beasley-Hall, a PhD student in the MEEP Lab, is one of four Aussie women working in entomology profiled in Australian Geographic. She was interviewed to discuss perceptions of entomology as a male-dominated field and how these might be dispelled to encourage more female students to study insects. Her fascination with Australian native cockroaches is also described in …
Solving the mystery of the Australian Museum’s moa
An undergraduate scholar hosted by the MEEP Lab, Eugene Kwok, spent six weeks investigating a mysterious moa specimen that was found hanging in a locker in the Australian Museum. Hosted by the MEEP Lab, Eugene worked in collaboration with researchers at the museum to establish the identity of the fossil moa. Eugene was funded by …
The effects of inbreeding on Thoroughbred racehorses
A scientific study conducted by researchers at the University of Sydney has uncovered breeding strategies to improve the athletic success of Thoroughbred racehorses. The researchers found that horses with higher levels of inbreeding tended to have reduced athletic ability. Thoroughbred horses are often mated with related individuals in order to select for desirable traits, ultimately …
Three MEEP students receive their PhDs
Three students from the MEEP Lab have been awarded their doctorates in the past few weeks. Andrew Ritchie was awarded a PhD for his thesis “Evaluating the performance of diversification models for reconstructing evolutionary history”. Chapters of the thesis have been published in Organisms Diversity & Evolution and in Systematic Biology. Andrew is about to commence a postdoctoral research …
Fenner Medal from Australian Academy of Science
Prof. Simon Ho has received the 2017 Fenner Medal from the Australian Academy of Science. The medal was presented during the Science at the Shine Dome event in Canberra, an annual gathering of the nation’s top scientists. Simon gave a brief talk about his work, entitled “The evolutionary timescale of the Tree of Life”. The Fenner Medal …
How cathedral termites arrived to build their ‘skyscrapers’
They build among the tallest non-human structures (proportionately speaking) in the world and now it’s been discovered the termites that live in Australia’s remote Top End originated from overseas – rafting vast distances and migrating from tree-tops to the ground, as humans later did. Referred to as “cathedral” termites, the Nasutitermes triodiae build huge mounds up to …