Learning by teaching: New perspectives including to some dissected hearts
As a child, my dream was to become a marine biologist. For a long time, I though I had missed that dream by far. Next thing I know, at 32,…
Cape’s kelp quests & South African walks of life
When you come to a conference as colleagues but you leave as friends After my summer in Turkey, I went straight (ok more kind of straight with a lot of…
Advanced connection classes on the Anatolian hike revival
(for reading this article it is recommended to put on the Spotify playlist "Anatolian rock revival project") My summer in a saying: kervan yolda düzülür (organising the caravan on the…
Moral meanders and the daily struggle to kill my friends
From "extracting" to "fixing" soil organisms If somebody asked me what is the hardest part about my job, my answer would definitely be the killing part. I guess every biology…
On ‘wild’ horses and the smell of wetland soil
Xistral is this weird wind power wetland park in the North of Galicia, close to Ferrol and Vilalba. It's not a protected zone, most likely due to the presence of…
Co-existing with Cretean creatures on island hikes
Time for a holiday. When bad sleep and nightmares haunt, work becomes overwhelming, and productivity dwindles, it's clear signs of an empty battery. I am grateful for the opportunity to…
On soil sampling in Galicia
I work as a soil ecologist on a project aiming to assess the life in the soil around Europe (SOB4ES). In the first years, we mostly take soil samples to…
The imperfect scientist
About my access to academia and why we need to accept that the concept of a perfect scientist is a fallacy, far from reality, creating wrong expectations. I am sharing…
On goats munching on Argan trees when in Marocco
Last autumn, at the end of my PhD, I made use of the freedom that brought the time just before my defense. I was able to finish last needed tasks…
The Galician queen sows on 2m of food residues
Closing the loop: Animal and vegetable farming can still be combined - a Galician lighthouse farm Somewhere between A Coruña and Santiago, in the deep green heart of Galicia, there…
Black Forest’s fascinating fungi and the buscavida berry
The ultimate buscavida berry (bon vivant, in German "Lebenskünstler") You belong to no one; you grow where you please. Your determination to thrive anywhere is unstoppable; you are nearly impossible…
Adventures around the agaves on Gran Canaria
After spending a month on La Palma, it was time for me to move on. The viewpoints there seemed a bit limited; I'm not sure if there's a correlation with…
The fire island: Mango treasures and the loss of beautiful pines
La Palma and its treasures The patience-teaching silent-retreat ferry Why book an expensive room when you have a good sleeping bag and mattress? Just bring your sleeping mask; it was…
Sprint for life: escaping an avalanche
While most of my articles are more on life around me, this article is on the life in me. So often, I forget about this ongoing process, this force without…
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Greying out: the whispering of the vanishing glaciers
You enabled life on the edge, you created one of the most vulnerable ecosystems with niches adapted to a rough life up in great heights. But these life communities are…