Two attendees on the Natural History Museum field trip to Dorset were parasitologists, and they brought along some herring and a dogfish for us to dissect and look for parasites. Firstly we inspected 'our' fish for external parasites such as fish lice or leeches, but every fish was clean. Next we removed the gills and …

Continue reading A break from London (with science!) part 3 – something’s fishy

Dorset is the location of some fine geological sites, known as the Jurassic Coast, and designated as a World Heritage Site so we spent a day there with Richard Twitchett, a geologist from the Natural History Museum. The evening before Richard gave an overview of some geological concepts and an introduction to the geology of …

Continue reading A break from London (with science!) part 2 – a stony reception

The Natural History Museum organises a field trip in Dorset for its postgraduates each year, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get out of London and spend a weekend in the countryside. A group of PhD students and post-docs from a variety of disciplines set of to the Old Malthouse on the Isle …

Continue reading A break from London (with science!) part 1 – meetings with tiny plants