Honorary degree awarded to Prof Magurran

Professor Anne Magurran of the School of Biology will be honoured with the degree Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Bergen. The nomination, from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, recognises Prof Magurran's major contribution in the field of biological diversity; her books, which are pioneering and normative for the understanding of biological diversity and the conservation of biological resources; and her role as a highly recognised speaker and communicator.

Professor Magurran's books include:
Biological Diversity: Frontiers in Measurement and Assessment by Anne E. Magurran and Brian J. McGill
Measuring Biological Diversity by Anne E. Magurran
Evolution of Biological Diversity by Anne E. Magurran and Robert M. May
Ecological Diversity and Its Measurement by Anne E. Magurran

HR Excellence in Research Award

The University of St Andrews was awarded the European Commission HR Excellence in Research award in May 2012. The award recognises that the University is committed to the principles laid out in the Research Staff Concordat.

A UK-wide process, incorporating the QAA Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, enables institutions to gain the European Commission’s ‘HR excellence in research’ badge, acknowledging alignment with the principles of the European Charter for Researchers and Code of Conduct for their Recruitment.’

The Concordat sets standards for the career management and conditions of employment of researchers employed by HEIs on fixed-term or similar contracts and funded through research grants or analogous schemes. It has been used as a general reference point for good practice across the UK higher education sector.

New 'Centre for Geoinformatics' established

Prof Stewart Fotheringham,
Director, CGI

The University is pleased to announce the formation of a new Centre for Geoinfomatics (CGI). The Centre will act as a focus for research into geoinformatics across both the School of Geography and Geosciences and across the University.  Geoinformatics or Geographic Information Science (GIScience) involves the collection, processing, analysis and display of large spatial data sets. This includes any kind of spatial data, i.e. data with specific geographic location, or, if time is considered as well, spatio-temporal data. Researcher at CGI have teamed up with researchers in SACHI (St Andrews’ Computer Human Interaction Research Group), to generate some exciting visualisations using FatFonts, a tpographic visualisation technique developed by SACHI.

EPSRC Workshop, 27 June 2012
Geoinformatics: extending ICT research across academic disciplines

Dolphins greet each other with whistles

Researchers from the School of Biology, Dr Vincent Janik and Nicola Quick, have found that when groups of dolphins met up, they swapped whistles that outwardly sounded the same but were individual signatures that were never matched or copied by other dolphins.

The whistles are clearly important, as they were heard in 90 percent of the joinups, says their paper, which was published in the British Journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The discovery adds an intriguing footnote about the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), one of only very few species which can invent or copy noises. [more]

Prestigious US award for St Andrews Geologist

Dr Tony Prave, Department of Earth Sciences, has been elected a Fellow of the Geological Society of America.  This prestigious award is in recognition of Tony’s leading role in piecing together the history of the Earth during the Neoproterozoic, some 750 to 550 million years ago, and in mentoring outstanding young scientists. Tony’s work is based on detailed field investigations over many decades in Scotland, western North America and southern Africa that highlighted an environment that ranged from glaciations enveloping the whole globe to equally extensive, abnormally tropical conditions. Through careful geochemical and isotopic analysis of the rock record, Tony and co-workers have helped to unravel the surficial and deep Earth processes driving this period of extreme environmental perturbations.

Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2012: Drowned Landscapes

A virtual visualisation of an Agent Based model of life in
the Mesolithic on the Doggerbank.
Credit: Dr. Eugene Ch'ng, University of Birmingham

An exhibit proposed by Dr Richard Bates of the Department of Earth Sciences, Europe’s Lost World: The Drowned Landscapes of the North Sea, will form part of the 2012 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London, 3–8 July 2012. The exhibit is a joint venture with scientists at the University of Birmingham, the University of Wales Trinity St David and the University of Aberdeen.  

After the end of the last Ice Age extensive landscapes that had once been home to thousands of people were inundated by the sea. This exhibit explores those drowned landscapes around the UK and shows how they are being rediscovered through pioneering scientific research. It reveals their human story through the artefacts left by the people - a story of a dramatic past that featured lost lands, devastating tsunamis and massive climate change.

The exhibit follows a number of successful geophysical archaeology projects sponsored by NERC, English Heritage, HistoricScotland, The Crown Estates and Aggregate Industries that have mapped the now submerged palaeo-landscapes known as Doggerland. Scientists have coupled geophysical survey techniques developed by the oil industry with 3D visualisation technologies developed by the computer modelling industry to recreat these once inhabited landscapes, mapping rivers, lakes, hills, coastlines and estuaries, and to model the flora and fauna associated with them. These models bring back to life the homeland of the Mesolithic populations that once lived there. [related blog]

Inaugural Lecture: Prof. Don Paterson

Professor Don Paterson, of the School of English, will deliver his Inaugural Lecture, “I know what I have given you;  I do not know what you have received”:  Poetry, Paranoia and Errors in Transmission, in the Buchanan Lecture Theatre on Wednesday, 9 May 2012 at 5.15 p.m. All are welcome.

Don has published five collections of poetry, two books of aphorism, a number of edited anthologies, and a commentary on Shakespeare’s Sonnets. He is currently working on a new collection of poetry, a lengthy technical manual on ars poetica, and a prose book about music.