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Tag: Invasive alien species

The Ugly Side of Malta’s Kaffir Figs

These pretty flowers have an ugly side. Carpobrotus edulis is one of Europe’s top 100 invasive alien species.

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🎨Before there were selfies, there were self-por

🎨Before there were selfies, there were self-portraits!
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❓Can you guess which of these paintings is a self-portrait by Cezanne, and which has been painted by another artist?
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📸Selfies tend to get a bad rap, but humans’ need for self expression through self imaging has been going back a long while! Research comparing self-portraits to selfies have linked both to a desire to maintain and document aspects of one’s life. Both have also been linked to creativity, though on a less flattering note also narcissism. In fact self-portraits in Cezanne’s time involved lots of staring into a mirror. Instead we now stare into front-facing cameras 🙂
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Both paintings at the National Portrait Gallery in London, one of my favorite museums. ❤️
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#selfie #selfportrait #cezanne #paulcezanne #nationalportraitgallery #nationalportraitgallerylondon #anthropology #sciencetravel #scienceblog #artlover

💜 I love finding little loners like this flower

💜 I love finding little loners like this flower. Such a beautiful reminder of living things’ ability to survive.

🔎This one is a species that’s subendemic to the Maltese Islands: the Maltese Sand Crocus (Scientific name: Romulea variicolor)

🧐What’s the difference between subendemic and endemic? Endemic species are found only in a certain place (eg Malta), whereas subendemic species spread slightly further, in this case to parts of neighboring Sicily and other nearby islands.
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#romulea #romuleavariicolor #endemicspecies #flora #flowergram #botany #maltagram #maltesescience #sciencetravel #scienceblogger #instabotany #hikingtrail #majjistralpark #whatawonderfulworld #iwillsurvive #biophilia #naturegram #crocus #sandcrocus #purpleflowers #lookdown #appreciatethelittlethings

Terroir tour 4️⃣ - culture! 🤔This is the m

Terroir tour 4️⃣ - culture!

🤔This is the more hotly debated aspect of terroir, as a winery’s practices throughout a single year also contribute to the vintage.

🥴Having luckily stayed at a couple of vineyards, I’m in the culture-firmly-belongs camp. Leave a vineyard untended and it will quickly cease to exist, let alone yield a quality wine. A vineyard’s culture goes hand in hand with all other characteristics.

🤩Some more interesting examples of this are camels being used instead of tractors at Le Domaine du Val d’Argan in Morocco, keeping the land’s sabbath by fallowing it every seven years in Israeli vineyards, and pumping the residual water from a nuclear power plant through pipes within the soil to warm up the vines in Olkiluoto Island’s vineyards.

❓What do you think - should culture be considered part of terroir?

Find out more about how terroir affects a wine's final taste in my latest blog post 👇
bit.ly/TerroirTour
(link also in bio)
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#wine #winemaking #winemaking101 #terroir #wineculture ##vineyards #stemilion #vineyardhotel #travelgram #sciencetravel #sunsetoverthevines #chateaulamarzelle ##grandcruclassé #takemeback #imisstravelling #scienceblog #sciencelovers

Terroir tour 3️⃣ - Flora! What does this cuti

Terroir tour 2️⃣ - Soil! 🌨In my last post

Terroir tour 2️⃣ - Soil!

🌨In my last post I looked at how climate affects terroir. And soil's role goes hand in hand - it acts as a climate regulator, counteracting or multiplying climate aspects.

🔥Soil has multiple qualities which contribute to this. Firstly, it has a certain heat capacity – the amount of heat it retains. One way this affects the final wine is that soils which retain more heat advance grape ripening when compared to cooler soils.

☄️Soil also regulates how much and how quickly a plant can drink. Soils in which wine grapes thrive are those which retain some water, but drain it away from the surface, ensuring that the plant’s roots do not get waterlogged. Various soils fit the bill – ranging from the volcanic ones of Sicily, to glacial deposits in New Zealand, to limestone in Malta.

🧪But the chemical makeup of these soils is completely different, due to their different origins – the starting points of the ones mentioned above range from lava to seashells! This leads to different concentrations of nutrients within the vines, as the plants suck these up from the surrounding soil.

🔁These nutrients affect the chemical reactions that occur throughout the plant’s lifecycle, in turn affecting the taste of the grapes and the taste of the final wine. But it’s not a direct link – a wine described as having an “earthy” tone didn’t pick this up from the earth directly.

Find out more about how soil and other aspects of terroir affect a wine's final taste in my latest blog post 👇
bit.ly/TerroirTour
(link also in bio)
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#wine #agriculture #stemilion #stemilionwine #soil #soilscience #outdoorscience #stemsquad #scienceblogger #travelgram #sciencetravel #terroir #winelovers

Terroir tour 1️⃣ - Climate! 🌤There are thr

Terroir tour 1️⃣ - Climate!

🌤There are three levels at play here, feeding into each other like Russian dolls: macroclimate, mesoclimate and microclimate.

☀️Macroclimate is the climate of the whole region. For instance, St. Emilion wines grow in a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and cool, mild winters. One simple way this effects the wine is it leads to greater sugar content when compared to a colder clime such as Germany’s Mosel region. ❄️On the other end of the spectrum, ice wines need subzero temperatures, as the grapes are picked whilst frozen on the vine, and pressed whilst still frozen.

🥂The next Russian doll, mesoclimate, is what makes wine trails so interesting. Mesoclimate refers to the differences between vineyards in the same region. What direction do they face, what’s their altitude, are they close to a large body of water, are they on a slope?

🌬Lastly, microclimate looks at a single row of vines. Here, factors like shade and airflow contribute to the grape’s final taste.

Find out more about how climate and other aspects of terroir affect a wine's final taste in my latest blog post 👇
bit.ly/TerroirTour
(link also in bio)
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#terroir #wineterroir #winemaking #winelovers #wineoclock #vineyards #climate #waipara #winetrail #instascience #hiketheworld #staycurious #learnsomethingnew #newzealand

🍷Join me on a terroir tour! . In winemaking, te

🍷Join me on a terroir tour!
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In winemaking, terroir refers to the combination of climate, soil, flora and culture that makes the wine produced from one vineyard unique from that produced in another, even if grown from the same rootstock.
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📚It’s a complex topic, commandeering a library of books and research papers, so I’ll be keeping this to a brief tasting session over the next few posts.
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All info in my latest blog post as well - link in bio! Or go to 👇
bit.ly/TerroirTour
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#terroir #wineterroir #winemaking #winelovers #wineo #vineyards #biotechnology #womeninstem #womeninscience #waipara #sciencetravel #travelgram

Here’s another little known pollinator: beetles!

Here’s another little known pollinator: beetles! This is the Barbary bug, to be precise (Oxythyrea funesta). Look at all the pollen stuck to it❗️
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Interestingly, although they’re not the first species that comes to mind when it comes to pollination, beetles were among the first pollinators that evolved, way before bees and butterflies.🐝🦋
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They do leave damage in their wake though, as they eat through leaves and petals. They’re also after the pollen as food themselves, so it’s only the leftovers that will find their way to another flower. Still there seems to be plenty to go around! 😄
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#beetles #pollinators #pollination #beetlepollinators #oxythyreafunesta #barbarybug #maltesescience #maltagram #botany #insectsofinstagram #scicomm #scienceblog #getoutside #outdoorclassroom #whatawonderfulworld #sciencegram #learnsomethingnew

🦇If you spot these flowers, chances are there a

🦇If you spot these flowers, chances are there are bats about.
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❓Why? Because this species is mainly pollinated by bats, which feed on their nectar after dark. As the bats fly from one flower to the next, sucking up nectar, pollen sticks to their hairs in one and unsticks in another. The pattern repeats throughout the night, leading to fertilization of one flower from the pollen of another.

The following characteristics of the plant are thought to be evolutionary adaptations to attract bats:
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👃🏻a sweet banana-like scent released at night,
🌼the large size of its flowers,
🌘their yellow coloration which stands out against the night sky better than other colours would.
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Scientific name: Solandra maxima
Common name: Golden Chalice Vine
Native of: South America
Spotted in: Paceville
Other random fact: Traditionally used by Mexican tribes in sacred ceremonies due to hallucinogenic properties. This use is thought to date back to the Aztecs.
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#solandra #solandramaxima #goldenchalicevine #cupofgold #batpollination #bats #flowersofinstagram #flowerpower #whatawonderfulworld #biophilia #evolution #maltagram #scienceblogger #pollination #hallucinogen #hallucinogenicplants #botany #scicomm

Changes afoot! 👣 . On 2nd January 2020 I found

Changes afoot! 👣
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On 2nd January 2020 I found out I was going to be a mum, and knew I was in for a very different year ahead. Little did I know how different!😆
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Luckily, I can say my 2020 was quite a mixed bag - many negatives, but many positives as well. Besides this cutie, I’ll be taking into 2021:
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1️⃣A deeper understanding of how you can’t take anything at all for granted. Not even the ability to walk out your front door or hug your family
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2️⃣A massive feeling of empowerment from what my body managed to accomplish. I knew biology is awesome, but it’s another level to grow and push out a tiny human, and then watch my body slowly bounce back as if hardly anything happened.
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3️⃣A much greater appreciation for my passport, which until last year allowed me to travel unhindered around the globe. Many others aren’t so lucky and 2020 gave me a taste of what that must be like. My traveling whilst preggo plans went up in smoke, but hopefully my travel plans will get back on track in the later half of 2021, with my new tiny travel buddy in tow.
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❓What will happen to this account in the meantime? I’ll continue posting from Malta and my archives, as I’ve been doing this year (lots left!) I’d also like to branch out a little, so stay tuned. Though, for this I may need to discover the 25th hour in a day once my maternity leave is up. Amazing how much time poopy nappies hoover up.

🥂In the meantime, I’d like to thank all of you who continued or started following me last year. Whatever shape your 2020 took, may your 2021 be much better. And if you have any tips for travel with kids please drop them here👇
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#womeninstem #stemsquad #thisiswhatascientistlookslike #2020recap #happynewyear2021 #mothersinscience #newmummy #travelwithkids #imisssleep #covidpregnancy

Is colour an illusion? And are the colours you see

Is colour an illusion? And are the colours you see dependent on the language you speak?
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Various studies have indicated that language and colour vision go hand in hand. The remote Himba tribe in Namibia have no word for blue and members of the tribe couldn’t spot any odd colour out when shown a circle made up of 11 green squares and one bright blue one. Kind of similar to this: 💚💚💚💚💚💙💚💚💚💚💚
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Conversely English speakers couldn’t spot a difference in a circle of green squares, where one was a slightly different shade. The Himba tribe could spot it with ease, as their language is more green centered.
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🍷🌊In Homer’s Odyssey, the ocean is famously described as “wine-dark”. A weird choice that makes scholars believe the Ancient Greeks also didn’t distinguish the colour blue. It’s quite uncommon in nature besides the sky and sea, and blue dyes hadn’t yet been invented. It’s thought that only after the invention of blue dye and its accompanying name that people started distinguishing other blues in the world around them. The concept ‘blue’ trained the brain to make further similar distinctions, whereas previously it would have only seen different shades of black.
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🎇This pic is a current installation that represents the Maltese festa (feast) and its accompanying colourful fireworks. But it turns out the colours that we see may be more relative than we think. I wonder how many Homer would have seen. How many do you see?
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#colour #colourperception #valletta #maltagram #streetsofmalta #fireworks #kuluripawlini #scienceblogger #travelgram #anthropology

If you were a bird, would you be able to resist th

If you were a bird, would you be able to resist these seeds? 🐣
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There’s some cool chemistry and biology happening here. 👇
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🐾Biology: The bright red coloring attracts birds and other animals, who eat the seeds and then poop them out in various locations. This allows the next generation to grow far away from the parent, and is known as exozoochory. It maximizes a species chance of surviving over time.
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🎨Chemistry: The red coloring also acts as a natural sunblock. It’s thanks to a group of chemicals called carotenoids. These start off yellow, but once the seed capsule opens, the carotenoids transform to red.
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This happens in a two step chemical process. 1️⃣First, the sun’s UV rays break up oxygen molecules in the air around the seeds, forming highly reactive oxygen atoms (known as radicals). 2️⃣The carotenoids mop up these radicals by reacting with them. Otherwise, the oxygen radicals would react with other parts of the seeds, damaging them in the process- most important among these is their DNA, which holds the blueprint for the next generation.
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Species: Pittosporum tobira
Common name: Japanese Cheesewood
Spotted in: St. Julians
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#pittosporum #pittosporumtobira #maltagram #stem #stemeducation #stemsquad #botany #chemistry #whatawonderfulworld #biophilia #stjulians #exozoochory #naturalsunscreen #carotenoids #floralgram #fruit #fruitsofinstagram #maltesescience #malteseblogger #japanesecheesewood #seeddispersal
#survivalofthefittest #staycurious #learnsomethingneweveryday #outdoorclassroom #exploring #malta

💉There’s a vaccine race going on, but it’s

💉There’s a vaccine race going on, but it’s not the first one.

💊One good that may come out of this pandemic is a harsh reminder of the importance of vaccines. Pre-2020 these lifesavers were pretty much taken for granted. Fast forward to today and we’re all on tenterhooks, awaiting each vaccine milestone. (And thankfully so far so good! Vaccines showing up to 95% efficacy, full safety results still to come)
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📚This book was published pre Covid-19 and follows the history of the vaccines that came before. The fights that have allowed us to forget about rubella, polio, tetanus, and more, and also paved the way for the Covid vaccines being made today.
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An engrossing read, which should be mandatory reading for vaccine skeptics. 😆
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🦠We owe a lot to a handful of people and just one cell line. I wonder if Meredith Wadman will write an updated edition.
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#vaccines #vaccinerace #amreading #amreadingscience #bookstagram #bookworm #sciencewriting #sciencebook #scienceblogger #stemsquad #instascience #cellculture #womeninscience #womeninstem

Seek and you shall find! 🍂 . One of the things

Seek and you shall find! 🍂
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One of the things I’m missing most about not traveling at the moment is dramatic Autumn foliage. Thanks to Malta’s mild Mediterranean climate, abundant sunshine, and general tree poorness, leaf colour changes are barely visible across the island. 😞
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But I couldn’t spend a year without seeing this, so I went on a foliage hunt. And where better to find this than Buskett - Malta’s largest woodland?
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And in a small, secluded corner I found these 🧡
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Leaf colour chemistry below 👇
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A leaf’s normal green colour is due to chlorophyll, which is a group of green chemicals that allow a leaf to photosynthesize. 🍃
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In autumn, chlorophyll is broken down in each leaf. This allows deciduous trees to reabsorb and repurpose important building blocks of chlorophyll, before leaves fall off for winter.🍂
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The removal of chlorophyll unmasks other previously hidden chemicals. These include xantophylls (yellow pigments) and carotenoids (orange). The colder temperatures also stimulate the production of protective anthocyanins (red to purple). It’s the proportion of each of these chemicals within a leaf that leads to its particular colour.🍁 .
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#buskett #autumn #autumnfoliage #autumninmalta #maltagram #scicomm #sciencetravel #maltesescience #colourchemistry #instachemistry #outdoorchemistry #staycation #whatawonderfulworld #scientistsofinstagram #thegreatoutdoors #hiketheworld #travelgram #stemsquad #seekandyoushallfind #malta #mediterranean #mediterraneanclimate #fall #fallfoliage #treelover #biophilia #forestbathing

Nature’s reclaiming this one. I wonder what happ

Nature’s reclaiming this one.
I wonder what happened to the owners 🎃 🦇
Swipe to see the beautiful second doorway.
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#reclaimedbynature #abandonedplaces #urbangem #maltesebalcony #happyhalloween
#beautifulfacades #maltesefacades #secretgarden #spookyseason #naturelover #overgrown #maltagram

A great week for #womeninstem ! 🍾 . Nobel priz

A great week for #womeninstem ! 🍾
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Nobel prize laureates in both physics and chemistry. Congratulations to:
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🌟 Andrea Ghez, joint winner of The Nobel Prize in Physics 2020, for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy

🌟Emmanuelle Charpentier, joint winner of The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020⁠, for discovering CRISPR gene editing technology
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🌟Jennifer A. Doudna, joint winner of The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020⁠, for discovering CRISPR gene editing technology

May they inspire future generations of female scientists 🙂
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Celebratory firework photo taken a while back at Malta’s annual fireworks festival. 🥂
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#womeninscience #steminist #nobelprize #nobelprize2020 #fireworks #instascience #thefutureisfemale #scienceblogger
⁠#maltagram

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