Soil is alive – some field emotions/thoughts when interacting
I am not sure if it is the soft, toasted, earthy smell wrapping me into another world. Or is it the crumbly texture of this dark brown mass, held together…
Going on soil safari
What you need for a soil safari: Spate Organism group form for the childred to put in the numbers of organsims they found (find pdf below) Plastic layer or some…
Ode to summer and its explosion of life
The longer I learn, as a scientist, to look for small living beings, the more I encounter them everywhere. They buzz, chirp, flutter, wander past, and make my life more…
Emotional science in the eternal(ly loved) city
Is it contradictory to feel while researching—to be attached to the organisms you study, to grieve for vanishing species, to hate killing animals, to feel so alive and grounded after…
From mussle hearts to meeting an octopus
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 & colourful 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…