Bertie the Land Rover has finally arrived in the Netherlands, and after a long and painful bureaucratic journey, he has been officialised, legalised and is now branded with dark-blue old-timer number-plates.
Bertie is the ultimate cool car.Adding to his style, he often accessorises with a gaggle of girls, making him the funkiest chick-mobile this planet has known. He knows he’s drop-dead classy because passers-by honk, waive and even photograph him on the road; after forgetting to get a parking ticket (still getting used to local formalities), a neighbouring car left him one on his windscreen, a favour Bertie now returns whenever he can; he gets directed into parking spots by young boys and once even received a standing ovation while driving past a pub. {Read the full article}
Travelling is fun, and working or carrying out a PhD in a different country is great. But where does one keep ones belongings? {Read the full article}
While traveling in Tanzania, I took the ferry from Mwanza, across part of Lake Victoria, to Bukoba. The MS Victoria is a massive ship that carries thousands of passengers, I had a ticket for a second class bunk in a shared cabin. As the journey started I went out and explored, hoping to find a drink and dinner. I quickly found a canteen, up a few steps and the first door to the right. A tusker beer, two samoussas, a chapatti and a conversation with a Congolese musician later I tried to leave the canteen through the same door I had entered. Unfortunately it was held jammed from the outside and I had to leave the canteen through the door that opened to the other side of the boat. The door opened to third-class area, completely packed with luggage and people lying over them, or throwing up overboard. I slowly made my way past, climbing over people and bags and got many stares and giggles. {Read the full article}
1. You check your clothes for stuck post-its before putting them in the washing machine.
2. You laugh at a physicist’s joke.
3. You google “nerd” and like the definition.
4. You can talk enthusiastically about a graph.
5. You’ll spend hours finding a new way of multitasking or saving minutes of your time. {Read the full article}
Running a collective garden can end up in a nice example of the chaos theory. There are only few people who understand the real system (how to organize a garden and the way of planting) and there are many who like to work in a garden (mostly people out of the city who do not know at which side to hold the rake).
Good communication would lead to a perfect garden, but both groups – as a kind of natural reaction of human beings – avoid communication. Finally, the uneducated group plants something that can survive for years without water and attendance. {Read the full article}
Having escaped yet another lecture on what great researchers they might become, young and hopeful PhDs sat in the first springtime weather and let their imagination run wild. They were under-slept and high on coffee — the optimal state of the successful PhD. They talked and talked and wouldn’t stop, and in the midst of all their words just one stood out: NonSense.
The editors-to-be had in common that they weren’t good listeners {Read the full article}
To obtain a PhD degree, most universities in Europe require students to complete postgraduate courses or PhD courses. Often, these courses are very specialised and are offered at universities or institutes where the PhD student is not enrolled. Even more often, information about PhD courses is only advertised locally, and thereby commonly lost in the meander of university webpage. Therefore, as a PhD student, it is difficult to find PhD courses. {Read the full article}
Jeroen Kruft, managing director of Amigos International, is interviewed about a new generation of ecological products and responsible shopping. He, Bastiaan Bais and Sander Dijkslag founded Amigos international in 2005 with the purpose of introducing goods that are 100% Produced In Country of Origin (so-called PICO-products). Amigos international imports coffee, chocolate and tea from producing countries like Ecuador and India to distribute them in Europe. {Read the full article}
Society for environmental toxicology and chemistry, a.k.a. SETAC, is an international society for all things ecotoxicological and chemical related to the environment. It is a society standing on 3 legs, academic, industrial and governmental, that ensure its independence and relevance for the environment and human society. Within SETAC, many advisory groups are formed, {Read the full article}
TED Ideas worth spreading. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. This site makes the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world.
The Story of Stuff. Interesting and simple way to tell about life cycle of stuff and pollution…
CO2 emissions around the world
PhD Comics Something about us…
Dear Dr. NonSense, I am being trained to become one of the more ruthless project-money-players in the field. I am being pressed to show off my genius and superiority. It feels like I am being initiated into a tribe that projects warfare into a different realm, the mindscape of global influence. This frightens me! I did not sign up to become a soldier that longs to become a commander. Am I alone in feeling these fears? Eagerly awaiting your response…
A PhD Soldier.
Dear Dr. NonSense, I have my eyes on the International Society for Ecological Modelling symposium to be held in Quebec later this year. I’m getting mixed reviews on it though: do you have any advice? Are there similar other symposia I could attend instead? Yours truly…
A PhD Nerd.
Dear Dr. Nonsense, Why does my officemate always have better looking and tasting sweets (no matter what kind) than I do? And why is it always that our colleagues only ever drop by our office when we are opening a packet of sweets? Best wishes…
The Sugar-addict.
Bertie (full name: Gustav Wilfred Bertram) – a 1970 special series Land Rover – is moving from Lisbon to the Netherlands. When I drive him I need to wear big-soled boots to reach the pedals, and when I’m at the wheel Bertie becomes a bit of an unlikely knight-rider car: he’s so big (I’m so small) you can’t see me and he looks like he’s driving himself around, which isn’t completely inaccurate. {Read the full article}
Now this one shares some practical wisdom that (some of) the editors gathered while working on the first issue. Due to confidentiality agreements, we cannot reveal names but rest assured; some of these have come in handy while others will be tried out soon!
1. A closed mouth gathers no feet… {Read the full article}
Netherlands has a large number of international PhD students. Why do people come to Netherlands for their PhD? More broadly, how do people choose the right places for higher education, what are the key factors that influence these choices? These factors could be Academic – the reputation of the University and the broader academic environment in your field of study; Personal – such as proximity to family / partner; or Practical – such as the availability of research funds and the quality of student life. {Read the full article}
A fantastic idea was put forward in a March issue of the Resource magazine in Wageningen: lower the temperature in all university buildings by 1.4 degrees, thus greatly reducing our carbon footprint. The economical savings generated by this venture would partly be put in making the Wageningen University hooded sweaters more affordable. {Read the full article}
After an unpleasant experience at a conference during my first year as a (female) Wageningen PhD student, I would have needed support. When I later inquired at my graduate school about a gender equality contact person, I was informed that not a single employee at Wageningen University (WUR) is responsible for dealing with gender issues. I was told that one of the reasons for this is that about 50% of PhD students are female – the proportion used to be much lower – so really there is no major problem anymore. {Read the full article}
Have you ever wanted to have a local travel guide everywhere in the world? CouchSurfing is something I ran into a couple of years ago and have fallen in love with ever since: it’s an online community of travel-lovers. Officially, “CouchSurfing is a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit“. {Read the full article}
Besides being a PhD person, I also hold a secretarial position in a small NGO based in Croatia that was formed about a year ago.Raising environmental awareness, popularizing biodiversity issues and protecting natural resources through education and communication are some of the main objectives of our work. We recently submitted a proposal for funds to create a series of children’s books/tutorials on endangered habitats. {Read the full article}