Our pre-doctoral researcher Javier de la Casa has written this article on the occasion of the first internationally coordinated action of peaceful civil disobedience, the week of 4-9 April, by members of the scientific community.
The main lesson she has learned after 12 years of promoting research, teaching and collaborating with international and multidisciplinary teams is that the protagonists of science share a radical will to contribute.
Close your eyes and think of the most solid living organism you know of. Did you think of a tree? Trees are solid, still, and impervious to the passing of time, right? Well, wrong actually. In reality, the trunk of a tree beats: it shrinks in the daytime due to water loss and swells at night as it rehydrates via the tree’s roots. That beat, according to a study published recently in Nature Communications, is weakened by heatwaves.
“Ah, right, so you’re in charge?" The question and the look of surprise speak for themselves. The researcher cannot believe what he has just found out: that the leader of the new international research project he is taking part in is a young woman. This real-life experience and others like it have prompted a campaign with the slogan“It happens in science too”, which CREAF is set to launch this week to mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.
CREAF researchers Olga Boet, Angham Daiyoub, Oriol Lapiedra and Daniel Sol recall the great legacy of the biologist and entomologist Edward Osborne Wilson, a source of inspiration for our field of study.
We strongly condemn the armed invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, and join the national and international voices calling for an immediate end to the armed attack and demand respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Two studies led by Jofre Carnicer, CREAF researcher and professor at the University of Barcelona-IRBIO, show that natural areas that maintain microclimates are more resilient to climate change and biodiversity loss. Both studies conclude that microclimates (areas of natural space with different temperature, shade or humidity) become climatic refuges when there are extreme conditions, and that they should be studied in detail to assess the real impacts of global warming on nature.
