Travels of a Fish Nut

A year ago today I stepped foot on the campus at Curtin university for the first time. I don't know where the time has gone - how can it really be a year?! It's been a pleasant surprise - especially given how my last attempt at a PhD went - to realise how much I'm enjoying myself. I'm making slow but steady progress; I even have data which is quite incredible! All this means that I have some idea of what I'm actually doing and to preempt the traditional 'what are you working on?' questions when I next come home I thought I'd take the time to explain just that. I'm working on two projects which I've nicknamed 'fisheries' and 'fossils' as I'm really unimaginative. In this post I'll talk about the fisheries project as it's the one I've been working on most so far and I've written a lot more than I expected so think this is better off as a two-parter.  'Fisheries' The 'fisheries' proje...

“ This is What the Ideal Woman’s Body Looks Like, According to Science ”  proclaimed the headline that popped up in my Facebook feed. I was intrigued. What was meant by ‘ideal’? Healthiest, most attractive to men, most attainable for women? Or some other metric? To satiate my curiosity I clicked on the link and found myself looking at photographs of Kelly Brook on the beach. After some scrolling past these photos I eventually found the text which declared that according to researchers at the University of Texas, “the perfect female body measures 1.68 meters in height [and] the bust/weight/hip measurements are 99-63-91” What is the source of these figures? And what is meant by ‘perfect’? Luckily the article links to their source. Surely the scientific paper, or at the very least a press release from the university about this earth-shattering research? Unfortunately not. Instead it’s a link to that august publication, the Curaçao Chronicle (no, I’ve never heard of it e...