Boatanist

When I'm teaching Leaving Certificate river studies we do an experiment to measure the river's velocity. It's very simple: just time how long a tennis ball takes to float 10m (and repeat a few times to improve the accuracy of the result). Here's what happened when I used a #GoPro to get a 'tennis ball's eye view' of the river bed! It's the River Liffey up in its middle course on Kippure Estate. Here the river is shallow and it's safe to get in and do the experiment, but you c

Finally! After 4 agonising years of near misses, I once again felt the joy of crossing the Dublin 'Colours' Boat Race finish line ahead of our great rivals UCD on Sunday. We last won this race back in my first year in Trinity in 2010 and it was beginning to look like that may have been the one and only time I would get my hands on the coveted Corcoran Cup. We had fought bravely every year since, but as the 2014 race day approached I admit there was a part of me that was resig

This is why I love rowing in college so much! A little video that my DULBC teammates made earlier this season. I would also STRONGLY suggest anyone interested in rowing, or infact sports writing in general, should read this fantastically eloquent article by former a Yale and Trinity rower on the DUBC (men's boat club) website HERE. Perhaps rowing's not the first sport you would consider taking up in college, but why not? I started in the first term of my undergrad degree and

Sure, nothing to do with boats or rowing, but pretty damn cool science all the same! This is my friend Erin Jo, who works in the Botany Department here at TCD, talking about her research on bees. She's looking in to the effects of toxins in the nectar of the flowering plant Rhoodendron on insect pollinators. Rhododendron in an invasive species in Ireland - you may well have seen it in parks, gardens and wild landscapes with it's very distinctive purple flowers. Did you know t

Rowing, rowing, rowing and some science thrown in along the way. This summer I'll be rowing on the Liffey in Dublin, the Irish Sea and across the Pacific Ocean. On route I hope to learn more about rivers, coasts, seas and oceans and I'll be collecting data for existing research projects as I go. I hope you'll join me, it's certainly going to be interesting! #pacific #rowing #sponsor