RTŠB 2019 – biospeleology field trip – PART 1

December 8, 2019December 8, 2019 Mina1 Comment

Finally, I write about this astonishing field trip which has taken part from 17th to 27th July this year in Ivančna Gorica, a small town south of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Me and Bruno were part of biospeleology group, and my friend Paula, who was the only other participant from Croatia, was a part of reptile group. Paula has a nice Instagram page about biology as well.
This camp, organized by student’s biology group from Ljubljana is very popular with students from the ex-YU countries, and this year there were also colleagues from France. Also, being a biology student is not a must, we had humanities student as well.

How does the camp work?

First, you have to apply; you can choose between three groups (my choices: biospeleology, reptiles, botany) and with the application you pay the 93€ fee that includes breakfast and dinner every day and driving around during the camp. When there, we sleep in our sleeping bag in the gym of the nearby school. Breakfast is every day 7-8.30am, and dinner was usually 4pm+. There was also one rest day (during which us three went to Ljubljana) and one day when couple of us were on duty – we were cleaning and cooking for that day.
One group usually consisted of 5 members, and every day we went out to field, trying to find caves or catch some cave dwelling insect.

We travelled, you guessed it, by train. I have already mentioned 9€ one-way-ticket from Zagreb to Ljubljana, and then we went to Ivančna Gorica, that ticket was around 3€. The way back was almost the same, with the difference we went by bus to Ljubljana, since there were no trains at that part of the day.

How was my experience?

Honestly, I would really like to go again next year, but honestly I don’t know how I made it. I was not in a shape I should have been, I had migraines, I got stuck, I had very suspicious bruises and I strongly disliked walking around under sun.

How many caves I visited?

Number of caves: 9
Total number of cave visits: 11
Number of water springs visited: 4
I also spent one evening with bat group & one day with amphibians group.

ich — Me, before first cave visit, unaware what was waiting for me

A short summary of my days in Slovenia

Day 1

We met other members of the group: Ester, group leader, Tjaša and Eva. Anja was also part of our group, but she joined us couple of days later. Apart from going to the field, every evening we were supposed to try and determine our specimens we collected in caves, label them, and fill out special documents about our visit (who, when, why, where, what was collected and how).
We also prepared live traps for small insects. The traps we made consisted of putting tuna fish with gorgonzola in small tubes and closing them off with cotton pads. The insect we were trying to catch was Leptodirus hochenwartii, member of Coleoptera, the only beetle that lives in the caves. This species is endemic to Slovenian, Croatian, and Italian caves. For other creatures we had prepared small tubes filled with 70% ethanol which we held in the pockets of our overalls, together with pincers.

live-trap — One live trap, buried in the ground – it also needs to be covered with a big rock.

Day 2

Frist cave we visited was Velka jama nad Trebnjem. The way up to the cave was steep and exhausting; it was very hot & moist in the forest. However, I took my camera with me, and took many pictures. I was surprised how many invertebrates live there, since Croatian caves I visited were almost completely empty. However, these animals are not usually found in the caves, here they are living kind of opportunistically, since the cave was also filled with garbage. We set up the traps for Leptodirus, and went back. We had a small lunch next to our car, and then went to the cave number two, called Rojska jama 2. We had GPS coordinates, but Ester was sure they are wrong (they were), so we asked a local villager for help. He kindly led us to the cave entrance, where we suited up, and in we went. The cave was quite interesting, we spent an hour or so inside. After we returned, mr. villager welcomed us back with home-baked strudels and soda. It was honestly, very nice. We also visited two water springs, and went back to the school. After dinner, Ester taught us how to fill out the papers I mentioned, and we tried to the best of our ability, determine all the specimens. The most important we had to discern were small freshwater crabs called Niphargus and Gammarus. The main difference is that Gammarus have eyes, and we really wanted to collect the other one.

skakavac — Caves were usually full of these grasshoppers, and they were scary huge!

Day 3

During day three, we visited one cave, Pekel pri Kopanju. We did find some cool animals, like Colembolas, but our trip was short, since main channel was full of tree branches and garbage. We tried visited the cave number two, but soon realized that we would need a 40m rope to climb down, so we gave up on that. We also visited two water springs, and headed back earlier, since one of the mentors had a lecture about global warming. After that, back to determination. We found some Niphargus (yay!), Gammarus (fine), and rat-tailed maggots. What are those, you wonder? Those are the larvae of certain species of hoverflies. What are hoverflies, you wonder? Those are flies that pretend to be wasps.

Day 4

This day was tough for me, we walked 5-6km on the trails and through the woods, but we also visited three caves! First two (Dolnja vodena jama & Antokov skedenj) were close one to another and extremely spacious inside. I roamed around with my action cam (results were so-so, not enough light) and Bruno and me found a bunch of Niphargus in one puddle. I also saw some fox bones, and Ester was kind enough to fetch them for me! The third cave (Rivčja jama) was the one we visited three times all together and was really interesting. The walk towards it is around 1km on the forest trail, next to beautiful river Krka. The entrance to the cave is enormous – I would use the phrase “you need to be blind not to see it”, but that’s incorrect – even from the trail you can feel temperature drop and the specific smell of cave air.And this cave had bats. Bunch of bats (Myotis myotis), and they were loud, much louder than people would expect. We climbed up, on mountains of their poop, in order to take pictures, and the temperature soared at least 10 degrees there. Afterwards, we went through a narrow passage (here I took neat footage) and tried to catch some Proteus anguinus, the olm (I wrote about them here!). These traps were different, since they live in the water. We also tried to lure them with pet cookies (can’t remember if it was cat or dog food, sorry!).
After all this, we went swimming in Krka, water was around 15 degrees, but it was so nice and relaxing. The river is truly beautiful, and I would like for everyone to experience this kind of nature at least once in their life.

ich — The only not-blurry photo of me in the cave

End of part 1

I hope you liked this not-so-short overview of my time in this summer camp, part two will be up soon. Please tell me what you liked the most and about what would you like me to write more! I would like to thank all of you who read this, thank you for time and attention!

Another Vienna adventure!

December 4, 2019December 3, 2019 MinaLeave a comment

Hi everyone, if you follow me on Twitter and/or Instagram, you have probably already seen my pictures from Vienna this last weekend. However, I would like to share a bit more, and write about it too!

At Saturday at 3.30 in the morning, my sister & me boarded the bus in Varaždin, and started our one-day adventure. Our destination? Vienna, capital of Austria! With the trip we booked through Galileo Travel came scenic sightseeing of the city, and a visit to Schönnbrun castle, but we skipped that and with U4 headed directly to city centre, Schwedenplatz more correctly. After short breakfast in McDonald’s (I know, I know), we headed to Natural History Museum. On the way there, we took some typical tourist pictures, in front of Stephan’s Cathedral, at Hofburg… And then we finally reached NHM.

Me in front of Stephen’s Cathedral

Me next to big cave mineral 😉

I’ve visited the museum two times before, but my enthusiasm was still through the roof. Firstly, the museum is huge. Permanent exhibition spans two floors and numerous specimens. Roughly divided, first floor is mineralogy and second floor is dedicated to zoology. I took some pictures, which I will share with you, but I didn’t take my camera; everything is taken with my Huawei mobile phone.

Student’s entrance fee is only 7€ (~8$), and taking photographs is allowed. The whole museum is, honestly, overwhelming. I have never before seen so many specimens at once place. My sister, who visited it for the first time, often commented that a building itself could be a museum, due to it’s rich, ornate walls. First floor is, like I already mentioned, full of minerals. I don’t have much interest for them, but I made me think about how old our planet is, and what makes it. Also, one of the rooms is completely dedicated to jewellery, both modern and historic.

The floor dedicated to zoology was full of models and real specimens of animals around us, as well as evolutionary artifacts. As is common, first rooms were dedicated to invertebrates, building it’s way up to vertebrate groups. I was particulary amazed by the size of dinosaur bones – no matter how many times I see it on the TV, or visit this museum, I stand in awe in front of them.

Unfortunately, due to morning sun, I wasn’t able to capture nice photographs of invertebrate collections, but trust me when I say those are so beautiful. Everything is o neat and organized that, since then, I’ve been toying with idea of collecting my own specimens. There are also rooms dedicated to fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds… Those are usually held in special containers or stuffed. There are also many skeletons on display on the walls. With dinosaurs, there were also animatronic models, which both excited and frightened children in the museum.

There is also a separate room dedicated to evolution of human. I already posted that interesting picture where an app transformed me into an early human, but in this part of the museum, you can see many different skulls belonging to Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo habilis… I consider this part of the exhibition very important, especially in today’s time, when so much misinformation is present on the Internet.
Another important historic specimen is Venus of Willendorf figurine, which is dated to 30 000 years BC.

What would you like to see, if you could go to Natural History Museum in Vienna? Would you like me to write about something in more details?
Please let me know in the comments 🙂

Biology in popular culture – HEAVY METAL

November 28, 2019November 28, 2019 MinaLeave a comment

Many of you might not know this, but I was (and still am) a big fan of metal music. I included word “heavy” in the title, but I actually prefer doom, melodic death, death, some black metal and also gothic/love metal. What does this have to do with biology? Well, many bands use animal imagery in their music videos or album art, with some of them being really interesting.
Of course, there are many that are obvious (Powerwolf, anyone?), and some animals are used more than others (crows, snakes). However, I wanted to see which animals dominate the heavy metal world, and which bands, that are usually not connected to such artwork, would use it.

Now, I would very much like to include these album covers in this post, but they are copyrighted and I’m not 100% sure I can do that, so if you’re not already familiar with the covers, I would kindly ask you to use a search engine, or links I’ll provide to each cover.

Paradise Lost

A doom/gothic/synth-pop band from the United Kingdom, Paradise Lost often uses biological motifs in their album art (Medusa, 2017; Tragic Illusion 25, 2013; Tragic Idol, 2012), but I would like to focus on the art that dominates the picture – in this case, we have Symbol of Life (released in 2002), its single Erased, and Believe in Nothing (2001).

Link to the official Paradise Lost web-page.

Symbol of Life and Erased are, at least to me, very interesting album covers. Yes, the animal in question is a snake, but it’s an x-ray of a snake. Now, I don’t know which species, or even a family, but I’m pretty sure it’s a snake. I don’t know how these photos were made, but are really special and distinct. For a better view, you can visit this blog. Erased is done in a very similar way, only with different coloring scheme. The animal theme is also presen in the music video for the single – there are scenes of a cougar and something that I believe is Thompson gazelle (I might be wrong on this one). I don’t know in which ecosystem could these two ever meet, outside of Paradise Lost video.

A gazelle — Nick Holmes in his apparent natural state

(Photo by Tobias Adam on Unsplash)

Believe in Nothing cover is simply straightforward: it’s a picture of bees. To be more precise, it’s a picture of a honey queen bee surrounded with bee workers. I will go out on the limb and say the species is probably Apis mellifera, Western honey bee.

Katatonia

Another one of my favourites, Katatonia and their dark melodies have adopted a bird from the Corvus genus as a motif that often appears on their album artworks (Dead End Kings, 2012; Tonight’s Decision, 1999). They were also the main focus of one of the earliest Katatonia’s albums, Brave Murder Day (1996), and latest, The Fall of Hearts (2016). Just by looking at these, I honestly can’t tell if it’s a crow, raven, or something in-between, but it does compliment Katatonia’s music perfectly.

A crow — Insert random lyric about crows, ravens, or E. A. Poe

(Photo by Sergio Ibanez on Unsplash)

Opeth

To me, Opeth always had interesting, dark album covers, but two caught my attention – art for their debut album Orchid (1995) and Sorceress (2016). For Orchid, the artwork is, you guess it, orchids; apparently the pink flowers on the cover were ordered from the Netherlands.
Sorceress is a different story – it shows a peacock with blood dripping out of his beak. This might seem odd, since most people, including me, always picture birds as eating seeds, but peafowls (name that includes male and female individuals, and three species) are actually omnivores, and their diet can include insects and even small reptiles.

Satyricon

Satyricon is a black metal band, with different sounds, and with that, different artwork. Some animal species, however, still remain!
On the cover of Nemesis Divina (1996) is a bird of prey, which one, I honestly can say. It could be a falcon, or a hawk, I have to admit that my bird knowledge is weak. Volcano (2002) album cover is kind of simplistic – in the main view, we have a head of a snake. At first, it looked to me like a python, but I actually believe it’s a boa, Boa constrictor even. For their 7th album, The Age of Nero (2008) they went back to their raptor roots and choose… Some kind of eagle?

Brown and black snake on a tree branch; black bacground. — Metal’s next top model

(Photo by David Clode on Unsplash)

Gojira

Gojira is a death/progressive metal band famous for often including environmental themes in their songs. Their album From Mars to Sirius (2005) is completely dedicated to these issues, and as such, has a very nice album art, with the drawing of a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) being a centerpiece.

Slipknot

A heavy metal from Iowa, Slipknot chose a goat for the cover of the 2001 album titles Iowa. These kind of imagery is usually used by black metal bands (see honourable mentions, also Baphomet), but in this case, I think it works nicely.

(Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash)

Honourable mentions

Bathory – Bathory (1984) – goat
Behemoth – Zos Kia Cultus (2002) – baphomet
Dimmu Borgir – Stormblåst (1996) – goat
Immortal – All Shall Fall (2009) – ravens?
Mayhem – Grand Declaration of War (2000) – dove

Nile – In Their Darkened Shrines (2002) – snake

Rammstein – Herzeleid (1995) – flower (chrysanthemums?)

Bring Me the Horizon – Count Your Blessings (2006) – jellyfish, shark, fish

The Rasmus – Hide from the Sun (2005) – butterfly

Old-school Master’s thesis

November 25, 2019November 24, 2019 MinaLeave a comment

A while ago, while roaming through the halls of my University building, I stumbled upon some old Master’s thesis (theses?). They are all dated from mid 60’s to late 80’s, and are written on a typing machine. What really drew my attention were illustrations – they are all drawn by hand, using ink. I honestly don’t know if the authors did them themselves, or hired someone to do it for them (I believe it’s the former), but these are just gorgeous!

Hardcovers of Master’s theses

The inside of one thesis

All three of these theses are in Croatian, but I translated the titles:

Chromosomal structure of salivary glands of Chironomidae larvae and its importance in the determination of species by Vladimira Tavčar (1964)
Gene segregation study of HLA, AB0 and Rh systems by Gordana Puškadija (1980)
Effect of adriamycin and epirubicin on DNA cell synthesis in culture by Dijana Abramić (1987)

Inside of the Master’s thesis (no. 3)

Also, these are all on the topic of Molecular biology – I will visit libraries at other departments of my University (Zoology, Botany, Microbiology, Animal Physiology) to try and find similar ones! Which one would you like to see first?

Inside of the Master’s thesis (no. 2)

I am honestly so fascinated by these illustrations, they are wonderful! So detailed and neat… However, the oldest one is my favourite, because the author not only had to do her research in the lab, but also did the fieldwork, which is precisly something I would like to do one day – combine field Biology with Molecular biology.

Inside of the Master’s thesis (no. 1)

As you can see, the photographs were also used, but they were glued in the thesis.

This aspects is fascinating to me as well – the hand-drawn map!

Inside of the Master’s thesis (no. 1)

That’s it for now, I hope you enjoyed these beautiful drawings as much as I did! I have a few more photos, so if you’re interested into seeing more, please let me know!

Biology & informatics &… olms?

November 15, 2019November 15, 2019 Mina2 Comments

Last Friday (8th of November) I was fortunate enough to hold a workshop (with Bruno) called “Little workshop of Bioinformatics” – the title is a bit wild, but we purposefully chose an “exotic” name in order to arouse curiosity.
This workshop, held in House of Velebit in Krasno, is actually a continuation of a two workshops we already held (one in a City Museum Samobor and another one at my old primary school) and which we designed to introduce school children of all ages to primary concepts of molecular biology & genetics. Of course, kids in 7th and 8th grade were already familiar with it.

We first designed the workshops, with the help of our mentor Dalibor Paar, associate professor at Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, and were nominated for Rector’s Awards in 2019.

Where is the informatics part, you ask? In the using of micro:bits, cute and small mini computers that are easily programmable in Python or JavaScript (we chose Python). Bruno wrote a very elegant code and I designed the rest of the workshop: ciphers to de-code, phenotypes, core of the workshop… In terms of design, my BFF Ivana generously lend her drawing skills and we were all set.

fbt

How the workshop works?
First, I introduce students to basic concepts of the molecular biology: what is DNA, what is a protein, and that DNA codes for proteins. This part, depending on the ages (and attention) of children can last up to 15 minutes, then the fun begins. Every kid gets a cipher, which consists of four or five lines, each of those consists of nine differently coloured arrows that can point in one of four directions: up, down, left or right. micro:bits have motion sensors that pick up in which directions they are pointed and display one of the four letters: A, C, T or G. We also coded for a second program, in which kids enter those letters (DNA bases) and they show three letters that represent a very short amino-acid sequence (in this example, a protein). When they are finished with this part, we give them another paper, where they are supposed to find what is encoded by their protein (blue or green eyes, blonde or red hair…).
For the workshop in Krasno, we switched things up a bit, and our “proteins” encoded for different characteristics of two different olm subspecies: a pink one and a black one.
This might seem a bit complicated in theory, but in practice, children picked up everything really fast 🙂

So, how many of you have heard of olms, or proteus? And how many of you knew there is a black subspecies? 🙂
Olms (Proteus anguinus) are amphibians (like frogs), they are completely aquatic and live in dinaric caves. Noted sightings include Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. They have elongated bodies, external branchiae, and no eyes. The black subspecies (Proteus anguinus parkelj) is, well, black, and has eyes. The other notable difference is that pink olm lives in colder waters (up to 11° C). Another interesting fact is its name in Croatian: “čovječja ribica”, which roughly translates to “human fish”.

I think the name is appropriate, and you?

Neuro & speleo

October 25, 2019October 25, 2019 MinaLeave a comment

As promised (to my two and a half readers and myself), I’m diligently writing another post, and this one combines my two greatest scientific loves – neuroscience and biospeleology!

Last weekend, I attended two very important conferences – 3^rd Rijeka forum on neurodgenerative diseases – diagnosis and treatment in early stage of disease and 2^nd Dinaric symposium on subterreanean Biology. There was one day overlap between the two, so I chose to spend my Friday in Rijeka, but more about that later on. Since this trip included a lot of walking and transport, for the simplicity I packed only the bare necessities, which included only one pair of booties (this comes in play later on).

The topic of neurodegenerative diseases is something I would really like to do all my future research in, and it’s also a subject of my master thesis (precisely, neurofibrillary tangles in rat brains). Also, there was no attending fee, which is pretty much amazing for the students. We (Bruno and me) arrived in Rijeka (from Zagreb) very early in the Thursday morning by bus and set to find the University campus where forum was taking place. This wasn’t my first time in Rijeka, so we didn’t have any problems with finding the venue. The forum consisted of plenary lectures held by renowned professors from all over the Europe (Sweden, Italy, Slovenia, England) and Croatia of course, and it was roughly divided into two parts, basic neuroscience and clinical research. As a biologist, I didn’t pay too much attention to clinical part, and instead was dutifully solving my programming homework. However, it was amazing to be there for both days, and just listening what was new in the world of neurodegenerative diseases. I didn’t find courage to ask questions (during the Q&A time, or even after), but I hope that one day I will. We didn’t “touristly” roam around Rijeka, but we stayed overnight in the most gorgeous apartment in the centre, I was seriously impressed!

On Friday, after lecture, I stayed in the venue for a little while (internet access!) and then we went to the train station. I love travelling by trains, and I try to do it as much as possible. Luckily, this train to Ljubljana (yes, Slovenia again!) also went through our next stop, Postojna. If that name rings a bell, that’s surely because of the Postojna Cave, one of the most famous caves open to tourists in the area. It is also special because there are many blind cave salamanders, which are part of the vivarium as well. Our plan was to visit this cave at Sunday, while Saturday was reserved for the Dinaric symposium. The symposium was held in Karst museum in Slovenia, and we caught the last plenary session and some posters. There was a short break (we went to the town centre to stock-pile some food) and then, the excursion!

Blonde haired woman sitting in a train (with a green background and glass reflection on the right). — It’s just me in a Croatian railroads train.

We were driven by car by our hosts, Teo and Ester (who we met during this summer – I will write about that in the next post!) to Rakov Škocjan. I would like to use this opportunity to say that Slovenia is really beautiful, full of intact nature and small roads. In Rakov Škocjan, we set for a quite a long walk to visit two natural bridges and caves near them. I had my shiny new camera with them, so I was taking as much photos and videos as possible, and honestly, I also used this as an excuse to stay behind, because I had a hard time keeping up with the rest of the group (I’m chronically out of shape). The trails itself is beautiful, a part of it also goes near the river Rak. Soon we came to the first natural bridge, which is completely made of stone. The only thing human hand built were protective barriers, so people don’t fall down. The story behind both bridges is that they used to be huge caves, but they collapsed, leaving only the bridges. Parts of the caves still remain, so most of the group went down to enjoy the cave and river that goes through it. I stayed behind, because I assumed it would take me too long to climb down and back up, and I didn’t want to hold back the whole group.

A stone natural bridge, infused with forest; green and grey colours are dominant. — Little Natural Bridge of Rakov Škocjan

After the first bridge, we went back to the meeting point, which was the hotel where we had lunch. Next, the second bridge, which is 5-minute-long car ride away, and about 20 minutes by foot from there. Usually, the passage under this large natural bridge is almost completely under water, but we were lucky, as it was completely dry. We carefully walked in the river canyon, up the entrance of the second cave. Since Bruno and I didn’t bring any headlamps, one of the organizers kindly borrowed us spare helmets with the lamp on. Which lamp, you may ask? Scurion, the best of the best! I was so excited to wear it that I made Bruno take countless pictures of me!

Me, wearing a really awesome helmet!

Bruno in the cave

Then, we naturally went to explore the cave, which wasn’t as dry as the canyon. Sometimes, it was really hard to see how deep the water level is, and that’s how I ended up with a very wet right foot. Like, full on water in my boot, because the water level was just a bit too high then I anticipated. This didn’t stop me to try out my camera, and I was very satisfied with the photos, since they are a big step forward from the ones I took this summer (again, this will my next post!). The light from the Scurion was on occasion so strong, that some of the photos look almost burned, I couldn’t believe it.

A cave detail

Some folks went through the whole cave, but I wanted to go back the same way, to take more pictures of the bridge and cave entrance, since I didn’t have enough time to do it the first time we went through. Honestly, at moments, I felt like everything is a bit too fast, especially for someone who wanted to take a quick break and just enjoy the nature or take a few snaps for the photo album. The whole time however, I was thinking only how wet my sock is, and couldn’t wait to go back to our apartment and change. However, the group had other plans and first we went to the small café close to the big lake, which I honestly didn’t see. We did say to Teo that we would like to go back and would skip dinner (programming!), so he organized a transport back for us, which we were quite grateful for.

Big Natural Bridge of Rakov Škocjan

A view from under the Big Bridge

The next day, the big day! Postojna cave, or at least we thought so. After waking up, we realized we should walk two kilometers up to the cave, with both of our backpacks and I also had a bag full of photography equipment. There were some taxi companies, but no one answered, and we also didn’t have almost any cash, since I’m used to paying with a bank card. This was actually a problem in Postojna – apart from big chain stores, everything was to be paid in cash, and all ATM-s were located in the city centre. All of this, combined with our train schedule and my sill wet boot, contributed to us giving up on Postojna cave, and heading for a train station… Where we realized that the ticket office is closed, and we can’t pay with bank card in the train. So, Bruno quickly headed back to the centre, and came back with some pastries as well. Our way back went smoothly – first train to Ljubljana, trying out new burgers at McDonalds, and then train to Zagreb. During that time, we decided to come back to Postojna during the winter, and explore that cave, as well as going back to Rakov Škocjan on our own, setting our own pace and excursion plan. However, apart from finishing my homework assignment, the most important thing, excluding pretty photos, is the fact that I finally finished reading Dracula, the book I struggled with for almost two years, for the reasons I still don’t understand.

A view from inside to outside of the cave; framed arch with the blackness of the cave forming an outside frame, and sky and forest being the picture in the centre. — The cave near the Big Natural Bridge; a view from the inside.

A short adventure in Pula

October 14, 2019October 31, 2021 MinaLeave a comment

Pula is a small town located in Istrian peninsula (Croatia), famous for it’s film festival, beautiful sea, and rich history. As such, it’s also a great choice for many symposiums, meetings, and congresses – I have visited it twice this year only!

My Pula adventure lasted for four days, during Croatian Neurological Academy, a medical congress dedicated to neurology (and neuroscience). The Academy was held in Histria hotel, on Verudela beach – this setting is wonderful, we were surrounded by sea for miles. Also, the food was superb; many choices for main dishes and desserts (sea food, vege options, pasta, various meats, pastries…).

Now, this blog is called Science Pit, because you know, science; however I also like to travel a lot, and I am a self-proclaimed history buff. So, this particular trip was a bit less neuroscience, and a bit more “look at that historic statue!” (Don’t worry, I went to a gorgeous science museum as well!)

When thinking about Pula, most of people immediately think about Pula Arena, an amphitheater distinct by being the only one that has all four towers still preserved. It was built between 27 BC and 68 AD. This was my first time visiting the Arena, and honestly, it’s impressive. Walking inside something so old, imagining what have taken place in this structure, which famous Romans were part of the fights… It’s a breath-taking experience, and words don’t do it justice.

Huge stone arches of Amphitheater in Pula; with sky seen through the arches. — Amphitheater in Pula; 2000 years old.

Another details of the Arena arches.

A stone lion statue, inside of the Arena.

After Arena, I visited Temple of Augustus, a temple dedicated to Augustus (formerly known as gaiusu Octavius), first Roman emperor. The Temple has been standing in its place for 2000 years (give or take a few years). When you are in front of it, the Temple seems as it was built couple of years, and not two millennia ago. The third historical landmark I saw was an arch – not Arch of the Sergii, but Porta Gemina (rough translation = Double door).

Temple of Augusts.

A stone statue.

After all this, I headed back to the direction of the hotel, with a twist – Aquarium Pula is just 15 minutes by foot from my hotel. At first, I was a bit taken aback by the ticket price (student ticket is 90HRK =12€), but my mom encouraged me to go with her anyway. And honestly, it was worth it. I was a visitor once before, as a part of my obligatory Field Trip during my Bachelor’s. Surprisingly, I was as fascinated this time, as I was the first time – the abundance of sea life in Croatia is staggering, and it always reminds me how little we know about our oceans. The aquarium also has reptile and butterflies sections, but those include species not found in Croatia (such as caiman). I would absolutely recommend visiting, and take your time while you’re inside – photography is allowed!
This photo is just a small glimpse of photos and videos I’ve taken – they deserve their own post, or even a video. P. s. Of course I’ve found a cave!

A really cute crab!

Me in the cave entrance.

NeuRi – Student Congress of Neuroscience

May 24, 2019 Mina1 Comment

Hii everyone, and welcome back to my blog!

For this week’s post, I have decided to write about NeuRi – Student Congress of Neuroscience. I write about this particular meeting because I have been part of it since 2015. However, I believe any kind of involvement with this kind of events is extremely important to students, and I would like to encourage all my friends and colleagues who might read this piece to get involved!

NEURI-2019-67 — Day 1 of NeuRi 2019 – many happy reunions; Petar&me, we presented together in 2017!

NeuRi is a congress aimed at students who have interest in neuroscience; neurobiology, neuropharmacology, molecular neuroscience, neurology, neurosurgery, neuroinformatics, psychiatry, neurolinguistics… For nine years, it has been held in Rijeka, a city in the middle of Kvarner. It also includes an excursion to island Rab and visit to Psychiatric Hospital Rab. At NeuRi, students have an opportunity to present their work, form new friendships, and participate in the biggest gathering of young neuroscientists in the region. The congress lasts for three days; it consists of plenary lectures and workshops held by professors in their respective fields (from neurology to psychiatry and neurobiology), and oral and poster presentations by students. Student presentations include scientific investigations, case reports, and reviews. And there is a lot of free food 😊
Organisation of such event starts one year before, with writing projects for grants, brainstorming, inviting plenary lecturers, and of course, registration for passive and active participation, which is my job. I personally process and answer to all registrations and organize them in special tables, which are later used for logistics and accreditations. This might not seem like a demanding work, but at times, there are more than 80 registered participants in one day, and I have to process all of them. Which, again, might not be so demanding, if people could remember to input their contact details correctly 😉

NEURI-2019-97 — Day 2 of NeuRi 2019 – on a ferry to island Rab!

Apart from being part of Organising Committee, I was also an active presenter for the last four years, because I believe this is a unique opportunity to practice my presenting and gain input from my peers. First year, I submitted a review about different mechanisms of neurotoxins; in 2017, together with my colleague from Zagreb School of Medicine, we talked about levels of N-cadherin expression in human meningioma; last year I had a review presentation about possible role beta-Methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA) plays in neurodegenerative diseases, and this year, I, together with my lab partner from Department of Biology, presented about various bioinformatics tools used to manipulate proteins in silico. As an example, we investigated tau, showed how to find the gene in NCBI database, how to choose the right protein file from Protein Data Base, and how to run that same file through multiple simulations. In the end we compared healthy tau protein with mutated version and also got the audience award for the best presentation!

NEURI-2019-213 — Day 3 of NeuRi 2019 – we are presenting!

I’m interested about your experiences with student science manifestations? Do you like to go to a congress or a symposium? How did you prepare for your first active presentation? 😊 Let me know in the comments!

For more details, visit NeuRi official web-site

All photos by Helena Balaž

A weekend in nature, with a sprinkle of cave!

April 19, 2019September 26, 2021 Mina2 Comments

Speleology adventure continues, if just for a little bit! Last weekend in March, as a part of this year’s speleology school, I visited a cave in Tounj, that is actually part of a quarry. And yes, for all of you wondering, my curse did strike again, and I fell. Again. And I hurt myself. Again. I guess this is the time where I realize this is some kind of a message from the Universe?

I would like to specially thank to two amazing women in science, that are still attending university, but are amazing scientists already! They helped me with the determination of the wildlife photos I took – Iva studies Environmental Sciences, is an expert spider lover and extremely talented artist! Petra Vizec determined all the plant species; she studies Botany and can determine every plant in Croatia and surrounding area 😊

Zilla sp; orb-weaver spider

Tipulidae (family); crane fly

Anyway, in the Saturday morning, we started our excursion, from Zagreb to Tounj. The car ride lasted for around two hours, and after a communal breakfast, we put up the bivouac, for five people. During the school, tents are now allowed, as I already mentioned, so we are basically improvising one with two tarpaulins. The Saturday was really interesting for students, because they were learning the basics of using rope. It was interesting for me as well, because I decided to try out my phone lenses and shoot wildlife. Honestly, the results were better than expected! Many plants, many spiders, some insects, and even a lizard. I honestly wasn’t sure it was warm enough for reptiles, but even snakes have been spotted in the area. This part of the day is not really interesting to write about, so I will let the pictures do the talking 😊

Boraginaceae (family); borage

Platycleis sp. (nymph); katydids

Glechoma hederacea L; ground-ivy

During the evening, we lit a nice fire for dinner, and socialized a bit, and then of course, went to sleep. I can say I had a really cozy night, since just before the excursion, I bought new sleeping bag (more about this in another post AND YouTube video!). In the Sunday morning, students had some additional lectures, and around noon we finally set for the Tounj quarry cave. Part of the cave is also underwater, and during this particular excursion, one of the speleo-divers from my association dived down and proved that two caves, Tounj and Tounjčica are in fact, connected. I have to admit I had quite a big problem with walking to the cave entrance – we went at the noon, with the Sun high up, and the light reflected so hard from the rocks around us, I could barely see. However, my attitude changed the moment I entered the cave. This one was just “walking”, without any ropes or anything similar. Of course, when I use verb walking, I don’t mean old fashioned walking on the streets – this involved a bit of light uphill climbing, crawling, wriggling… And a lot of strength and flexibility and rolling a bit in the mud. At least my new overalls proved quite water-resistant! Tounj cave is, at least to me, very similar to Veternica – if someone put me there in the middle of the night (or day, really), I wouldn’t be able to distinguish between two, just that Tounj seemed to be a tad more spacious, at least when compared to the part of Veternica I visited. We saw only one ne bat and a lot of stalactites – I even brought some that have broken off back with me. Almost end of the story, right? Doesn’t seem too impressive, not even with the anecdote of me somehow slipping and hitting my right arm so hard I stopped feeling my fingers for couple of minutes.

Pardosa sp.; wolf-spider

Veronica persica Poir.; birdeye speedwell

Zootoca vivipara; viviparous lizard

The thing is, to experience the cave, you should visit the cave. More experienced speleologists could probably describe the visit much better, but for me, entering the cave is something so profoundly special I lose all my words. All of a sudden, I enter a part of this world that always exist in total darkness, where moisture seems to mean almost the opposite thing, where water drops are as loud as my heart beats, and after I turn on my head-light, everything is in calming, monochrome beige colour. Everything stops, it’s just me and the cave, absorbing my surrounding and focusing intensely on walking forward, until I see the sunlight again.

Left picture: exhausted, after trying to actually catch some lizards
Right picture: exhausted, after spending half my day in the cave; also sunburned!

Would you like to know more about plant and animal species I found? If yes, please let me know in the comments!

Down the pit, I go…

March 25, 2019 MinaLeave a comment

About a month after I successfully completed my speleology training it was time for my first big excursion! And so, in May of 2018, with about 15 of my colleagues from SO Velebit, I went to a Norvežanka (Norvegian woman) pit, located near Risnjak mountain. Later it turned out that this was to be my only excursion that year, and in retrospect, I can say I’m really happy it was precisely this speleological object! I was very excited, and also a bit scared – the whole dynamic seemed different to me and I had a bunch of questions on my mind… What if I freeze? I have never been that deep down, 150 meters! How exactly does it look like? Is it just straight the way down? How narrow it is? Will the harness I borrowed suit me? Well, after 2-hour car ride and quick camp set-up, I got all of my answers… I didn’t freeze, not mentally or physically. The pit is just amazing, it’s a combination of climbing down and walking straight through some parts, and it’s also quite spacious for a cave. The harness wasn’t the best fit, when I was walking in it, it seemed too tight, when I was on the rope, it seemed a bit too loose… And end of the today’s post, right? 😊 Wrong.

Picture 1. Me trying to conceal my excitement and the area around the camp.

I wouldn’t be me without something happening, so due to my inexperience, I slipped on the entryway (already on the rope), and got swung into the wall, hard. I hit it with my back, the point of impact was just few centimeters right of my spine. Yes, again the ribs, and again the right side! Honestly, it didn’t hurt that much, but I had a feeling like the air was completely gone from my lungs, and when I tried to say something, there was this very weird sound coming out. Five minutes later, I was already navigating a narrow part of the pit, very determined to get all the way down, without further injuries. I can readily admit I was probably more nervous than I realized, a bit insecure, and completely in awe of the place where I was. Entering such object is to me, like entering a different dimension, a world where you can be completely yourself and not at all at the same time. Of course, I wasn’t actually alone, there was many people ahead and as many behind me, and I was almost constantly talking to one of my speleology school colleagues, who is an experienced diver and wants to be a speleology-diver as well!

Picture 2. My and my colleagues entering the Norvežanka; that’s me just before starting the descend

Down on the bottom, it was cold, even more as I was sweaty. The way back up wasn’t available (we had to wait for everyone to climb down, before starting the ascend) and most people were, admittedly or not, tired (I was, because I’m chronically out of shape). And on the way back, well… I had a situation that scared me so much – at one part, the rope was very wet and very muddy, so muddy actually that my croll, the device that’s supposed to hold me tight on the said rope, didn’t “bite.” Or perhaps, it just slipped open, I didn’t really notice what happened, I just started falling down. However, I reacted without thinking and stood up in my blocker, which was biting just as it should. I continued, but cautiously, and kept checking that croll – it never opened again, but I was feeling a bit uneasy. Two-thirds out of the pit, I was tired and slow. Walking across the traverse (not even the real one) seemed like the hardest thing I ever did in my life. When I got out, it was night-time, and awfully dark. I didn’t have a watch with me, but waiting for 2 cavers, alone in the middle of the wood, with snow still in front, was so surreal. There are so many sounds coming from all directions, I was trying to guess the species, but I can surely say I heard an owl. After that, the regular, going back to the camp, getting lost, finding our way, eating around the fire, talking, laughing, and going to sleep at the bivouac. Then, day two!

On the second day, I’ve decided I want to try reconnaissance and finding new perspective caves and objects. I didn’t have an opportunity to do that during the school, and it sounded quite interesting – maybe I discover something new! I didn’t think that really, and my true intention was to spend up all the film (yes, film!) I had on my single-use camera. Apparently, everyone else thought this was a boring thing to do, so it ended up being just me and one older instructor. He explained what we are doing, where are going to look around (deeper in the forest), how to use GPS, what word to yell when we get separated (helop), and how to check for caves. We didn’t find any. I tired to catch some lizards and hoped so hard I will see a snake sunbathing, but I was unlucky. When I was alone, however, I finally comprehended how easy is to get disoriented and lost – things are not how you remembered them to be, the sun is high up, cacophony, trees cracking loudly, and no cell-phone signal… Let’s just say, if there were an Old (Man) Willow in that forest, I would make sure to be far away from it! 😉

Picture 3. Photos of the forest I took with my single-use camera

Picture 4. More photos; does anyone know what’s that on the right picture?

We returned home that same day, talking about different experiences in the car, planning our exams and next excursions… Hopefully, this year I will be able to explore more caves and pits, and gain more experience while doing it. I would also like to be able to film both inside and outside of pits and explore the wildlife a bit (mainly arthropods). There is so much to see and discover, and I’m looking forward to it so much 😊

Who’s going caving with me? Is there something more you would like to know about Norvežanka pit?