Program on "Ecological Risk Assessment and Coastal Management (ERACOM)". The M.Sc. The program is internationally oriented and taught in English.
The MSc provides a broad coastal and marine education relevant for risk assessment and management issues in coastal areas worldwide and includes the essential knowledge and tools in coastal assessment management, taught within a sustainability framework In the context of increasing anthropogenic impacts on coastal marine areas it is needed student to become familiar with knowledge and methodologie
s for ecological risk assessment and environmental management. In this context the School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (A.U.Th.), Greece, the Department of Biology at University of North Carolina at Charlotte, UNCC-USA and the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences of Marche Polytechnic University, Ancona, Italy (Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e dell'Ambiente (DiSVA), (Università Politechnica delle Marche) (UNIVPM), offer a M.Sc. Diploma is awarded by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and is written in English, Greek and Italian languages. This program follows an integrated policy based on the Directive 2000/60/EC known as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MFD). The program is cross-disciplinary and prepares students for diverse and exciting positions in both the public and private sectors supporting the regional and national economy. The master program brings together people of different backgrounds who share their experience, knowledge, and ideas in a small-scale, creative and fertile intellectual environment, with the goal of finding ways of using natural resources in a sustainable way. Among the fields which the master's program in ERACOM prepares students to work in are marine resource, environmental impact assessment, consulting work, teaching and research. Students also study specifics of ocean and sediment movement; the action of waves, currents and tides; sediment transport; and marine biology. The importance of sustainable use of natural resources is an important facet of coastal management studies. Those who go on to pursue master's and/or doctorate degrees will likely focus on a specific component of coastal management, such as public policy, fisheries management or resource economics. Graduate students will do more in-depth research, requiring hours in the lab and in the field. Those with advanced degrees will be better equipped to conduct or assist in major research in the field after graduation. It is designed to train students within a broad curriculum that will allow them to improve their skills in Ecological Risk Assessment and Environmental Management of Coastal Recourses. This MSc provides a broad coastal and marine education relevant for risk assessment and management issues in coastal areas worldwide and includes the essential knowledge and tools in coastal assessment management, taught within a sustainability framework that stresses ethical and long-term issues and responsibilities. Furthermore, the Programme has close connection with the Management Bodies of Coastal and Marine Protected Areas in the Greek Seas as the National Marine Park of Zakynthos – Ionian Sea, Management Body of Axios, Loudias Galikos and Aliakmonas complex, Management Body of the East Macedonia and Thrace National Park, National Marine Park of Alonnisos Northern Sporades, Archipelagos, Institute of Marine Conservation, therefore ensuring that there will be the chance for the attendants of the M.Sc. Programme to have a practical exercise in issues related to Coastal Zone Management and Conservation of Biodiversity. By completion of the M.Sc. Program the students will be able to offer the following services:
1. Coastal risk management assessment
2. Strategic and practical advice on adaptation options
3. Collection of primary coastal response data for input into coastal impact assessments.
4. Climate Change capacity building
5. Design and facilitate workshops
6. Produce professional texts and training support materials
7. Design and conduct short-course training, providing support material
8. Produce resource guides, toolkits and online education materials focused on climate change communications.
9.Coastal institutional analysis and strengthening
10. Coastal policy analysis and review
11. Coastal legislative review, analysis and drafting
12. Coastal management planning (strategic and operational levels).
13. Coastal management projects. EU financial instruments
14. The graduates of the M.Sc. Program may either continue in research, pursuing a Ph.D., or work in the public or private sectors in Greece, U.S.A, Italy or elsewhere.
29/08/2022
Amazing life
Bioluminescence in the deep sea: How and why do animals create their own light?
A dive into the deep sea reveals twinkling lights in the midst of darkness. This light doesn’t come from the sun—sunlight can’t pe*****te to these depths—it comes from the animals that live here. Scientists call this living light show bioluminescence—when living organisms create their own light using a chemical reaction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPUF40j47-o&t=185s
"The fish living in the wall" can survive out of water for several years. How does it do it?
African lungfish is the only fish that can drown in water and the only fish that can survive the mud walls of human houses. Although mankind is its natural enemy, its taste makes mankind have no desire to eat it. Perhaps it is this nasty living style that made it live hundreds of millions of years ago to the present without extinction.
If you want to get fish, you usually rely on fishing nets or hooks. However, there is a kind of fish that needs to be dug in Africa!
I believe you have seen this kind of fish in many popular science videos and animal worlds. The industrious African people use tools to dig out lungfish covered in mucus in the dry river every year during the dry season. For Africa that lacks food, this easy way to get protein is simply not too happy.
The formation of an isolation membrane is only the first step to pass the dry season. Next, the African lungfish in the isolation membrane will enter a state of "deep sleep" without eating or drinking, minimizing the metabolism of its own body, only under normal conditions. 1/60, at this time it will stop all actions, only retain the most basic biological activity, and provide energy by burning its own fat.
In this state, lungfish can survive underground for a long time, without eating or drinking for up to 5 years. Such a super strong standby can help lungfish through the long dry season of 6 months. When it rains heavily that day and the river reappears, lungfish will be reactivated.
The lungfish that broke out of the soil will use its fins to pull and pull in the mud, just like walking in the mud. Sometimes they become the "wall bricks" of Africans, and they are sealed in these mud bricks. When the heavy rain washes the walls, they are returning to nature.
02/08/2022
Why investigating animals’ adaptation at different environmental conditions is so important
Human Hibernation: The Future of Healing and Space Travel
What do arctic ground squirrels and black bears have in common? They’re both among the many animals that hibernate.
Except, hibernation isn’t just a long nap through the cold, dreary winter months. It’s a highly-regulated form of energy conservation that impacts how the brain and body function, says Kelly Drew, a University of Alaska professor and CEO of Be Cool Pharmaceutics.
So, what can we learn from hibernation and what might happen if we humans were to give it a try?
WHO was the greater economist — Adam Smith or Charles Darwin?
Since Darwin, the pioneering naturalist, never thought of himself as an economist, the question seems absurd. Yet his understanding of competition describes economic reality far more accurately than Smith’s. Within the next century, I predict, Darwin will be seen by most economists as the intellectual founder of their discipline......
The Darwin Economy – Why Smith’s Invisible Hand Breaks Down
In The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and The Common Good
Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, takes on the debate of who was a better economist—Adam Smith or Charles Darwin. Frank, surprisingly, sides with Darwin, arguing that within the next century Darwin will unseat Smith as the intellectual founder of economics.
Why does the invisible hand, “which says that competition challenges self-interest for the common good” break down?
“The Mecca of the economist lies in economic biology…”
…said the neoclassical economist Alfred Marshall in the preface to his Principles of Economics. The mathematician and author David Orrell considers the relationship between science and economics...
"The One Health concept – the health of humans is intimately linked with the health of animals and a sustainable environment"
Innovation based on bio-inspiration, that is biomimicry (‘copies nature’) or biomimetics (‘inspiration by nature’), has during the last decade been successfully implemented in many disciplines that have used nature to design practical materials and systems that imitate structure and function of native biological systems. Since species on our planet have developed efficient strategies over billion years of evolution, nature is the oldest and most sagacious model, measure and mentor we could ask for in finding solutions for human problems. Nature (after billions of years of evolution) has resolved what is enduring efficient and effective; thus, human innovation should find inspiration from naturally occurring processes.
Detailed studies of survival mechanisms in the animal kingdom to identify possibilities for human diseases require collaboration between different disciplines, such as medical doctors, veterinarians, zoologists, gerontologists, ecologists, biologists and anthropologists. These disciplines seldom interact and have no forum for regular meetings. Thus, a major objective of the Nobel conference ‘Bioinspirational medicine – using Nature to unlock access to opportunities in health’ organized in Stockholm Sept 2019 was to let about 120 international experts in different fields meet to gain insights into improving human health from an exploration of the interdisciplinary field of biomimetics.
05/06/2022
One Earth - Environmental Short Film
One Earth - Environmental Short Film
One Earth is an environmental short film I created and edited to help raise awareness about our impact on our environment day to day.It tells the story of ho...
05/06/2022
JANE GOODALL - Μητέρα Γη
JANE GOODALL - Mother Earth
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of di...