
Volunteers wanted for annual survey of Irish rivers
The Big River Watch Survey takes place from Friday 25 April to Thursday 1 May.
Over that week, the trust is asking people to observe a local river, lough of stream and record their findings on their free app.
The app will prompt the user to answer questions about what they can see and observe. No special knowledge is required.
Speaking to RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Joanna Braniff, all-Ireland advocacy and communications manager of The Rivers Trust, said that the survey should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete.
"There are loads of data gaps in river and waterbody knowledge throughout Ireland," Ms Braniff said.
"We want to get a broader picture of our rivers," she added.
Unlike in Britain, where there is live monitoring on many freshwater bodies, this is not the case in Ireland.
The biodiversity crisis, as well as increased blue-green algae blooms and pollution incidents, means that the need for data on freshwater bodies is increasing, Ms Braniff has said.
"There is a gap in the story right now and we're asking the public to step-up," Ms Braniff said.
People can complete as many surveys as they like in the app in as many places along the same freshwater body or a different body.
"You never step in the same river twice," Ms Braniff said.
"A small pollution incident could only be visible for 15 minutes, so there is no upper limit on how many times even the one area could be surveyed."
This is the third year the Big River Watch Survey is running in Ireland.
The Rivers Trust is hoping for 250 data points to come from Ireland in this year's survey.
Last year, there were around 200 from the island of Ireland and around 3,000 from Britain.
The Big River Watch app can be downloaded on both Android and iOS.
The app itself is always live so people can submit data to it year-round and all the data gathered from the survey is publicly available for anyone to use.
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Irish Independent
10-07-2025
- Irish Independent
Dublin teen wins top science prize for physics project inspired by her cat
Amelia Lupascu, a 16-year-old student at Adamstown Community College, was named overall winner for her project Through Another Eyes, which explores how animals perceive the world in completely different ways from humans. Her entry, inspired by her pet cat Zorro, investigates how animals use not just light, but sound waves, heat, and even magnetic fields to navigate and understand their surroundings. Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Amelia said the idea started close to home. 'I came across this idea because I have a cute little cat,' she said. 'I was aware they could see the world in different colours than us humans, and began to wonder what other animals see when perceiving the world.' Cats, she explained, don't see colour the same way people do and, in fact, miss out on large parts of the visible spectrum. 'They're dichromatic, so they mainly have two types of colour receptors. They don't really see red at all, so they mostly see the world in shades of blue and green,' she said. But what fascinated Amelia even more was discovering that not all animals rely on sight. 'Seeing the world can mean many different things, it's not limited to light entering an eye,' she said. 'Some creatures use echolocation, some sense heat, others navigate using magnetic fields. That really intrigued me and provided a new angle to the question.' The Eurekas competition, organised by the Institute of Physics as part of its Limit Less campaign, aims to break down stereotypes around who can study physics and how it can be approached. Entries came in a range of formats, from poetry and music to experiments and presentations, with 274 submissions this year alone. Amelia, who was a runner-up in last year's competition, also won a prize at this year's BT Young Scientist Competition. Her project, 'Sealing The Future, Polymer-based adhesives for safer internal wound healing', was awarded third place in the senior individual project category. Amelia says the Eurekas win has also given her clarity about the future. 'I've always been interested in science,' she said. 'I haven't narrowed it down to a specific field yet, but I'm definitely planning on going in that direction.' Two other Dublin-based students were also recognised. Mariia Rudnitska (13), from Nord Anglia International School, came second for her project on the physics of mirrors, while 14-year-old Katie Staunton, from Mount Sackville Secondary School, was highly commended for her entry on quantum physics and the double slit experiment.

The 42
08-07-2025
- The 42
The sequel that few asked for, but the one that Taylor and Serrano deserved the last time
WHEN I WAS FIVE, my father set a VHS cassette to record the 'Big Big Movie' for me as I got ready for bed on a Saturday night. My obsession with dinosaurs had begun about a year earlier with a Christmas present of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie on video. But the day I first sat through Jurassic Park, RTÉ ad breaks and all, was the day the Rangers began to gather dust in the corner unit. Spielberg — and soon afterwards, the original author, Michael Crichton — had me spellbound. I spent years telling aunts, uncles and teachers that I wanted to become a palaeontologist. My dad, bless him, always encouraged me, but I can't imagine how many times he must have hidden his dismay as he passed me a football only to witness his little nerd of a son compare its dimensions to that of a Diplodocus egg. My interests would later mutate towards sport but Jurassic Park remains my favourite film. Its greatness perseveres less in the spectacle and more in the questions it poses and the ideas it proposes. 'Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.' Dr Ian Malcolm's warning to John Hammond, perhaps even more prescient these days than it was when Crichton first committed a longer version of it to paper 36 years ago, now sadly also applies to the franchise that Crichton never intended to create. Released in cinemas last week, Jurassic World: Rebirth — the sixth sequel to Spielberg's original — struck this JP lifer as a pointless, brainless, soulless affair. And yet it has enjoyed the biggest global movie opening of 2025 so far, raking in over $320 million worldwide. The Jurassic movies have averaged out at about a billion quid per instalment, so you can expect Universal Studios to continue to flog the bones off this extinct reptile in the years to come. If you've flicked on Netflix, recently, then, you'll have seen they're flogging a sequel of their own. At a casual glance, it would be easy to perceive Katie Taylor's latest meeting with Amanda Serrano as being, in its own right, another preposterous summer blockbuster for summer blockbusters' sake. Advertisement Why would Katie go back to the island for a third time when she has already survived it twice?! She and Serrano can probably think of five to seven million reasons each, for starters. The Netflix trailer for their trilogy bout at Madison Square Garden, New York, this Friday, contained a curious twist: interspliced into Charlize Theron's narration was the comically Serrano-biased commentary from Taylor-Serrano 2 in Dallas last November, including the line from Serrano's fellow Puerto Rican Brooklynite Rosie Perez that Taylor's razor-thin victory in that rematch would see an 'asterisk' applied to her legacy. That Perez retracted that comment and apologised the same night apparently mattered not to Netflix, who used it as a hook in their highly produced promo. But they won't be using Perez on Friday night, nor will Mauro Ranallo return on lead commentary in this latest instalment. Taylor's team likely saw to that during contract negotiations. Hey, Hollywood's a tough business. When I asked Taylor about this casting development a couple of weeks ago, what do you think she said? Spoiler alert: you're probably going to be correct. 'Yeah, I didn't even see the trailer, to be honest,' Taylor laughed. 'I don't really care what happens, really, beforehand, or what's been said or anything like that. 'And nobody's ever going to remember the trailer… but they will remember the result on fight night and that's all I focus on.' It's true enough, which is clearly why Netflix embellished the trailer with Perez's infamous quote: most people know full well that Taylor is up 2-0 on her career-long rival and so without controversy, however contrived, this third entry in the series is a tougher sell than the first two. It all comes to down to this. KATIE TAYLOR vs. AMANDA SERRANO 3 is coming LIVE on Netflix, Friday July 11 at 8 pm ET | 5 pm PT — Netflix (@netflix) June 11, 2025 Taylor, who will again defend her undisputed light-welterweight title on Friday night, turned 39 last week. Serrano will be 37 in October. In athletic years, they're fossils, but in the ring, they were still physical marvels as recently as November. This trilogy bout may well prove the final act for both of them and nobody would argue the fact that Taylor and Serrano deserve the millions they'll pocket when the dust settles beneath them once more. And while an unwarranted sequel will always be treated with cynicism, it's only fair to point out that Taylor-Serrano 3 is exactly the follow-up that critics wished Taylor-Serrano 2 could have been. Unlike Dallas, there will be no predetermined male main event between a YouTuber and a 58-year-old former heavyweight champion entering the ring by way of eight blood transfusions. Taylor and Serrano have returned from the circus for a stripped-down, back-to-basics boxing event at the scene of their original classic in 2022. They will headline at Madison Square Garden an all-female card, brimming from top to bottom with world-level talent, live on a streaming platform with over 300 million global subscribers. This will not be car-crash TV but an elevation of women's boxing and a celebration of the cherished characters who have taken it to unprecedented heights in under a decade. The viewing figures will be organic, no caveats. The paychecks will again be huge. So, while one more will absolutely hurt, you can understand why it would feel worthwhile, all told. It would certainly make for a more fitting night to bow out than as the co-main event to Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. With nothing left to prove against Serrano, with her sporting legacy sealed, and with her financial future long since secured, I asked Katie Taylor recently how she could possibly summon the determination to do it all again. She said: 'I love the fact that I get to do something I love every single day. 'And even though sometimes I wake up and I'm not in the mood for training', Taylor added, 'I'm still so grateful to be in this position and I think that's definitely one of the reasons why I've been able to stay at the top for so long — because of this passion that I have for my sport.' In which case, who am I to tell this master of the sweet science whether or not she should? I'll be in New York this week to pick the bones of it for The 42 either way.


Irish Examiner
13-06-2025
- Irish Examiner
This competition is now closed. Congratulations to Lucy Lane
To celebrate this year's Cork Carnival of Science on June 7/8 at Fitzgerald Park, we're giving our readers the chance to nominate a school to win a day of science fun in 2025 with Mark Langtry — The Science Guy from RTÉ's Let's Find Out. Ignite your curiosity with live science shows, science stalls and learning that feels like play. Prize Details One nominated school will win a day of science fun in 2025 with Mark Langtry. Terms and conditions apply. Non transferrable/exchangeable and cannot be used for re-sale. No cash alternative. Subject to availability. The editor's decision is final. The winner will be announced, 12 noon on Friday May 30. Cork's biggest science event returns to Fitzgerald Park on June 7–8, 2025! The Cork Carnival of Science promises two days of electrifying entertainment, interactive experiments, and live shows for all ages. With free entry, this outdoor festival is Ireland's largest celebration of science. Expect everything from ancient fossils to futuristic tech. Roaming performers will dazzle with pop-up experiments and science street theatre, while top shows dive into the wonders of nature, weather, sport, and flight. Highlights include: 'Storm Chaser' with TV's Mark the Science Guy 'Bubbling Botanicals' from Science 2 Life 'Air Force', featuring flying toilet paper and air cannons The Fossil Roadshow, inviting kids to explore Ireland's ancient past Over 40 interactive STEM zones offer hands-on fun in robotics, biodiversity, energy, and more, hosted by leading universities and researchers including UCC, MTU, Tyndall, APC Microbiome, Merck, and Fota Wildlife Park. With food stalls, a playground, museum, and quiet zones, there's something for everyone. The event is supported by Research Ireland and includes sign language interpretation Visit here for more information.