Journal Club

Research groups around the world stay informed and for­mu­late new ques­tions by read­ing and dis­cussing pub­lished sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture. From two sci­en­tists hav­ing a debate by the water­cool­er to an inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence of thou­sands, col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly ana­lyz­ing and ques­tion­ing the pub­lished work of oth­er sci­en­tists is one of the most fun­da­men­tal steps in the process of science.

Massasoit’s pub­lic Jour­nal Club is where our com­mu­ni­ty of future and cur­rent sci­en­tists come togeth­er to explore and dis­cuss peer-reviewed sci­en­tif­ic lit­er­a­ture. Our stu­dent researchers seek out pub­lished sci­en­tif­ic work that relates to our research goals and try to present it clear­ly and in a way the elic­its aca­d­e­m­ic dis­cus­sion and some­times debate.

Par­tic­i­pa­tion in Jour­nal Club sharp­ens the sci­en­tif­ic minds of any­one from the begin­ning sci­ence stu­dent, to the informed cit­i­zen, to the sea­soned researcher. We crit­i­cal­ly dis­cuss whether the authors’ study design appro­pri­ate­ly address­es their ques­tions, and whether their con­clu­sions are sup­port­ed by their results. We think cre­ative­ly to devel­op our own ques­tions based on their find­ings. These are just some of the chal­lenges posed to every­one in the ‘Club.’

Stu­dents who have moved on to four-year degrees, grad­u­ate pro­grams, or even into entry-lev­el sci­ence posi­tions con­sis­tent­ly report back that Jour­nal Club was among the most impor­tant aspects of their sci­ence edu­ca­tion at Mas­sas­oit. Being able to simul­ta­ne­ous­ly apply con­cepts from Eng­lish, math, physics, chem­istry, and biol­o­gy course­work to under­stand­ing and inter­pret­ing sci­en­tif­ic work is a prac­tice from which any STEM stu­dent can benefit.

Join us as we unrav­el the rela­tion­ships of human­i­ty with nature, one sci­en­tif­ic debate at a time.

Close up image of honeybee

Journal Club Article for August 27, 2021

Post­ed: August 25, 2021 

This Fri­day, August 27th , 2021, from 12–1pm, we will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing. The arti­cle is titled “Hon­ey bee for­ag­ing dis­tance depends on month and for­age type”, and will be pre­sent­ed by STEM Research intern Kehinde Agbel­eye. Abstract: To inves­ti­gate the dis­tances at which hon­ey bee foragers …

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A honeybee approaches the center of a yellow flower

Journal Club Article for August 20, 2021

Post­ed: August 16, 2021 

This Fri­day, August 20, 2021, from 12–1pm, we will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing. The arti­cle is titled “Apply­ing pollen DNA metabar­cod­ing to the study of plant–pollinator inter­ac­tions”, and will be pre­sent­ed by STEM Research intern Isabelle Sta­co. Abstract: Premise of the study:To study pol­li­na­tion net­works in a changing …

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A field of sunflowers with a cloudy sunset

Journal Club Article for August 6, 2021

Post­ed: August 5, 2021 

This Fri­day, August 6, 2021, from 12–1pm, we will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing. The arti­cle is titled “Pro­ject­ed cli­mate change threat­ens pol­li­na­tors and crop pro­duc­tion in Brazil”, and will be pre­sent­ed by STEM Research intern Nathanaelle Brig­nol. Abstract: Ani­mal pol­li­na­tion can impact food secu­ri­ty since many crops depend on …

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Journal Club Article for July 9, 2021

Post­ed: July 6, 2021 

This Fri­day, July 9, 2021, from 12–1pm, we will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing. The arti­cle is titled “Assess­ment of risk to hoary squash bees (Pepon­apis pru­inosa) and oth­er ground-nest­ing bees from sys­temic insec­ti­cides in agri­cul­tur­al soil”, and will be pre­sent­ed by STEM Research Emi­lie Oberg. Abstract: Using the hoary squash …

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An image of Irish grasslands

Journal Club Article for June 25, 2021

Post­ed: June 21, 2021 

This Fri­day, June 25, 2021, from 12–1 PM (EST/EDT), we will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing. The arti­cle is titled “The poten­tial of par­a­sitoid Hymenoptera as bioindi­ca­tors of arthro­pod diver­si­ty in agri­cul­tur­al grass­lands” and will be pre­sent­ed by STEM Research Intern Wes Walsh. Abstract: 1. As mea­sur­ing bio­di­ver­si­ty in its entirety …

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Journal Club Article for June 21, 2021

Post­ed: June 16, 2021 

On Mon­day, June 21, 2021, from 10–11 AM (EST/EDT), we will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing. The arti­cle is titled “Nar­row habi­tat breadth and late-sum­mer emer­gence increas­es extinc­tion vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in Cen­tral Euro­pean bees” and will be pre­sent­ed by STEM Research Intern Kehinde Agbel­eye. Abstract: Eval­u­at­ing intrin­sic and extrin­sic traits that …

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Journal Club Article for April 9, 2021

Post­ed: April 6, 2021 

This Fri­day, April 9, 2021, from 12–1pm, we will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing. The arti­cle is titled “Wild bees as win­ners and losers: Rel­a­tive impacts of land­scape com­po­si­tion, qual­i­ty, and cli­mate”, and will be pre­sent­ed by STEM Research intern Matthew Healy. Abstract: Wild bees, like many oth­er taxa, are …

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Journal Club Article for April 2, 2021

Post­ed: April 1, 2021 

We will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing, 4/2/21 at 12:00 PM EST. The arti­cle is titled “Effect of Win­ter­ing Dura­tion and Tem­per­a­ture on Sur­vival and Emer­gence Time in Males of the Orchard Pol­li­na­tor Osmia lig­nar­ia (Hymenoptera: Megachil­i­dae)”, and will be pre­sent­ed by STEM Researcher Alex Van­He­lene. Abstract: We mea­sured win­ter sur­vival, emergence …

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Journal Club Article for March 12th, 2021

Post­ed: March 2, 2021 

We will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing, 3/12/21 at 12:00 PM EST. The arti­cle is titled “Pol­li­na­tion suc­cess fol­low­ing loss of a fre­quent pol­li­na­tor: the role of com­pen­sato­ry vis­i­ta­tion by oth­er effec­tive pol­li­na­tors”. Abstract: Pol­li­na­tor abun­dance is declin­ing world­wide and may low­er the quan­ti­ty and qual­i­ty of pol­li­na­tion ser­vices to flow­er­ing plant …

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Journal Club Article for February 26th, 2021

Post­ed: Feb­ru­ary 23, 2021 

We will dis­cuss the linked arti­cle at our next week­ly Jour­nal Club meet­ing. The arti­cle is titled “Using ITS2 metabar­cod­ing and microscopy to analyse shifts in pollen diets of hon­ey bees and bum­ble bees along a mass-flow­er­ing crop gra­di­ent”. https://massasoit.zoom.us/j/96355527272 Meet­ing ID: 96355527272 Abstract: World­wide pol­li­na­tor declines lead to pol­li­na­tion deficits in crops and wild …

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