Author Archives: A/Prof John Lesku

I am a poor blogger. I haven’t posted a thing in one year. And what a pity? The lab has done great things in 2019. When viewed individually or collectively, I think you will agree. And so – in surname-reverse-alphabetical-order – in only 2019… Zaid, Erika completed all data collection for her PhD. She conducted,Continue reading “Breaking the One-year Silence”

Big, enthusiastic Congratulations to Dani Eastick on her first, first-author publication. Here, Dani provides new insight into the physiology of some helmeted Dinosaurs (bottom left) through… …the study of helmeted cassowaries (above right)! Cassowaries, and perhaps some Dinosaurs, used such appendages for heat exchange with the environment, conserving body heat at low temperatures and off-loading 8%Continue reading “New Publication”

It has been half a year since my last post; unsurprisingly, a lot has happened since mid-year. Soon-to-be Doctor, Ryan Tisdale, has gone on a publishing spree with three chapters out this year alone: Spectral properties of brain activity under two anesthetics and their potential for inducing natural sleep in birds. Frontiers in Neuroscience 12,Continue reading “End of Year Wrap-up”

Annie Aulsebrook just had another first-author paper come out. In JEZ-A, Annie provides a comprehensive and original review on the effects of light pollution on sleep in humans and wildlife. Well done, Annie!

The last couple of days we were fortunate enough to host Associate Professor Bruno van Swinderen from the Queensland Brain Institute, and Dr Vanessa Kellerman from Monash University to discuss future studies on sleeping flatworms and fruit flies. What an amazing opportunity for us! [Left-to-right: John Lesku, Vanessa Kellerman, Bruno van Swinderen, Robin Johnsson, ErikaContinue reading “Visiting Scientists”

A BIG Congratulations to soon-to-be-Dr Alynn Martin from the University of Tasmania on her latest article! Here, Alynn provides a comprehensive investigation into the effects of mange on wombats in Narawntapu National Park. Infrared thermographic analyses to measure heat loss from living animals, doubly labelled water to quantify field metabolic rates, accelerometry data logging toContinue reading “New Publication”

It is my pleasure to welcome Shauni Omond (left) and Robin Johnsson (right) to the lab.  Our newest PhD students!

Here, Linh and I give an invited review on the recent characterization of sleep in jellyfish by Nath et al. (2017) Current Biology.  Speaking of Linh… Congratulations on graduating and for the next big steps in your life.  I still wish you were staying around for a PhD, but am excited to hear of yourContinue reading “New Publication”

Part of a Special Issue on “Wild Clocks”, we outline the methodologies involved for measuring “Wild Sleep“: Niels Rattenborg, Horacio de la Iglesia, Bart Kempenaers, John Lesku, Peter Meerlo and Madeleine Scriba, “Sleep research goes wild: new methods and approaches to investigate the ecology, evolution and functions of sleep”. This makes for an excellent companionContinue reading “New Publication”

Congratulations to Shauni Omond, Linh Ly and colleagues for the newly-published paper in the journal SLEEP demonstrating sleep in platyhelminth flatworms!