Category: News

In the December 2023 LifeWatch Newsletter issue the photo of the month was featured from our colleague Žan Kafol from LifeWatch Slovenia, who won the National Geographic 2023 photo contest for the second year in a row.

The photo title is “ENLIGHTENED (All Milky Ways Lead to Rakov Škocjan)“. It won in the landscape category and was declared the expert jury’s overall competition winner. Rakov Škocjan, a karst valley between Planinsko polje and Cerkniško polje in Slovenia, is known for its typical karst features and has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The photo was taken during summer, amidst the Perseids meteor shower, and depicts a night scene in front of the entrance to the Zelške Caves and below the
Small Natural Bridge.

Participation in the conference LifeWatch ERIC BEeS “Threats and challenges to biodiversity and ecosystem conservation from an eScience perspective,” Sevilla, Spain, May 22 – 24, 2023.

Gregor Aljančič, along with co-authors, presented the first results obtained with the RI-SI-LifeWatch equipment, designed for the exposure of ProteusWatch in the virtual laboratory:

Gregor Aljančič*, Octavian Machidon, Magdalena Aljančič, Alina Machidon & Tanja Pipan: Challenges and preliminary results in building virtual laboratories to monitor Proteus anguinus and its karst groundwater habitat.

Our colleague Nataša Pipenbaher was collaborating at the LifeWatch ERIC Voices of Women podcast.

Women scientists speak candidly about their work, experience of bias and the value of women in research.

This last in the IWD 2023 podcast series looking at women scientists’ perspectives on gender bias, gender balance, and the European Union’s Gender Equality Strategy is further testimony of the enriching experiences and contemporary points of view that women bring to their work in research today.

Season 3, Episode 10 of ‘A Window in Science‘ regards the demanding and sometimes dangerous biodiversity and ecosystem research in the underground Karst caves of Postojna, Slovenia. Karst is a special type of landscape that is formed by the dissolution of soluble rocks, including limestone and dolomite, and Karst regions contain aquifers that are capable of providing large supplies of water. More than 25 percent of the world’s population either lives on or obtains its water from karst aquifers, but human incursions are threatening these vulnerable environments.

Owing to their steepness and relative inaccessibility, Karst landscapes act as natural refuges for species that have disappeared elsewhere as a result of hunting and habitat loss. They also harbour countless unique life forms, including the Human Fish Proteus anguinus, which is an aquatic salamander of the family Proteidae, the only exclusively cave-dwelling chordate species found in Europe. Endemic to the Dinaric Karst and measuring 25 to 30 centimetres in length, the Proteus is a truly precious living gem and the symbol of Slovenian natural heritage.

Professor Tanja Pipan, Principal Research Associate at the ZRC SAZU Karst Research Institute, Nataša Ravbar, Associate Professor at the same Institute and Gregor Aljančič, Head of the Tular Cave Laboratory, discuss their research, their specialised tools and the virtual research environments being developed by LifeWatch Slovenia.