Congratulations to Kayla Garvey for successfully defending her MSc today! Kayla’s excellent thesis made several new and interesting findings, and her oral defence was excellent. Well done Kayla!!

Ranim, Till, Derek, and Graham are taking part in an exciting research expedition to Chile to study the world’s highest dwelling animal, the Punta de Vacas leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis vaccarum). This amazing species can be found throughout the Andean mountains, recorded as high as 6739 m elevation on the summit of Llullaillaco volcano in the Puna de Atacama, where food is scarce and the air is extremely cold and low in oxygen. How they can live in such a hostile place is a complete mystery!

The Scott Lab is helping figure out how this species can live at such high altitudes. Working with our great Chilean hosts – Pablo Sabat and his student Francisco (Pancho) Del Basto – along with collaborators Jay Storz, Naim Bautista, Zac Cheviron, Jeff Good, Grant McClelland, Marcial Quiroga-Carmona, and others, the project is sure to make many exciting discoveries in the future. Stay tuned!

Congratulations to our undergrad thesis students – Evelyn, Joyce, Mya, and Sonia – for making the Scott Lab proud at the 2024 McMaster Biology Undergraduate Symposium! Great work everyone!

Extra shout out to Evelyn (right at right) for winning a best presentation in physiology award!

The Scott Lab had a great week at the American Physiology Summit in Long Beach. There was so much impressive and inspiring physiology research on display. Huge congrats to Kayla for winning the Scholander Award for best student poster, and to Till for winning a Research Recognition Award!

The 2024 Biology Grad Research Day was a resounding success! Lab alumnus Brittney Borowiec gave the keynote presentation to start the day on a high note, and the rest of the day was full of great talks and posters by grad students from across the Department of Biology. Congrats to Kayla, who won an oral presentation award for her excellent talk, and congrats to Ranim and Caileigh for their great posters! Thanks to the organizers for a fantastic event!

The Scott Lab had a great weekend at the Annual Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry Workshop at Rice Lake. There were so many great student presentations and posters this year, the future of comparative physiology is in great hands! Congrats to Kayla for giving an excellent talk, and to Caileigh, Joyce, and Till for their great posters!

Fish Nog 2023 was a great success! Thanks to all the members of the Scott Lab and to the rest of the physiologists in Biology for throwing a great holiday party. The long-standing departmental tradition continues!

Emma Zucker successfully defended her MSc in the Scott Lab today! Congrats on an impressive thesis and an excellent oral defence. Well done Emma!!

The Scott Lab had a blast at the Canadian Society of Zoologists conference in Saskatoon. It was great to be back at an in-person CSZ meeting, the first since 2019! The science was great and the organizers did a fantastic job. Congrats to Ranim and Emma for giving excellent talks, and to Heather and Kayla for their great posters!