Anusha Shankar Reflection

I recently listened to a presentation given by the esteemed Anusha Shankar. She is a certified National Geographic Explorer and is currently moderating scientific studies at the University of Alaska. She is also working to complete her Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her presentation mainly focused on her work surrounding hummingbirds and African Grass Rats. When it came to hummingbirds, Shankar was mainly focused on how these creatures expended energy. Generally speaking, hummingbirds will die in just a mere two hours if food is not eaten. Meanwhile, humans can last a couple of days without eating. According to Shankar, the difference is due to how hummingbirds store and expend energy. Hummingbirds are constantly using energy when they fly. Unlike humans, hummingbirds have very little fat which would normally be used to store energy. These two factors lead to hummingbirds being constantly highly reliant on getting food.

My favorite part of her presentation was definitely when she discussed African Grass rats. Shankar has been using these rats to study Seasonal Affective Disorder and the effects of this disease on humans. I found this part to be very ironic because she lives in an area with little to no sunlight, making her more prone to becoming depressed. Here in California, there is a lot of sunlight so residents do not have to worry as much about dealing with the side-effects of there being no sun. She said that she used lights in her room to help cope with the lack of sunlight. 

One other aspect of her presentation was how we got to watch it. Our school was connected to multiple other schools through an online video chatting system. Students from other schools could ask questions and we would all get to hear their responses. I had personally never done anything like this so I really enjoyed this form of communication.

Works Cited

“ANUSHA SHANKAR.” ANUSHA SHANKAR, anushashankar.weebly.com/.