Team Bio

Rachel Grant is a zoologist and ethologist, Friedemann Freund is a solid state physicist with expertise in geophysical processes occuring before earthquakes, and Charles Lindsay has extensive knowledge of the field site in Costa Rica and particular expertise in recording animal sounds. Friedemann and Rachel have been working together for many years and have jointly published several papers on the behaviour of animals prior to earthquakes.

Rachel Grant

Rachel is a zoologist with an interest in animal behaviour, especially that of amphibians and birds. She has been fascinated by the natural world since childhood, and read degrees in biology and animal behaviour before completing a PhD looking at how amphibians respond to environmental changes. Rachel has been working on the effects of the geophysical environment on animal behaviour for many years, documenting changes in animal behaviour with moon phases, magnetic field fluctuations and changes occuring before earthquakes. Rachel worked at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge before joining Hartpury University Centre and Graduate School as a Principal Lecturer.

Charles Lindsay

Educated as an exploration geologist Lindsay is the SETI Institute’s AIR Program Director, a Guggenheim Fellow, recipient of the Robert Rauschenberg Residency, former artist in residence at Imagine Science Films and the innovator behind OSA EARS - a project designed to deliver real time sound from one of the world’s most bio-diverse eco-systems to anyone anywhere with internet. He has recently joined Human Condition Labs to develop their Artists in Research program. Charles is interested in technology, eco-systems, semiotics, and esoteric forms of humor. He creates immersive environments, sound installations, sculptures built from salvaged aerospace and bio-tech equipment, videos and photographs. Lindsay balances his studio time with extended periods exploring remote environments. Charles lindsay is Artist in Residence for SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) and he has a special interest in biodiversity and conservation. He initiated the OSA Ears conservation project in Costa Rica. More detail on Charles and his work can be found here:

http://www.charleslindsay.com/...

Friedemann Freund

Friedemann Freund doesn’t shrink from taking on the really big problems. His research has elucidated such important phenomena as the fact that rocks under stress behave like batteries that can produce currents deep within the crust of the Earth. These are not piddling electron flows, either – the currents could be as large as hundreds of thousands, even millions of amperes, sufficient to be recorded from the Earth surface, and perhaps even from orbit. Understanding and exploiting this phenomenon could lead to a dramatic breakthrough in earthquake prediction. Friedemann believes that charges emanating deep within the Earth's crust provide an explanation for the unusual behaviour of animals which has been reported to occur before large earthquakes. Mineral defects become activated when rocks are stressed, leading to the outflow of huges numbers of so-called “positive holes”. These electronic charge carriers and their follow-on reactions have been shown to cause detrimental effects in animals. They could be the reason for the anxiety and restlessness that cause animals to make unusual migrations away from areas of impending seismic activity.