If  your field work often takes you to the peat swamp forests of Borneo and the Brazilian Amazon as Sunitha Rao Pangala does, then hair-rising experiences are part of your job. Sunitha is a Royal Society Research Fellow and lecturer at Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster, soon to start as senior lecturer at Imperial College London, UK. She studies interactions between soils and plants, and how greenhouse gases move between soils, plants and atmosphere, especially how trees ferry met