Christmas lectures: Day 6

So, the first week is over, and I have to say I'm pretty tired. London, plus the hour commute each way takes a bit of getting used to. But it's going good.

Annoyingly the IT system at the Ri doesn't seem to like me very much! Something went wrong when I first arrived and all of the calendar invites I got sent before I arrived got deleted! So its been a week of trying to get people to resend things, as well as finding out I'm supposed to be places at the last minute. It all worked out in the end though!

So, stuff I have been doing. I've written my first 2 press releases for local media in Edinburgh and Gloucestershire. Neither of them have actually gone to the press yet, but they will do hopefully next week. We're trying to get people excited for a show based on the 2014 xmas lectures that is going to Edinburgh December 1st this year (so if you know anyone with kids in the area...). I've also helped to sort out and proof read a new section of the website that is going live on Monday - I'll put up a link once it's up. There is a bunch of really awesome heritage video's about old science stuff, some of it relevant to some of my science friends.

I'm also helping to organise a bursary which gets kids who could never normally afford to come to the Lectures, which is nice to do. And setting up surveys, and hopefully next week I'll start up the instagram again so you can all follow cool pictures from behind the scenes. 

I also got to meet the lecturer himself, Prof. Saiful Islam. He is genuinely lovely and very interesting, and I think he's going to be a great lecturer. 

And finally, one of the coolest part of the week, I got to go see the archives of the Ri. If you come to the Ri itself, down in the basement there is an awesome science museum with loads of cool stuff in, including the first crystallography machine, various original electrical generators and also the first ever isolated samples of the elements discovered in the Ri back in the days of research:

Potassium – isolated from caustic potash by Humphry Davy in 1807 using electrolysis.
Sodium – Humphry Davy first isolated sodium in 1807 from molten sodium hydroxide.
Barium – isolated by electrolysis of molten barium salts by Humphry Davy in 1808.
Boron – discovered by Humphry Davy who first used electrolysis to produce a brown precipitate from a solution of borates in 1808. He produced enough of the substance to identify it as an element but pure boron was not produced until 1909.
Calcium – isolated by Humphry Davy in 1808 from a mixture of lime and mercuric oxide using electrolysis.
Chlorine – Elemental chlorine was discovered in 1774 but was thought to be a compound and was called "dephlogisticated muriatic acid air". Humphry Davy named it chlorine in 1810 after experimenting with it and declared it was an element.

I got to go behind the scenes, actually stand in Faradays old lab (not a replica, the actual lab), and see the hidden archive room which included cool things like the original worlds largest pencil (it has since been usurped by another one), a piece of original meteorite, and original letters and books written by some of the most highly prestigious scientists in history.
So all in all week one has gone well. Everyone has been really lovely, and I'm looking forward to next week and seeing what it has to bring. 

It's lovely to hear from everyone by the way, thank you for the comments left, they make me smile!

Christmas Lectures: Day 1

So my first day working for the Royal Institution of science (yes, THE royal institution of science!) is over. And good lords I am knackered!

The actual Royal Institution

This weekend just gone saw me up sticks and move to London to start my 3 month placement here. For those who are unaware, my PhD is part of the BBSRC DTP groups (BBSRC = Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. A.K.A. the people who give me money and let me do science) (DTP = Doctoral Training Program A.K.A a program which has lots of PhD's as part of it, and lots of other things we have to do alongside it).

One of the other things we have to do is spend 3 months doing something that isn't our PhD. And I was lucky enough to be successful in applying for the Christmas Lectures position with the Royal Institution.

My role is as a Media assistant - from what I can gather so far that means being organised a lot and knowing how to write things and use social media well. I'm hoping to be involved in some of the actual lecture prep as well, and I'm apparently going to be around for a lot of the rehearsals, though sadly I won't be in the room during the actual filming.
They've allowed me to read the preliminary script today, and it already looks set to be awesome! Obviously I'm not allowed to give details away, but I highly recommend you all tune in. It's going to be a great introduction/recap on all things energy, accessible to people at all levels. And there isn't just chemistry in there (though there is a lot granted), there is even some biology and physics too.

That first moment when I walked into the building did feel pretty awesome. That place just has so much history to it. Specifically the history of science, which is my thing (science, not history). And then I got to go stand in the lecture theatre itself! The actual lecture theatre from the actual lectures! (yes I am a fangirl). The me from my childhood could never have dreamed that was possible

The lecture theatre, where I stood this morning!

The work days are going to feel pretty long for a while. 8 hours working is fine, no problem, but it's the near hour commute either end that is the killer. Mainly because I'm not used to it. (Yes I know many of you work longer/harder/further etc. Changes are always tiring). Hopefully everything will become normal asap and I'll be used to it all before you know it.

Well, that's all for today. I'll do another update when I have more to say.
Have fun!

'Supercharged: Fuelling the future', and my own near future

I'm sorry it has been a while since the last update. To make it up to you all, please follow this link to an amazing science game: Cool biology game link

I also have some very exciting news for those of you who haven't already heard. This year as part of my PhD I have to undertake a 3 month long placement away from the lab. This can be pretty much anything as long as it isn't actually my PhD. I've been incredibly lucky with my placement. 

I'm going to be a media assistant for the 2016 Royal Institution Christmas lectures!

'Supercharged: Fuelling the future'

For those of you who have never heard of/seen the lectures, I highly recommend watching them, Especially this year, given I'm involved! In essence, every year on TV over the Christmas period there are a series of 3-4 hour long lectures on a given science topic. Last years were on Surviving in space and presented by Dr. Kevin Fong. All of them are accessible no matter what your level of scientific knowledge. Back in 2010 Bruce Hood did a series on Neuroscience (My area) and I absolutely loved his way of explaining things and putting a different spin on all of the things I was learning in my degree.

This year, Professor Saiful Islam, Professor of Material Chemistry at the University of Bath is running the lectures (The dude in the picture above). The topic for this year (in case you didn't get it from the rather cryptic title) is energy.

To find out all the interesting details about this years lectures, follow this link: The Royal Institution Lectures information Link
My role in the lectures is as media assistant. This means I'm going to be involved in all the press surrounding the lectures, as well as getting to help out behind the scenes and actually being present for the filming of the lectures themselves! I'm a little scared, as my chemistry and physics knowledge isn't exactly great (Damn it Jim I;m a Biologist not a Chemistry person/physicist!). But, this is the best chance I have of learning all about it. And working alongside Professor Saiful Islam is going to be amazing (i really hope I actually get to speak to him!). Most of my job is going to entail press releases and interviews and such. I'll do some shout outs about what I get involved in so you can all read it or watch it or listen to it (whatever it is).

((There is a good interview with him, which you can find at this link: Interview link ))

It's also the 80th anniversary of the lectures being televised, so they're going to be recreating a bunch of old and iconic experiments, including Faradays electricity generation experiments (hense the topic). They are also apparently inviting back some previous lecturers, so I might get to meet lots of very exciting people during those three months. (If Bruce Hood shows up I may have to fangirl quietly). 

Now this would be cool to do

I'm so very excited about it. I've watched the lectures on and off ever since I was a kid, and always wanted to get into the audience. I never thought I'd actually get to help set them up! And doing the 80th anniversary set is extra special.

If you want to watch any of the old lectures, a bunch of them are online and free to watch. I highly recommend it, they're really good and there is a wide range of topics: Past lectures link

So hopefully I'll do some blog posts about my newly forming understanding about energy so we can all learn together, and those of you with a better understanding of it than me can correct me and hopefully guide me in the right direction. 

(Also, my PhD is going fine. My big experiment is coming to an end, and I've helped out my supervisor on one of her experiments. She is saying I might get to be first author on the paper!)

That's all for now. I'll try and be back soon with my first blog on energy!

Nel

What is a Neuron anyway?

Q&A:

Piginadeckchair - I suppose you can't explain why toast lands butter side down all down my dressing gown, as it did this morning (grrr!) can you?

Sadly no I can't, I'm a neuroscientist not a toastologist (though that would be a cool title to have!) There is a website that tells you the answer though if you're interested: http://www.physics.org/facts/toast-toast.asp

Nickycky - I have a theory. Gravity. The buttered side is heavier, so falls faster than the non-buttered side. It makes PERFECT sense

Good answer! Sadly no. Have a check out of the link above though, its interesting.

Jez lawrence - I love your analogy! That is exactly how it works. And yes, zombie gags are a must!
((For other peoples interest, here is Jez's analogy for how DNA works))
"I've always thought of your DNA as a book with loads of little and not so little chapters. Each cell reads the chapter about itself and if any footnotes reference other chapters, then it goes and reads those too (e.g. see chapter 432.b "how to make enzyme x")."

So, thank you for everyone who read the introduction to the blog! It's lovely to see so many people reading and interacting with it. Science should be something that everyone can read, not just those of us in a lab. Please keep on asking questions and leaving comments, I love reading them and will answer any questions left in the next post.

Speaking of questions, I got asked what these guys were from the last blog:

Your friendly neighborhood fluffy neurons

It's actually a very good question (which I will get onto in a second). As a quick aside, it is very easy as a scientist to forget that people don't know things that you take for granted these day's because "Well I learned that back in first year of university/A2 levels, so doesn't that mean everyone knows it?" So please, if I accidentally start doing that then ask away!

So anyway, back to the question. The fluffy objects in the above picture are cartoon representations of neurons. So...

What is a neuron?

The very basics are: Neurons are the teeny-tiny cells that make up your brain and your spinal cord. Oh, and they also let you move, tell all your organs to do their jobs at the right time, tell your muscles what to do, tell your hormones what to do...

So actually, not that basic.

A better explanation please?

Ok. I'm hoping that you are all aware that your body (and the bodies of all living things) are made up of microscopic things called cells. You get all sorts of different types of cells (Blood cells, skin cells, muscle cells etc), and they all have a specialized function and a specialized structure to allow them to perform this function. Neurons are just the same, they have a special job and a special structure. This is what they look like for real:

This is a real image of real stained neurons

The basic job of a neuron is to pass information from one place to another. An easy way to imagine this is to think of neurons like wires in an electric circuit. The battery (the source) gets turned on, passes electricity down the wire (the neuron) and the light bulb lights up (the response). So, when you want to move your hand for example, your brain sends the message (The battery), the message travels down the neurons to your hand (the wires), and then your hand moves (the light bulb).

I hope that makes some kind of sense!

Lets go a bit more complicated

I hope someone is still reading this far! I promise its not too complicated.

Ok, lets look at the actual structure of a neuron:

Typical neurons, always looking complicated

We'll start on the left and work our way across.

Dendrites:

This is a cool name if nothing else. Dendrites are at the top of the neuron, attached to the cell body. These are like tree branches, spreading out into sometimes pretty wide areas. They connect up to other cells and receive messages. 

Cell body and Nucleus:

The cell body is just like it sounds - the main body of the cell. 

The Nucleus is the bit which holds all your DNA that is in that cell. The genes that are active in the nucleus of the neuron tell the cell to be a neuron and make sure it has everything it needs to work properly.

Axon:

The axon is the bit that takes the message that the dendrites received, and carry it along to wherever it is supposed to go. Cool fact: The longest axon in your body runs all the way from your spinal cord in one long cell down to your toes! In tall people that is a very long way.

Myelin sheath/schwann cells/nodes of ranvier:

These are a bit more complicated (I studied all of this at A2 Biology). Myelin is a protective wrap (like a blanket) that goes around the axon. It is made of Schwann cells. The Nodes of Ranvier is the name of the gaps between each wrap. The purpose of having these is to make the messages get passed along faster, by having them bounce along the gaps rather than having to trundle all the way down the whole length and risk getting lost. 

Axon terminals:

This is, as the name suggests, the end of the axon. This again has branches, a bit like the dendrites. Only this time, the job of the axon terminal is to pass the message along to the next cell, rather than receive any new ones.

Phew. Lots of information there. Please ask if you don't understand something and I'll try and make it make sense!

So, I think that's enough science for one day (for you readers at least). If anyone has any requests on a topic they would like to know about, please ask!

If you're really interested in neuroscience, I can highly recommend watching the royal institute christmas lectures from back in 2011. Its a four program series entitled "Meet your Brain", presented by Professor Bruce Hood. Absolutely fantastic introduction to neuroscience. (Click on the title to go to the page)

Welcome to the Lab

Hello again!

To kick-start the new science side of the blog, I thought I would begin with giving you a little bit of an introduction into what I do, and what my lab does. I won’t go into loads of details, but hopefully this will give you a brief look into my life as a scientist.

What is Neuroscience? Does that mean you study brain surgery?

You will be surprised at the number of times I've been asked this. (The answer is no I do not).

Neuroscience is pretty as well as fascinating

Neuroscience is the study of the structure or function of the nervous system and brain. This includes research into horrible diseases such as Alzheimers, ALS, MS etc, as well as fascinating processes such as memory formation or the long and complex process of us being able to interpret what our eyes see.

Ok, so what does the lab do?

The lab group as a whole has a main interest in the field of epigenetics. We look into how epigenetic mechanisms can underlie the beneficial effects of exercise on both mental and physical health. From this, we want to find out how epigenetics and exercise can help us become more resistant to disease and the negative effects of getting older.

Epigenetics?

It may sound complicated, but the basics of epigenetics is actually fairly easy to understand.

Genetics are cool, and not that scary

Hopefully you already know that in the majority of the cells in your body you have a bunch of stuff called DNA which houses all of your genes (those wonderful things that encode pretty much everything to do with your body, such as your hair colour).

Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression (which genes are turned on or off at any one point), without the genes themselves being changed.

For an analogy (because I like analogies), think of your DNA as a book. The pages are your genes and the words are the code that makes up the genes. Your eyes reading those words are the genes being expressed.

 Epigenetic mechanisms are little notes appearing attached to a page telling you to skip to the next page, or a little note reminding you not to skip a page that you would usually skip. These notes change how you read the book (your gene expression), but don’t actually change any of the words or pages.

Ok, so what do you do with this?

We can study these epigenetic changes and see how they interact with the environment. We can also see how these mechanisms are connected to both positive and negative changes in response to a changing environment (such as ageing or exercise). This is what we are interested in.

How does this connect to neuroscience?

In my PhD, I’m looking at how exercise and ageing interact. As we get older, a number of changes occur in our bodies. Exercising on a regular basis can make you fitter, healthier and happier. It’s also believed to help maintain both physical and mental health during older age
So basically I'm looking to see how the way you live your life can impact on your brain function when you're older via the mechanisms of epigenetics.

These guys are a brains best friend

There is obviously more to a lot of this than I have explained here, but this will do for a starter. I'll hopefully have my first explaining of science blog out in a couple of weeks or so.

Feel free to leave comments asking questions or leaving feedback - both are very much appreciated.

See ya next time!

Science time!

Hello everyone,

It's been a long long time since I posted anything on here (for which I feel bad about), so sorry about that!

I've been looking further into my PhD, and as part of my BBSRC DTP work I have to do scientific outreach to people. Now, first of all:

What is outreach?
This basically means that I, as a scientist, have to get my science work out to you people out there, both scientists and more specifically you non-scientists.

Why outreach?
Well, it's important that science reaches everyone. Science shouldn't be some exclusive club that you have to have 3 degrees in before you can understand it. So it's important for the people doing scientific research to tell everyone else about it in terms they can understand.

So why are you going on about this?
Well one of the ways you can do outreach is by blogging about science! So that's what I'm planning to do. I'm going to attempt to explain something to do with my degree (or if I'm really lucky, something else science related) once every couple of weeks or so.

If anyone has any requests or questions or comments, please please please ask me. Part of this works by interaction with people, and I need input from you lovely lot.

I'll try and make this as interesting as possible. Please give me feedback on how I'm doing, I'd like to be able to improve on my writing styles.

I'll post up the first bit before the end of the week - I'm thinking possibly having Thursdays or Fridays as my update day, as I usually have Wednesday evenings free.

Keep smiling!
Bagel

Sunset

So my time in my  little flat is nearly at an end. It has been (mostly) good to me since September last year when I first came back here to do my PhD. By mostly I mean the door broke, the hob broke, the microwave combi oven broke (I'm on the 3rd one now), and the temperature sucks. But the maintenance guys have been helpful and lovely and fixed stuff, and it has been a place to eat and sleep.

One of the best things about this room has been the view of the sunset on clear nights

It is rather pretty

Ok, some of the pics aren't the best quality, but not bad for being on an ipad through a window

Trust me when I say that some of the views have been pretty spectacular

This being my favourite


Quick update on the PhD. My giant 14 month long experiment finally started this week! Its been immensely stressful - The software keeps on crashing, the computers are not good, and I'm not as yet used to handling the experiments correctly so I'm nervous all the time. Only 2 more days though and then I'm done for this batch. Then I have a lovely 3 week break until the next batch.
I've been preparing for this huge experiment since I started my 3rd rotation, getting all the samples ready and in place and waiting for them to be in the correct state for use. Its going to take a long time, and I'm going to know the top floor of my work backwards by the end of it. Hopefully it will be worth it though.

Outcast this weekend :) Much excited!  Should be a big plot drop this weekend which I'm hoping to get my hands on (along with everyone else). I'll do an update on it when I get back.

Oh, I should also do a post about my trip to France at some point. When I have some pics to show you maybe.

TTFN

Science update

So I should talk about science. You know, as this is a science blog and all.

So I've officially started my journey to becoming a scientist. The kind of scientist that gets to put Dr instead of Miss in front of my name. I so can't wait to do that. Sad I know. For now though, I am still the annoying newby PhD student in the labs. I do some cool stuff, some not so cool stuff, some boring stuff, and some stuff I can't talk about.

One thing I do a lot of is labelling little plastic tubes.

Little plastic tubes for one experiment

And when I say a lot

Little plastic tubes

 I mean a lot

A satisfying layout of teeny tiny plastic tubes

And lots of little tubes means lots of pipetting.

So what actually am I researching? No, I'm not researching into how many teeny tubes you can label before you go crazy. I'm looking into the effects of ageing and exercise on the nervous system - how they change its health and the levels of a specific metabolic pathway. Its pretty cool.

Of course, there is also the fun side of science:

 That is what happens when you put dry ice, washing up liquid and warm water in a flask!

Ok, so I haven't really told you much about my PhD. But I can't/won't talk about a lot of it, so tough. I did have the annoying thing of having to do so much of the work I have been doing since march all over again -_- very annoying. The results I already have are ok though, but I can't use them to compare them with other stuff I'm doing and I need them comparable. Grr.

In other news, I get to go on my holidays soon! Off to France with my family for a while which will be lovely. We get to go to an aquarium, and all sorts of other cool stuff! Plus it will be really nice to see my family again. Biggest downside to the PhD is you don't tend to get prolonged periods of time off, making it hard to go home for more than a weekend.

So that's all for now. Bye!

The Discworld

So I read a lot of books, and have done ever since I was a kid. Some of my best and strongest childhood memories are of my dad sitting on the edge of my bed, book in hand and doing all the voices whilst I listened wide eyed and open eared, hanging onto every word. I think our favourites were the Wyrd Museum Trilogy by Robin Jarvis (Something all of you should read if you are into dark fantasy) and the Truckers series by Sir Terry Pratchett.

These guys always spring to mind when I remember those books

They even did an amazing movie back in the early 90's for Truckers. I had it on video and watched it so many times. I always wanted my own "The Thing". I also remember us constantly renting the video of Johnny and the Dead from the library, and me and my sister laughing hysterically at it over and over again.

I tried reading some of discworld in my early teens, but to be honest I couldn't get into it. I don't think it helped that my first book was "Thud", one of the many stories about Sir Sam Vimes and his motley crew of the Ankh Morpork Watch trying to stop an all out war between the Dwarves and the Trolls. This book has a lot of discworld history in it, and is not the best place to start.

The Discworld, travelling through space on the back of four giant elephants standing on the back of Great A'tuin, the sky turtle

Since that time, I've actually read pretty much every single discworld book in existence, as well as all of the other side books. I love every single one, especially the beauty and the well thought outness of the discworld. No one else could ever be as genius as to come up with that punny, reflective and complex world.

A lot of my Pratchett love stems from my mum, who has been the biggest Pratchett fan for as long as I can remember. She has every single book, most in hardback, plus all the extras, the calender and the diary each year, and a regular subscriber to discworld monthly. We are also all now becoming experts at the Ankh Morpork board game she got last year for xmas. I think without that influence, I would never have read all the books like I have today.

I couldn't choose exactly who my favourite is. I love the witches and wizards, the sheer craziness and stupidity that follows them around, especially Rincewind and his luggage. I also grew to love the watch, originally my least favourite, as they got more and more depth and I got to know them better. I love Death and his family, including death of Rats (SQUEAK), and how he tries so hard to understand humans and completely fails in the most beautiful and innocent way imaginable, and covers for it with sheer sass.

The best crew

So today I heard the news that Sir Terry Pratchett, the man who gave us this beautiful world, has passed on. I'm not ashamed of the tears in my eyes when I read that. I'm glad I got to read his books, and I'm glad I got to hear the music inspired by him (Go listen to the Wintersmith album by Steeleye Span).

I think his Twitter group summed it up perfectly:

AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER
Terry took Death's arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.
The End.

Goodnight Sir Terry, and thank you

Nothing much, science and gaming

So its been a while since I said anything on here. Its not from lazyness, just that nothing has really been happening for a while. I tend to blog when something interesting has happened, and nothing noteworthy really has!

I've done some science at least. That was fun. I got to extract the DNA and RNA and proteins and lots of other stuff from samples which took a few days and a whole bunch of eppendorf tubes!

over 200 eppendorf tubes for only 10 samples!

All of those tubes had to be labelled, by hand, twice each! That took long enough. There were also about this many again that I used a few days prior to this. Science requires many much tubes.
Still, the data I'm getting from my samples looks really good, so I'm happy with that :)

The only problem I'm currently having is this: All those tubes and sciencing were actually for my 3rd rotation. Which isn't due to start for another 2-3 weeks! So why was I doing that and not my 2nd rotation work? Well: my 3rd rotation is actually going to be my PhD, that was decided ages ago, so I was always going to run these samples. My secondary supervisor needed the samples running earlier than expected however, hence me doing them now. my 2nd rotation supervisor has been really good about it as he has been collaborating with my PhD lab. Still, now I'm like 2 weeks behind on my 2nd rotation work, and currently have sod all to show for it. So there goes my free time and weekends (and a concert) in order to catch up. The life of a PhD student eh? Its all work work work. Still, I'm loving it all the same. And I really don't miss undergrad or exams or lectures or coursework constantly.

Outside of the PhD? Well, I now have living space sorted for next year with two friends who are also going to be PhD/Masters students. The house is really nice, if a little out of the way.
All the SATT games are restarting up again. Our weekly Legend of the 5 rings game started off with a bang, with us entering the dream world, fighting off evil spirits and then one of our members going berserk and running off. Just another session. Also (fingers crossed) a new Thursday game will be starting soon, where we all get to play pokemon! Ok, so I don't know much about pokemon, but they're cute and the DM is a good one so it should be fun. Depends on whether there are enough spaces though.

Finally, I've been back playing Kingdom hearts. I got 2.5 remix for my birthday, but didn't feel right starting it until I completed the first one. So I did that, and am now playing Re:chained memories for the first time ever! Its exciting to finally get some new content after all these years. And to finally work out what the hell happened between the first game and the second game!

Nobodys - the new bad guys

The first leaves off with the main characters walking off down a road cheerful and confident. Kingdom Hearts 2 then starts with the main characters in what essentially are stasis pods with no memories, and nobodies running around causing chaos. Re:Chained memories solves this massive plot gap (Organisation XIII steal all of their memories to prevent them from preventing the organisation taking control of kingdom hearts. They fail).

The organisation - strangely with a number of lovable characters

Anyway, enough about me and gaming. I have science to do.