Apologies for taking so long to write this next blog post. Things have been busy in the lab for me the last few months, but now I'm back to writing my blog and hopefully teaching those who are interested something new on this gloomy, rainy Thursday 😦 So, in my last blog post I introduced [...]
SCICOMM SUNDAY #11 🗣
Your weekly tips & tricks for improving your science communication!
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This week I want to talk to you about...
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SCICOMM 101 🗣
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Just a quickfire one from me this week with some quickfire tips about where to start with any scicomm project you want to get started on...
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👥 Know your audience
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🤝🏻 Build trust and credibility
. 🥅 Establish a goal or two
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🔑 Find your key message
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💻 Pick your medium or platform
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📚 Flex those storytelling skills
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🗨 Use accessible language & be inclusive
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🔄 Practice. Practice. Practice. Repeat. Learn from your mistakes and improve the next time.
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👂🏼 Listen to the thoughts and opinions of others and encourage conversation
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More on each of those in the next few scicomm sunday posts but here is your introduction. Would you add any tips to a scicomm 101 toolkit?
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What other scicomm tips would you like to learn about for Scicomm Sunday?
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Edition 11, over and out!
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HAVE YOU REGISTERED TO VOTE? ☑
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Did you know that here in the UK nearly 1 in 3 peole aged 20-34 are NOT registered to vote? 🗳
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Now I realise we are not voting in European elections, but my trip to European Parliament this weekend on my trip reminded me that the deadline to register to vote is TOMORROW! It takes you less than a minute⏱. You just need to go to gov.uk! Grab your family and friends and anyone you can tell so you can have your vote and your say this December!
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Now when it comes to choosing who to vote for this is where it can get a little more tricky. I believe most of you of follow me are interested in science🔬, so I thought I would share a few quick highlights from the three biggest parties' manifestos about science that might help you make a decision if you are unsure.
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CONSERVATIVES 💙
▪️New laws on animal sentience but no mention of animal research
▪️Continue to collaborate internationally and the EU
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LABOUR ❤
▪️Review animal testing laws with the long term commitment of completely phasing it out
▪️Funding new technology like hydrogen and carbon capture and storage
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LIB DEMS 💛
▪️Minimise the use of animals in experimentation and fund research into alternatives
▪️Introduce a start up allowance to support new businesses in science and research
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Are these highlights something that would be useful for you guys? Have you any thoughts about these manifesto highlights?
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But most of all PLEASE 🤞🏻 remember to vote by tomorrow 26 November! 🗳🗳
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TIME TO REFLECT 💭
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It's been a bit of a whirlwind few weeks with work. I dont really know what day of the week it is or whether I'm coming or going as I've been doing a huge variety of things. From my video 🎥 making course, a website 💻 redesign brief, a career development event for science support staff and photography 📸 at our sciart pop up exhibition to name a few.
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One thing I learnt from my day at the career development event were my "must haves" for my career. I mean things you wont negotiate on when it comes to your job, or even PhD project. My two were VARIETY and LEARNING 🤓. So you can see that just in the last few weeks I've got ticks ✔✔ on both of those aspects.
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But another thing they shared was that we only seem to reflect on our careers when we arent happy 😕 in them.
Instead we need to reflect on them when we are happy 😄 with them too so we can make the most of any opportunities where we can develop.
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This is what I was thinking about today. I love my job, especially how varied it can be. I have loads of opportunities to learn new things too. So what can I do to develop myself further? Today I thought I need to be challenged a bit more and I need to stick up for my opinion a bit more and push my ideas 💭💭 a little more. I havent quite worked out how but that's what Im working on now.
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But I want to ask you all to do the same. What are your non negotiables for your career or research? And take some time to reflect on your current situation whether you are happy or not - how are you going to develop further? Please share if you feel comfortable too.
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That's my food for thought as I share my attempt at an artistic selfie 📸 using the mirrored panel in one of the sciart pieces this week
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SCICOMM SUNDAY #10 🗣
Your weekly tips & tricks for improving your science communication!
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This week I want to talk to you about...
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STYLES OF PODCASTS 🗣
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First of all, I'm very excited that Scicomm Sunday is into double figures! Woop! 🎉
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Secondly, in Edition #8 I shared about whether you should podcast or not. I guess some of you will have read that and still want to make one so I thought I would share more of my training session and share with you the different styles of interviewing.
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I've been lucky enough to be asked to appear on four different podcasts now, and interviews are key parts of this medium. But did you realise there are many different ways you could experiment with to work out what is right for your podcast?? Here are just some I learnt about:
🗣 Just a straight interview. Probably the standard and what everyone thinks of as an interview. Question. Answer. Bang. Bang. Bang.
👥 Illustrated two way. Now sometimes the interview you record just isn't quite right. One thing you can do is record yourself talking about the interview and then add in clips of of key bits you want to highlight.
🎥 Feature. This one is a bit more than just an interview. You might incorporate other things such as event coverage or narration to build it into something a bit larger.
🎙 Event reporting. Again, not necessarily an interview but another style to explore. The key with this one is painting a picture. It is difficult to get people to listen to something they cant see or do, so make sure to really describe what you can see, hear or do.
🏞 From the field. Sending people out to record clips and interviews from where they are working or exploring. Just think of news reports.
🤔 Gonzo! This is all about inserting yourself into the story and sharing your experience and journey of doing something. Maybe you're doing an expedition, or heading out to an event again, but think more video diary.
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These are just some examples and your podcast doesnt have to just stick to one style every episode
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What are your fave podcasts? What style of interview do they do?
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What other scicomm tips would you like to learn about for Scicomm Sunday?
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Edition 10, over and out!
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HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH STRESS?
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We all have to deal with different stresses in our lives, and studying for a PhD is no different. We all just have different ways of dealing with that. During my PhD, for example, I managed my stress by exploring a new city, or scheduling meetings with my supervisor to make a clear ‘To Do’ list.
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But in this post, I don’t want to talk about our stress, I want to talk about cell stress and how they deal with different conditions in collaboration with Merck, but mainly focusing on low oxygen or hypoxia as that is what my PhD was on and also what this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded for. Stress tolerance is one of Merck's Curiosity Elements which you can explore more via #linkinbio
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Lack of oxygen is one way our cells get stressed. When oxygen levels drop, our cells respond by switching on their response pathway which involves proteins called HIFs. Now I gave you a very brief intro to HIFs a few posts back, so I wanted to expand that a little more here about how HIFs are crucial for development and stem cells.
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When we are just an embryo, our mitochondria haven’t fully developed yet and so the way in which our cells can produce most of our ATP is not possible. Instead, they have to rely on a metabolic process called glycolysis - which can produce ATP, but not to the same levels as the mitochondria. But this is the only way that stem cells can produce their energy to develop into a human, so have come up with ways to make that process more efficient using, you’ve guessed it, HIFs.
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In low oxygen, HIFs can stick around and become functional helping to switch on key genes. Key genes that include glucose transporters and enzymes that are involved in glycolysis. The stem cells have adapted to be able to get more glucose into their cells, and convert more into a molecule called pyruvate to try and produce more ATP than they would have done otherwise.
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But the other curious thing is that embryonic stem cells use HIF1 when they are initially exposed to hypoxia, but after 48 hours use HIF2 instead. More on that next time.
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How do you deal with stress?
ARE YOU DONE WITH EDUCATION YET?
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This is a question I got asked so, so, SO many times as I was coming to the end of my PhD journey. I even got told a few times after passing my viva “Oh, so now you can stop being a student and actually do a proper job”. While I may have finished my time as a ‘student’ for now (I would never rule out wanting to learn something new later down the line!), I am so NOT done with education.
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I love learning!💕💕
It is what drove me during my PhD as I wanted to find the solution to that problem, or find that next little discovery that no-one had done before. It is what I love in my current role learning so many new skills and about so many varying areas of research. It’s also one thing I love about doing scicomm is it allows me to experiment and learn new things also. I love to learn languages and about cities I travel to, and basically anything that is going to help in that next pub quiz!
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I have always love learning, and I always will! So, I loved being able to further explore Merck’s Curiosity Elements in cooperation with Merck and the four exercises they sent me - which you can try out for yourself via the #linkinbio. But it was the ‘Joyous Exploration’ one that I wanted to do over and over again. It allowed me to learn more and more information and make new connections between things I did and didn’t know. I learnt things about nanorobots, the Loebner Prize and the Human Brain Project, and my curiosity meant I just had to go and google some more about them all.
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But talking about brains, what goes on in our brains when we learn something new?
One particular study reported that when we are learning a new skill over time, there is increasing activity in a region called the default network, which is normally ‘switched off’ when doing something highly demanding. As you become more competent with this new info, these signals that are associated with “task ease” get more and more prominent.
There is clearly a lot more we can learn here, but we will have to save that for another time.
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Are you a “life-long learner” like me? What new skills or info are you learning about right now?
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