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 [...]
What a great way to start the week with the arrival of our wedding photos! 🤗🤗
.
Really enjoyed the simple things this evening just sat with my husband reliving the best day of our lives that we spent surrounded by * nearly* everyone that means so much to us and seeing moments that we missed.
Glass of wine, tasty wine and a cwtch.
.
So sorry but you will have to prepare yourselves for some more wedding spam 🙈
.
.
What are you looking forward to this week?
.
.
#sophtalksscience #wedding #justmarried #bride #2019bride #septemberwedding #newlyweds #specialdelivery #confetti #confettishot #weddingspam #brideandgroom #mrandmrs #thelifestylecollective #weddingphotography #bridal #discoverunder20k #milbournewedding2019
SCICOMM SUNDAY #7 🗣
Your weekly tips & tricks for improving your science communication!
.
This week I want to talk to you again about...
.
SCICOMM ON THE 'GRAM 📱
.
I often get asked how do I grow a following on Instagram and get more people engaging with your content, and I have one *not so secret* piece of advice for everyone is...
.
ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE
.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you want people to be interested in what you share you have to engage with them by liking their photos, commenting from their captions, interacting with their stories and sharing some positive vibes in the DMs.
.
Build a rapport and relationship with your followers and they will want to ask you questions and be waiting for your next post.
.
And you never know what friends you will make along the way. I've made some incredible friends from across the world because of engaging with them on social media.
.
Also always remember its not an overnight thing either, you need to work on it for a little while to see the rewards.
.
.
Who's content do you love engaging with at the moment? What other scicomm tips would you like to learn about for Scicomm Sunday?
.
Double scicommer shout out this week to these two lovelies in the photo. I finally got to meet @biochemily and @heidirgardner at New Scientist Live and they are even more incredible in person. So go give them a follow for all their awesome scicomm.
.
.
.
Edition 7, over and out!
.
.
💕
I think it seems quite fitting that I listen to a talk by Caroline Criado Perez about her book on the gender data gap on International Day of the Girl today.👭🏻👭🏾
.
Caroline spent 60 minutes giving endless examples of how the world we live in is built for men, and I cannot wait to get stuck into this book 📕 to find out even more!
.
Now you might think it's odd that I share this particular book on this particular day. So why?
.
The talk I listened to earlier was completely eye opening. I was aware of the medical field issues but I didnt realise many, many of the others. And it was a reminder that we need to start doing something about it.
.
Young girls are never going to believe they can reach their fullest potential if everything in their world is biased against them. We need to change that so girls will have as much chance as the boys.
.
So what can we do about it?
Most of us will work in fields that cant directly and physically do something about this. But there is something we can all do. We all go to the "default man" sometimes. I do it too sometimes. You naturally assume someone's boss is a man for example. We all need to acknowledge that we do this and start to make these changes, and stand up for everything you can!
.
That's the way we can celebrate International Day of the Girl.
.
More news from New Scientist Live and of course this book coming very very soon!
.
.
Have you read this book already? What biases surprised you most? Do you pledge to join me in this change?
.
.
💪🏻
LETS TALK ABOUT THE NOBEL PRIZE...🏅
.
Now whatever you think of the Nobel Prize system (it does have a number of flaws), I was super excited to see what it was awarded for earlier this week.
.
It was awarded "for discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability" - which is what a HUGE section of my PhD research 🎓 was on, and I've even met one of the winners too! Not every day you can say you've met a Nobel Prize winner.
.
But anyway.. what's the importance ⚠️ of this discovery?
We all know how important oxygen is for us because..well.. it keeps us alive! But the O2 levels our cells are exposed to can change 📈📉 with different environments, and can have big effects! O2 sensing is crucial to many diseases such as cancer, strokes and heart attacks, but also plays a huge role during development too.
.
But understanding the role of this in these diseases would not be paving the way for new treatments had we not known about the machinery that helps our cells respond to changes in O2 levels by switching on or off certain genes.
.
They are called hypoxia inducible factors or HIFs for short! I could write a whole book on then.. oh wait I've already done that 🙈😂 so for this post I'll keep it brief and then you can ask more questions ❓❓
.
HIFs are proteins that are actually present in cells regardless of O2 levels. But at higher oxygen, they dont stick around as they are broken down by a series of other players.
.
It isn't until O2 levels are low, or hypoxic, that they stick around long enough to be able to have an effect. They move in on the cells nucleus and hunt out a specific sequence of 5 letters in the DNA which they bind to. If those 5 letters are in the promoter sequence of a gene - a small section of DNA which is like the decision centre for a gene - and HIF binds, that gene will get turned on causing a cascade of different effects to allow cells to adapt and survive.
.
I will share more about HIFs in development & stem cells next week in another post.
.
What more do you want to know about this Nobel Prize winning discovery?? Or HIFs & how they work?
SCICOMM SUNDAY #6 🗣
Your weekly tips & tricks for improving your science communication!
.
This week I want to talk to you about...
.
SCICOMM ON THE 'GRAM 📱
.
One of the things a lot of you want me to talk about in this series is how to improve your scicomm on social media platforms like this one.
.
Now there is soooooo much that I can and will share during this feature but I thought I would share just one top tip to get you started, and that is...
.
JUST BE YOURSELF 🤗
.
You may have noticed the wedding spam 👰🏽 (sorry, not sorry! 🙈) I have been sharing recently, and while it may not be content you all signed up for, to me it is hugely important to show your human side as well as the science you want to share.
.
Whatever your aim for sharing science on social media, being a relatable person is key to inspiring the next generation or maybe gaining the trust of the public.
.
When I first started Soph talks science, I debated whether to set up a separate account for scicomm than personal. I decided to just have the one account and show you the real person behind the photos and also that I dont just live, eat and breathe science all the time too.
.
It's why I rarely use filters and it's why I share photos like this that show off all of my chins. 😂 But this is me! Share yourself and your passions in your scicomm and you will see improvements.
.
.
What 'human' things do you like to see from your fave accounts? What other scicomm tips would you like to learn about for Scicomm Sunday?
.
.
.
Edition 6, over and out!
.
.
💕
It's like raaaaaaiiinn... on your wedding day 🎶
.
Got this sneak preview shot from our wedding photographer yesterday and I am in love. So worth getting my dress drenched and appreciate our photographer lying in a puddle to get it.
.
Hope this photo is a sign of what's to come with the rest of our photos and of course our marriage 💕💕💕
