What's the point of this 'Twitter' thing then...

As a self-professed 'people person', I can honestly say that, until very recently, I didn't really 'get' the power nor point of Twitter and the like. I'm on Facebook, of course. I joined nearly ten years ago when you needed a uni account and people didn't realise what it was or could be, so I know what the concept is, but I've never really appreciated the power of it as a tool to communicate new ideas rather than just a place to check out ex-classmates, ex-boyfriends and their ex-classmates and ex-boyfriends.

So what’s caused this change, then? Well, a number of things actually. Mainly, I’m coming to a haitus in a fairly typical research career and for the last (nearly) two years I’ve been trying to get a job back in industry.

Trying. It seems that our degrees/PhDs are not that special or unique after all. Something no-one tells you. There are so many degree'd and PhD’d people now, that you have to find the thing that you have that is different and extra to all the other people out there and capitalise on that ‘thing’ to get your desired role. But (and yes, I did just start a sentence with 'but') what if you don’t know what that ‘desired role’ is? And (now ‘and’, my GCSE English teacher would not be impressed - Hi, Mrs. Hughes!) I think that this accounts for a lot of people – particularly a lot of PhD graduates.

Why don't we have any idea what we can do? I think, primarily, that we simply don’t know what else we can do because during our PhDs we are surrounded by people who did the conventional degree-PhD-PostDocs-academia - i.e. our bosses. This is a perfectly valid and potentially fulfilling role, but we don’t ever seem to talk about any other choices because this would be a ‘cop out’. Those PhD students that leave the lab to become tax attorneys, patent lawyers and teachers are met with a (fairly sizable) level of derision. They've ‘given up on science’, they couldn't cut it. I’ll be honest, until fairly recently, I probably felt similarly.

The problem is that by not talking about the other options, and there are plenty of others, and, in particular, by devaluing the other options, those people who perhaps aren’t suited to the life of a research scientist are left floundering.

So there I was, wondering what else I could do with my qualifications, my talents and my ‘transferable skills’ and who do I ask? My boss - who wants me to stay (Of course he does, I’m the only PostDoc in a group with an increasingly absent boss)? My PhD supervisor - who planted the seed of research in my brain (and is probably somewhat invested in the idea that I will continue his scientific genealogy)? My PhD cohort - mostly we’re in the same boat (and trust me, nobody wants to be the first to say that they have no idea what they’re doing with their life)? My (new) husband - who  thinks my degree and PhD should be rewarded with riches and fame? Or even, God forbid, my parents - who have very little understanding of what I do (my Dad still doesn’t get that there’s no-one to tell me the answer)?

This is where Twitter comes into it’s own. Unless you’re guilty of some seriously questionable behaviour, most people will let you ‘follow’ them – allowing you a rolling, updated, 160 character facebook status of their lives, if you like. Unlike Facebook, where an unsolicited 'Add' is a thing of cringe-making comments of 'who the f$£k is so-and-so Edwards?', Twitter is designed for you to be able to see what complete strangers are broadcasting to the world. It's supposed to be less private and you immediately have access to an insight into the jobs, opinions and day-to-day lives of everyone you follow, particularly if they realise the power of this medium for shameless self-promotion and detailed descriptions of their work - which most SciComm people should and do. Over the last few weeks, since being on Twitter, I've learnt about the changing attitudes to the hallowed world of publication and open access research, found job ads, got a place helping to organise a session at a major scientific communication conference, been approached to enter a science communication competition and, oh yeah, shamelessly guided over 1000 views to my blog (although I'm sure Facebook helped, too!). I have also learnt a lot more about new and exciting science than I've got from reading my usual list of detailed, focussed and often-not-particularly-exciting journals for my own research.

Yes, Twitter can be a really fun and a great way to find out about things you like socially, but, by it's nature, it's fundamentally a place for promotion. Promotion of ideas, promotion of products and OK a LOT of self-promotion. But, if you know what you're doing if you follow the 'right' people you can learn SO much from the 140 character snippets. The fact that everything is limited to 160 characters means that you get a précis of what's being said, promoted and commented upon. You can then decide of you want to follow the link to an interesting paper, article or, occasionally, random picture of a funny badger.

If you are interested in Scientific Communication and journalism, I've started a running post - a sort of Who's Who in the area...

Pretty much any field can be found and 'followed' on Twitter, giving you crash course in anything you can think of. So my advice would be - If there's something you think you might be interested in, an area of science, retail or life in general, something you've always thought 'I wonder what that job is like' - get on Twitter, have a skulk around and oh yeah, follow me - I've only got a few followers and we all need to save face, don't we?

#2:Scientific Communicators...

Updated March 2014: I've updated the statuses of my 'favourites', where necessary, and added some new people to the list...

Last October I started looking in to scientific communication, using Twitter, Blogger, Facebook and Google+ to learn as much as possible about who was saying what and how. I had no idea where to start but I quickly built up a selection of people whose tweets and work I liked. I thought it would be useful to list this somewhat random bunch, in order to help anyone else out there who fancies skulking around ('following' on Twitter) these people to see how they communicate their opinions and ideas. And the occasional picture of something cute/funny.

Something that I've noticed is that there is definitely an in-crowd in this 'anti-the-in-crowd' crowd. For example, there's a distinct inner-circle of avid bloggers and science journalists who cover a lot of ground between them, re-tweet each-other's work and all manner of interesting stuff. 

If you're looking around with scientific communication in mind then, as somewhere to start, I would start a Twitter account and follow these people, see what they tweet, WHEN they tweet, what they cover and how they write. Their tweets will lead to articles, events and some really useful blogs. Some people have short blogs of a few paragraphs whilst others lean towards my rambling style. As I said, this is my opinion, to which I hold firmly, whilst being completely aware that it may, in fact, be wrong.

In no particular order I like...

On Twitter...

Carl Zimmer - Writes books, articles for the New York Times and Slate, blogs for National Geographic (often cross-referencing his articles - clever use of directing traffic to his articles) and tweets on all things science-related. Definitely a 'biology' man with lots of books published on evolution but also more esoteric topics like science tattoos of the science-and-pain-loving! 'Revered' is a strong word but he is highly respected, it seems, by all in the community.

Ed Yong - Science writer, blogger at National Geographic and prolific tweeter. He has a very irreverent style that is always informative, often quite funny and regularly takes the piss of science and people he deems 'sub-standard'. He tweets A LOT, often in quick succession and his tweets can be a good running commentary and 'thermometer' on the community. I often wonder how he has time for anything else. His name seemed to get dropped at all classes, courses and workshops I've attended recently.

Virginia Hughes - Another science writer and blogger at National Geographic. She has a more 'serious' tone compared to Ed and tends to tweet on a wider variety of things, including art/photography, travel and conferences. Like her NatGeo writer mates, she uses Twitter to heavily promote all of the writing that she does, as well as the work of others at the same publications as her.

Laurie Winkless - My brother recommended this physicist SciComm-er and, after following her on Twitter and listening to her interview on Speaking of Science (see below), I can see why. She's became the Editor for Nobel Media at just 30 and I think this is really impressive. She's working at a prestigious world-renowned organisation, bringing them into social media circles and spreading their message to a much younger, more dynamic audience than it had before. She's got a book coming out in 2016 called 'Science and the City' which I'll be keeping an eye out for as I love to see scientists drawing attention to the science in everyday life.

Laura Wheeler - Recommended by a marketing professional as 'someone-to-learn-from' in the SciComm community. In the few months since I first wrote this post she's moved from the Communities Co-ordinator at Nature and is now the Community Manager for Digital Science. Watch and learn.

Lou Woodley - She's involved in all things science-social-media-online-technology related, it seems. You can find more info on her blog here. I started following Lou after seeing a lot of her tweets re-tweeted by the people above (further evidence of the 'inner-circle' effect). I've found out about lots of online resources, articles and events through her twitter feed. She's recently started the excellent MySciCareer site with Eva Amsen (see below) which I've lost many hours to, browsing the different career paths of those who started out with science degrees. 

Athene Donald - Physics professor at Cambridge, blogs via Occam's Typewriter. I really like the way she writes about life as a scientist, life as an academic and, well, life.

Hope Jahren. I gave her whole name a sentence because I like her a lot. She's a research scientist, working in Hawaii who writes interesting, inciteful and often tear-jerking prose. She also gets to work in HAWAII. I was lucky enough to spend a couple of weeks hopping around the islands last year and the thought of someone who gets to be this good a writer, a scientist and a resident of this freakishly beautiful part of the world makes my heart hurt. Keep an eye out for the resurrection of @TotalGrasshole. Trust me, it's hard to explain why the tweets of an aggressive grass are so funny, but they are. 

Dean Burnett, aka @GarwBoy (Say, garoo-boy) is a Welsh neuroscientist, comedian, blogger and generally interesting guy. He writes regularly for the Guardian in a style that is thought-provoking, topical and, ultimately, very funny. By the by, he does NOT like Hitler.

Kate Whittington draws wonderfully detailed illustrations. You can find them on her blog here. I also like the way that she writes, peppering anecdotes about saving a bee with species identification and rolled-up-newspaper-threats from her dad (for the bee, not her. I think). 

Eva Amsen is the Outreach Director at F1000Research, serial blogger, co-founder of MySciCareer, pro-open access publishing and regular speaker at SciComm and careers seminars. I was once at a seminar where she got narked at the eternal question 'How do you find the time?' Her response was 'I've never seen the Wire or Breaking Bad, I do other stuff instead'. It's fair to say, I like her attitude to just getting shit done, although she may have a clone, as I'm sure she still manages to do more than most. Oh yeah, she also likes investigating the links between science and music at MusiSci. Like I said, she does lots of things. 

Anonymous tweeters and bloggers have received some attention over the past few months- have a look at this blog post and subsequent comments for some interesting thoughts. I will say that I've often been asked if I'm concerned about potential employers reading this (loosely) careers-based blog and finding it imperfect/wrong/rude/desperately job-seeking. The simple answer is 'Yes', but I do it openly because it never occurred to me that I should do otherwise. Sometimes, I do think of things that I would like to write/rant about but I try and keep myself 'on track' and occasionally this does mean I'm not able to talk about what I want. Anyway, my recommendations for some anonymous tweeters and their blogs has a place here as I feel that, rightly or wrongly, this allows a different level of honesty that would be difficult in the first person. In this spirit, check out BioChemBelle, Dr24hours, Dr. Isis and InBabyAttachMode

Miscellany...

Lush green grass at a friday afternoon - Ignoring the strange grammar in the title of this blog leads you to an interesting set of blogs that are used to 'express and share some of our thoughts about the current state of science, its place in society and our lives within this continuously changing discursive environment' - Sounds hard-core, but it's well written (by two people) if only for this candid blog on working in a lab where prior work gets retracted.

Speaking of science - This is an interesting site run by Julie Gould, the Naturejobs web and advertorial editor at Nature Publishing Group. The site acknowledges the myriad ways in which you can be a 'science communicator' and aims to be a repository for interviews (some written, some audio) with people who work in Science Communication - Ed Yong and Laurie Winkless are featured, amongst many others.

Julie Gould has also recently launched a network of science bloggers called Speakers of Science that brings together new people in the SciComm community to try their hand at blogging on different science-related topics. Using cartoons, pictures, videos, text and handy hints for new SciComm attempts, it's ace! (Dislaimer: I am one of the new bloggers and am indebted to Julie for getting me involved!)

PSCI-COM - I can't really complete this post without mentioning this huge site, chock-full of threads, conversations and requests related to all things around 'the public communication of science and public engagement with science'. The most useful thing about this site is that it's a JISCMAIL that you can subscribe to. It's somewhere between a forum and a huge e-mail list where everyone can speak to everyone very easily about anything they need. Generally people abide by etiquette and don't just use it to promote themselves. So far I've learnt of loads of different events and applied for numerous jobs that I heard of through this. It's moderated by Jo Brodie, a veritable font of job adverts, SciComm info and helpful advice on the forum and Twitter. 

In updating this post I've found many more new people to 'follow', websites to scour and blogs to read, but will only add them to this list once I feel that I know a bit more about them. I'll be adding to this post regularly, I hope. In the interest of keeping things as concise as possible I haven't included major organisations such as museums, research councils, festivals etc., you can work that out for yourself.

For all the Twitter sceptics, I posted on my early interactions with this new 'Twitter-verse' and 'blogosphere' (you've got to love the cheesy terminology, if nothing else) and tried to convince you that it's not all just pictures of people's dinner/pets. Although there is a bit of that. And I like it.

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Potentially useful fact:

It's worth mentioning that at the time of me writing this (Oct 2013), there was a somewhat stormy time going on in the world of SciComm. I only include it here as, if you do intend to look in to this field, then you should know that this has gone on...

It 'started' with the removal of a post from a black female blogger (DNLee) who wrote about being called a whore for not wanting to blog for free - causing a massive backlash questioning whether she would have been expected to work for free, or her post deleted, if she'd been a white male scientist - (answers on a postcard). For a whistlestop tour of the ensuing fiasco see here and here.

The shady behaviour of the editor in question (now fired) and the response from what was supposed to be a higher power (Scientific American took her post down) resulted in a name being added to a year-old post about sexual harrassment. This has caused a complete bombshell as the man in question (Bora Zivkovik) is (was?) a heavyweight in the blogging community, loved and respected (there was a twitter hashtag #IhuggedBora for a while) and quite, quite powerful.

Ok so, rewind. There've been a huge number of posts on this, I'm new to the whole area and couldn't/wouldn't comment on what's going on. The gist of it, as I see it is... in a field that is friendly and often revolves around a very casual and social manner, there are a number of people who seem to think that this is a great opportunity to behave inappropriately towards potential writers. This seems mainly to happen when a young or new writer approaches an established member of the community and, as someone who is looking at maybe moving in to this field, I'd honestly say that it's given me pause for thought. It seems like this goes on a lot but the massive uproar this has caused between supporters/victims and everyone else has probably opened a few eyes to what's, at best, pretty shitty behaviour. As I said, I won't go into detail, most of the blogs about this are pretty heated, but the original posts are here:

This happened: Monica Byrne

This happened: Bora Zivkovik

What I will say is that if, like me, you were initially tempted to think this was bad behaviour but put the huge rhetoric down to a (little) bit of over-reaction then check out #ripplesofdoubt on Twitter to see the impact this can have - it really opened my eyes. 

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Some people say I'm chatty...

Some others would go for 'bloody annoying' and I do occasionally wonder, particularly after meeting someone for the first time, if I really had to tell them their tie/socks/t-shirt were nice and where did they get it? Have they been to that really great tie/sock/t-shirt shop in McNowhere? Do they prefer ties to, say, the cravat? Where are they on the neckerchief?

Anyway, you get the idea, I hope. I like talking to people, finding out about them and increasingly often nowadays, telling them about my job/science or how they can do things in the lab.

This got me thinking that maybe I could use this as part of my job. I was recently advised to think of something I'd do anyway and find a way to get paid for it. So yeah, it makes sense to get paid for talking to people if, like me, you do it automatically and like doing it.  I also like to think I'm good at it. I don't mean that the way I talk is particularly good, it can be unintelligible when I get excited, tired or angry and my Welsh accents gets (even) broader. What I mean is that I think I can talk to most people about most things with a bit of enthusiasm. Even if it it's something I know nothing about, sometimes especially then - I like talking things over with people.

So, what's the point...

Well, I'm going to spend a considerable amount of time over the next few weeks looking into an area of science called 'Scientific Communication'. Scientific communication has become a 'catch-all' term to describe the relay of science between different people and covers a multitude of jobs.

Traditionally, in my view scientific communication has usually meant science fayres and festivals, possibly Outreach* schemes run by institutions and science journalism. There are a lot of roles in this area that I'm really interested in and I'll be scouring sites for posts that involve organising events related to science, as well as being the scientist that does the explaining and sharing what I've learnt with you lovely people. Fundamentally, I'm going to be looking for roles in scientific communication  that involve putting into practice the transferable skills we learn from our degrees that we hear so much about - communication, organisation, independence, decision making, prioritising, perseverence, people skills, time-management, the list goes on.

On the subject of an actual job, I'm writing this blog in order to 'precipitate' my thoughts (check out my science-pun, a must have for these sorts of blogs), get some practice at 'communication' and promoting my stuff and to see if I actually like doing it. I'd recommend you do the same if this is something you think you might be interested in. There's also a vast amount of scientific communication that goes on on-line and I'd suggest getting on Twitter and checking out the blogs to see how others are doing it.

If you want to get an inside line on what's getting 'communicated', and by whom, then check out the next blog where I'm going to start a more formal list of blogs/tweeters on sciencey stuff. I'll include a synopsis and my opinion of each source (much as that matters) and try to keep it up to date as I go. I started something similar a few weeks ago but I've come across many more and thought a regularly updated list would be more useful - watch this space. Literally. It'll be in this space.

By the by, four more jobs applied for this week, I'll let you know.

*Another 'catch-all' to cover any event where an institution 'reaches-out' to people -Often prospective students. The students learn about science and (by proxy) the institution, the institution gets exposure to a wider audience and the person carrying out the activity gets bombarded with enthusiastic questions that they often can't answer.

So, you want to be a medical writer...

If it’s not writing the leaflet that goes inside medication – what IS medical writing? 

If we turn to a higher power, e.g. Wikipedia…

 

                        ….well that’s much clearer. Or not.

At the Nature Jobs Careers Fayre 2013, I spoke to EnvisionPharma and Oxford PharmaGenesis about the details of medical writing and I've also squeezed info out of friends via facebook and the like. They were generally enthusiastic about their jobs and had worked on writing the 'copy' (pointless word for 'words') in many varied types of project.

Projects included:

- Leaflets for doctors (to explain a prescription regime for a particular medication),

- Whole books on a particular disease

- Papers describing a pharmaceutical company’s or biotech’s clinical trials.

- Information for patients who are taking part in clinical trials

- Congress reports
- Posters

So it seems like there are a lot of ways to ‘medically' write and I think it can take some time to find your 'niche'. For example, even if you decide you like medical writing, you may well change project types if you find you're better at manuscripts than patient leaflets.

What kind of skills do you need?

If you go in as a Junior, then there is a lot of training provided on the job, so don't worry if this is not something you're formally 'qualified' for. For example, taken directly from a vacancy as a Junior Medical Writer at Envision Pharma, I've added some comments in red...

As a medical writer you will need:

— To demonstrate sound scientific understanding and analytical skills
    as you will be required to explain complex concepts and data to a
    wide and varied audience

By the time you’ve graduated, and then carried out your PhD (and possibly PostDoc) you’ve probably had ample opportunity to discuss your work with people and know if you’re any good at it.

— To work independently to research, write, edit, and proof copy to the
    highest scientific and editorial standards across a diverse range of
    educational materials including abstracts, posters, manuscripts, and
    slide kits

For me, I know I can do all of this, but I’m not really a fan of the rigmorale that is manuscripts – would I be employed to continually write othe people’s manuscripts. Forever.(?)

— To be able to manage your time effectively, enabling you to work on
    multiple projects and meet deadlines

If you've managed a lab and/or your research pretty independently, you'll be fine with this.

— A professional and enthusiastic approach to working with both clients
    and physicians

I’d be happy, nay ecstatic, to find some genuine enthusiasm in the workplace

— To be an ‘advanced’ user of Datavision™

No idea what this was – a bit of research reveals it to be a bit of planning software. To be honest, I don’t think they’d expect you to know how to use this when you start, probably something you’d learn whilst there.

If you have graduated with a science degree (preferably a PhD), enjoy writing and have an exceptional eye for detail, and ideally have previous experience in medical writing and editing, please contact us….

Day to day...

A good friend who is now a medical writer gave me a description of what her work entails when writing 'patient recruitment documentation' - information for patients and doctors taking part in a study. I'll try and do her justice here...(any mistakes are my own!)

1. A project is allocated to you based on your experience by your project manager.

2. Timelines and key information to include are provided by the project manager (this normally takes place in a meeting involving other team members). For this area of work the timelines are normally short, i.e. 3-4 weeks rather than months.

3. Read the clinical trial protocol, do any background reading and formulate the information.

4. Written work is checked by a senior medical writer.

5. Material is finalised and sent to the editorial team.

6. Liase with the editorial team to answer questions and fill in any gaps.

7. Document is sent to the client for review.

8. After a few rounds of review (1-3), the word files are then sent to be 'prettified' by a 'source team'.

9. Pictures are added, layout is perfected etc.. As a writer you may be able to request appropriate imagery which is found by the source team and then added.

10. The finished piece goes for a final client review which can involve more, usually minor, changes.

11. Print and distribute.

Anything given to patients must be reviewed by an 'independent review board' who ensure that the materials are not 'promoting' the study and this can add time to the process. There are lots of rules governing patient and public-facing material.

The overall process of deadlines, writing and review by the customer appears similar for most types of documents. However, how and where you get that information from and the guidelines you must follow vary substantially from document to document. For example, for a publication on a clinical trial, a report of all the data is usually received by the medical writer in the first instance. They then contact the author(s) by phone or e-mail to define key points that need to be made. The drafts are compiled and edited internally before being sent to the authors for approval - This usually happens several times before submission to a journal, just like the rounds of drafting (and redrafting) we do with our own manuscripts, I expect. Clinical trial publications have their own set of strict guidelines about full disclosure and author contributions.

There's also promotional writing around a particular medication and researching the market in order to be able to do this - it appears that there is a lot of 'reading around' required in order to be a good medical writer. As a result, medical writers learn a lot about the disease area or trial that they are working on, but, of course, carry out very little science themselves. This could perhaps be a drawback for people who like to be on the ‘business-end’ of the work but I’ve been told it’s very rewarding to turn often incomprehensible data and facts into readable, digestable text. 

Depending on the company and job, it seems that although there’s a lot made of the team-atmosphere,  you are largely working on your own document that you refer to a senior member of staff for 'proofing'. The job appears to be quite flexible and 'family-friendly' - as it is desk-based you should be able to work from home occasionally or adapt your hours to suit your home life, if needs be.

A few quotes (positive and negative) from our medical writing colleagues...

- I am learning lots of different things all the time about therapy areas and the industry in general, and generally speaking I find it less stressful than the lab!

- I would definitely recommend the line of work though, overall it is pretty rewarding.

- ...sometimes feel that it is not 'scientific' enough.

- Sitting at a desk all day is...one of the downsides of the job.

- It definitely wasn't an easy decision to leave the lab, but I don't have any regrets now!

For information on how to start a career in 'medcomms' (as the cool kids call it) try NetworkPharma and MedComms Networking where you can find lots of information on how to get started in medical writing such as a free careers guide, career days and job ads. The site seems to be heavily involved with a recruitment agency called Carys Mills who can be a great help in finding the elusive first post, I've been told. There's also the comprehensive (and more formal) European Medical Writers Association website with details on jobs, conferences and even their own journal. 

As with most jobs nowadays, this appears to be a competitive market but it is actively seeking new skilled people. So, have at it!

Before I Die...

I know I promised a post on medical writing and it is on it's way, but I might have the opportunity to pop to a company to check out what they actually do in person, so I'm waiting until I've been there before I give you the low down.

Meanwhile...

I was strolling down Borough High Street during my lunch break last week (a heady mix of students, foodies and busy people) when I saw that they've installed the chalk board below. The idea is that the general public add their own take on the starter 'Before I Die...' Whilst I thought it was quite cool and more than a little bit beautiful in a 'ten-year-olds-left-with-the-blackboard-whilst-teacher-leaves-the-room' way, I also (without looking for it) came across the musings on the below right. 
                  
                    'I want to be a scientist'. It takes all sorts, I suppose. 

 

In other news...

Nature Blogs
Nature continues to provide a number of helpful blogs that I've been perusing this week

One on Career Transitions is particularly interesting: It covers people who've had unusual career paths after science degrees and PhDs, as well as people who've had lucky breaks!

Here are some choice quotes/advice lifted from the articles...

From a Post-Doc..

'There is pressure from a variety of sources to work longer and harder.'
'Social dynamics in a lab have a huge impact on the quality and creativity of the work produced.'
'Call your mom (or other non-scientist relation). Try to explain your work. It is very good practice.'

From a Medical Writer
'...communicating science is just as important as doing it.'
'You never know what you might learn when you listen to voices very unlike your own.'

From a PR specialist
'...go the extra mile by doing internships and attending events. Apply for writing competitions, training days and fellowships. You have nothing to lose!'


How to get a job in scientific communication is effectively a summary of one of the talks given at the Naturejobs Career Expo recently, including advice from a senior press officer, a science correspondent, a public astronomer and the director of the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST).

and

The dos and don’ts of communicating with editors and reviewers

This introductory 'abstract' is followed by three posts on submission for publication including How to write a cover letter, How to write a rebuttal letter and How to write an appeal letter

Miscellaneous from t'internet...

#IAMSCIENCE a twitter page dedicated to unusual career paths in science

This is what a scientist looks like a Tumblr page centred on scientists who work away from the bench

#Jobinaweek Top tips and advice for jobseekers

Eat my science Fellow blogger Andy Swale (btw, I don't know him, so this isn't a 'plug') writes about his experiences as he moves from bench to scientific communication

On Twitter...

@LauraWheelers - regular 'tweeter' on all things SciComm (Communities Co-ordinator at NPG)
@LaurieWinkless - Physicist tweeter, lots of SciComm stuff...


For some Australian inspiration

Baz Luhrmann puts some good advice with some good music. Urban Myth spoiler - this is NOT a real graduation speech,

This is...Tim Minchin's - 9 Life Lessons (I don't know why this clip is titled in Spanish, it's in English. I promise)


I'll be back soon with some Medical Writing stuff and summarising the variety of careers that are open to science PhDs using material I've picked up these last few weeks.

Parasites, dolphin autopsies and space-dust. Standard friday night.

Picture the scene, it’s Friday night in a swanky part of London and John, ‘Curator of Molluscs’, comes out with ‘And that’s not the most extreme way of getting sperm into a lady’. If this sounds a bit weird, that’s because it was. 

Late on Friday afternoon I found out about an event called ‘Science Uncovered’ at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London (South ‘Ken’ to the locals/luvvies). As I’m getting increasingly interested in ways to discuss science and engage with the public, I thought I’d pop along before I went out on Friday night. I turned up 2 hours late for my night out, brimming with enthusiasm for other people’s research, trying to explain the beauty of parasites to my (now half-inebriated) friends in a (very hot) salsa bar near Leicester Square. As you can imagine, they didn’t represent the best audience so I thought I’d let you lot in on what you missed!

I arrived at the museum in a bit of a rush, determined to be in-and-out in 30 minutes. I was immediately greeted by a poll on ‘How important is science to everyday life?’ People were hastily cramming their voting tokens into the box marked ‘Very’ and trying to look knowledgable but not too keen – the standard ‘science face’. However, within minutes, it was impossible not to become drawn in to the exhibition. There were over 300 scientists discussing their work throughout the museum. For example, in the Earth Hall, earth scientists from Imperial were showing off the power of desktop scanning electron microscopes by using an ENORMOUS plasma TV to show pock marks on panels that they’d taken from the Hubble telescope after a meteor shower, and marine biologists were talking observers through a gruesome but extraordinary dolphin autopsy under the huge blue whale in the ‘Blue Zone’ for mammals. The whole thing was really informative and interesting and I’d actually encourage anyone who feels their interest in science waning to go and check out their late night events (I think the last Friday of the month is often dedicated to such one-off exhibitions).

It would take me hours to recount the whole event, so here are some highlights...

Being chatted up with – Is that your perfume or just your natural pheromones that smell so good? - Scientists really do know how to the woo the ladies…(It was Escada, Marine Groove, in case you were interested - I was quite sweaty from the tube and had over-applied it.)

Hearing science rubbish, like: ‘I would like the alphabet to consist of less letters. I feel we’re just collecting them…’

Left: Getting up close to some gross parasites (Taeniasis)

Right: Playing children's games to help explain extinction and  food chain disruption

 Below: Using an ENORMOUS plamsa tv to control the view of 'space-dust' from a desktop scanning electron microscope. 

Left and Right: Having a go at predicting the weather – actually quite difficult to point to the right bit of the screen!

 Below: Making modern ‘cave paintings’...

Below: Marvelling at the cake-based representation of tectonic plates – who knew Iceland rendered in icing would be so delicious? (I think that's upside-down Chile/Argentina on the right)

Below: Listening to ‘Soapbox scientists’ discuss their given topic with anyone who would listen – and a few who would not - some 'interesting' questions...

 

Left: Learning about the ingredients in Gin (no free samples, sad times)

Below: Studying the beautiful art created from the patterns of nature, including wasps and coral

Comparing the ‘recovered’ foetuses of a hump back whale (large tank, below left) and a harbour porpoise (bottle, below left and close-up, right) at 6 months gestation.

Below: Playing with whale teeth!!Left: Blue whale baleen (krill filter); middle: whale tooth (can't remember the name, but you can count the rings to work out its age - just like a tree!); far left: Minky whale baleen.

 


Left: Watching the dolphin autopsy – apparently a major cause of death is internal heamorrage from male adolescents i.e. excited and horny teenage dolphins

 Finally, the most memorable stand consisted of pickled sea creatures and was run by John, the aforementioned ‘Curator of Molluscs’. He was obscenely passionate about his work and had a crowd of agog listeners within minutes. I will (poorly) recount some of his best facts.

-Sea creatures that can change colour are chromatophoric and they change their skin colour my inflating the minute patches of skin that display the colour they want to be. 

-Boy cuttlefish use this to get some cuttlefish action by pretending to be girls (so that the men don’t attack them) and then ‘seducing‘ the lady cuttlefish whilst their backs are turned (sneaky beggars).

-Some octopi have hectocotyli – an appendage that removes sperm from an internal penis and then ‘delivers’ it to the lady octopus. Nice.  

-There were weirder penis stories from the marine world involving the words ‘detachable’ and ‘sperm explosion’ but it wasn’t all phallus-related...

-We also learnt that the octopus beak is just that, a beaky monstrous thing that is so strong and sharp it’s being investigated by nanotech companies!

Another highlight was being shown Darwin’s ‘pet’ octopus that distracted him from his theories of evolution. Until he killed it and pickled it that is. Naturally.

Pickled octopus tentacle. Yum!

An octopus 'Beak'. Very nasty!

Throughout this weird and wonderful list I'm sure you can see that I thoroughly enjoyed my evening of other people's research. There were plenty of scientists, artists, kids and 'normal people' who all seemed to be enjoying themselves too! 

As I left via a side door, late for my evening of salsa and Mojitos, I was quite jealous of all the people I'd met that night who quite clearly love what they do...