Soap-making fast, internet slow..

AT LAST! My name can be up there with Bear Grills, Ray Mears and Crocodile Dundee-soap from the most basic of materials and simplest of methods has been achieved. Not that I am claiming the invention, I’m just pretty chuffed I managed it.
Initially i had hoped to make soap from banana skins but this wasn’t as simple as first thought. First of all, unless I turned into the banana version of BubbaGump (banana salad, banana cocktail, banana soup...) I was never going to eat enough bananas. Secondly, storing all the banana skins was leading to my own fly farm and thirdly (and most importantly), the villages that we go to don’t have access to bananas. In fact, there was not much around in the way of fruit.
What the villages do have a lot of is hardwood ash. Mapani wood is used to fuel the fires and also gives off a wonderful incense like scent. We also use this wood on clinic to cook our food and so I have been collecting this once cooled to experiment with back at base.
After a few conconctions, some hard learnt lessons about fumes and some good luck I finally made a brown, pretty solid soap! If anyone wants the recipe, email me or message on the blog and I will send it. I have had to work in the very scientific cups for measuring to be able to replicate this in the bush but definitely hoping to develop this when I get back.
I passed my new found knowledge on to a group of 16 year old Zambian school kids. This was a very different teaching experience; the language barrier, the children are ridiculously well behaved and also they have not had any science lessons at this point in their education. However, what they lack in science knowledge they more than made up for in insight asking me great questions about health. I started with a deep breath knowing that science is a cruel mistress and may not work on demand. Once those frothy bubble came about, the kids were more than impressed and I could stop sweating! The school kids are now thinking of setting up a little enterprise, making soap for the village shop so hopefully they will learn business skills too. It’s exciting for me to see the project being taken on and developed by the kids.
My next group is going to be community health workers. These are people who are nominated to help the community to be healthy and as a port of call when someone is sick. Hopefully they are not too disappointed when they find out we are making soap and not soup, like they did last time (the home economics teacher turned up).

Update Part III: Science Girl in Zambia

So update nearly over! I am writing these posts from Livingstone, Zambia where I will be based for the next 6 months. All will become clear....
I have been given a great opportunity to take a leave of absence from my post-doc to work for a medical charity called On Call Africa (www.oncallafrica.org.uk) . This charity will provide mobile medical clinics, health education and try to improve the links with government, district offices and the rural medical outposts that we will be working in. My role will be to provide a basic lab facility which will function by using rapid tests. Not having a huge understanding of these tests, diseases, conditions it’s going to be a huge learning curve. I will be updating the charity website so if you want to find out more about that then please check it out. A lot of these villages are extremely remote and are very limited with regards to resources. A village I visited yesterday (Mapatezia) is only a 6 hour drive from a bustling city with shops and restaurants but because the “road” is so poor and transport is non-existant, little can get in or out, including soap. This is important as we want to provide health education so this is where my chemistry knowledge comes in. Well, I should be more honest than that..my chemistry have-a-go attitude and contacts. Through the networking breakfast, I have been put in touch with two chemists, studying PhDs in St Andrews. They are also establishing their soap making company, Darcy & Lola.
Over the next few months I hope to be updating you with my science adventures, as I try, with the generous help of Su and Lisa from Darcy & Lola, develop a soap using as basic materials as I can. Experiment number one: can I make potassium hydroxide out of banana skins and what can I contain it in? Remember everything has to be recreated in the villages so nipping down to Maramba market to get a stainless steel pot is out. Have a good think, you have time as internet access is not so easy. Then let me know your suggestions!

Update Part II: Science and the (Glasgow) City

A previous blog or two, I mentioned that, as part of IYC 2011, myself and some colleagues would be attempting to host a networking breakfast for women. It was a great success, we did get the freebies from the RSC as well as veet, tunnocks wafers, IYC badges, Glasgow nail files....Although our internet link with the University of Limerick failed, our own presentation and workshops (Women in Business and Women in Interdisciplinarity) were very successful.
Originally, we had thought we could get 250 people to come, then we cut it to 100 after some advice and costs. Seven days before ‘show time’ we only had 6 people sign up to it. Six. [Insert small panic.] Disappointingly not one of those 6 was a female academic from our own institution. After an aggressive advertising campaign, we had 96 people signed up by the end of the week and we breathed a huge sigh of relief-re-enactments from The Apprentice avoided. We did get a female academic attending for a brief while but what I don’t understand is why was it so difficult to get people to come. Was it because of the dreaded word ‘networking’ or was it because it was advertised as a ‘woman’s event? I personally loved the idea of women trying to support each other or just celebrating their position as a woman in science. Although every feedback form gave high praise some revealed that they would have preferred if there had been a similar event with men. Another said “this event has not changed anything.” What was the expectation? Overall, I think the workshops and discussion groups highlighted the problems that women felt they faced (some even admitted that we contributed to) and areas where action needed to be taken so maybe that has changed something. A discussion to generate an initiative and support is much better than an initiative on its own.

Update Part I: TerrificChem!

It’s been a while I know but where to start? It’s been a ridiculously awesome two months for science, girls and rocks! I will start at the beginning, with part one, which is the adventure of PacificChem 2010.
Once every five years this heeowwge conference is held and I had drawn the short straw and was forced to go to Hawai’i to attend it. Slightly overwhelming, approximately 250, 000 people attend this conference and are treated to great science, entertainment in the name of science and the opportunity to pop down to the beach between lectures.
I saw one of my science heroes, Prof Stephen Lippard, deliver a lecture with the backdrop of Waikiki beach. I had a sore face from smiling at him like he was Mother Theresa-I must have looked deranged but he seemed perfectly used to it. Quote of the conference :“My aim is to cure just even one person of cancer before I leave this planet.”
I could go on and I will drop stories in throughout my blogs no doubt (just to rub it in your safety specs!) but one chance encounter did leave me thinking...I bumped into an old colleague (who will be endearingly called The Nefarious Dr L ) and we decided to catch up over dinner with his other workmates. He now has a fantastic job in a sun soaked country and living his science dream. Upon trying to find out how he bagged this job, he said it was due to networking. Deciphered, this meant going out on the lash at conferences with lecturers. Now there is no doubt that The Nefarious Dr L is extremely intelligent and deserves said job but could I ever find myself in the same position; getting gin soaked with Prof Lippard to build a bond, pardon the pun? In short no, I don’t think so and don’t think I’m about to go on tirrade about women should allowed to get drunk and not get judged, not at all, but maybe there could be some sort of other opportunities to build relationships for those that cant hold their liquor- is it possible? Or is a wee imbibement required to let the PPE come off and really get to know the ones you want to work with? And that leads me nicely to installment number two...Women Sharing a Chemical Moment in Time: Glasgow.

Women Sharing a Chemical Moment In Time 2011

2008: The international year of the potato, 2009: The international year of natural fibres, September 19th, 2010: International talk like a pirate day and now 2011: The international year of chemistry!
I definitely want a slice of this action. I am immensely proud to be a chemist so one day whilst perusing the RSC news (Hello? Goodbye!, Closer? Back off! Cosmo? CosNo!), we saw that networking breakfasts were being held all over the world so that women could share a chemical moment in time. (http://www.chemistry2011.org/participate/activities/show?id=37) The credit has to go to a PhD student who I will now refer to as Pyro, who thought than rather attend one, we should hold one! So far we have assembled a crew of savvy lady chemists across the pharmacy and chemistry departments. Comparisons have been drawn to the first few episodes of the apprentice; there is probably the same amount of intolerable squawking BUT this squawking is going somewhere, it makes sense, it’s met with squawks of approval and we won’t charge you £1.82 for a bread roll.
Last week, we established the who (preferably chemistry ladies from all backgrounds, but boys are allowed), what (pastries, yes and a talk about Marie Curie and another from a contemporary woman in science, a goody bag (squawk!)), where (Glasgow) and why (bringing us ladies together for cakes and chemistry of course!). And now for the how....This is the difficult part. How are we going to cover our costs, meet our deadlines? If we build it, will they come?
In terms of advertising support, we’ve had a great response (please see this issue of RSC news) and as an event, people seem interested. I also couldn’t ask for more from our departments who have made technical and financial pledges. Next time, I hope to report that we are overwhelmed with tunnocks teacakes, the costs have been met, Michelle Mone is giving a talk on the chemistry of the Ultimo and our goody bags are rammed with Veet, Green & Blacks hot chocolate and those RSC temperature scale/ periodic table thingys. Watch this space!

Do more with less? Really?

Just a month after Vince Cable gave his ‘do more with less’ speech about science budget cuts, the Nobel Prize for medicine went to British scientist, Robert Edwards, for his pioneering work on IVF treatment. Also,the Nobel Prize for physics has been awarded to a researchers from the University of Manchester, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov who were reported to have used a block of carbon and some sticky tape to create sheets of carbon, a single atom thick, called graphene. This material has extraordinary strength as well as other unique properties.(Science, 2004, 306, 666-669)
Would this research have been approved had Vince Cable been in charge of the science budget then? Well maybe, it sound pretty cheap but aside from this, this ‘basic research’ has yielded results that will have an economic return for Britain as well as providing the basis for a lot of interesting science.
Some would say that it was despite of and not because of our research funding system, that Britain has fared well in the honours. Whilst 30 % of UK GDP comes from science and technology intensive areas, only 0.55 % of GDP is invested back into research.

Whilst other countries such as India, China and the USA are investing in science to improve the economy, Vince Cable has said that tax payers should only back research that will have an economic return or is academically exceptional. I have tried to find out what the criteria for this is but I am not entirely sure. Dr Cable alludes to investing in intellectual property, regenerative medicine, plastic electronics, fuel cells and composite materials. He also highlights the importance of immigration. I don’t really understand how exactly we will attract world class scientists, if we can only give them pocket money to work with.

And what are the choices for scientists already in the UK:

• Leave?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/30/science-research-spending-cuts

• Do nothing?

• Make diamonds out of tequila? (Darn it)
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0806/0806.1485.pdf

I understand that it is difficult for those that require support from the government e.g. cutting winter fuel allowance for the elderly that investment in science may not give a return before the snow sets in but we invest so little just now anyway, does it have to be a case of one or the other? Pulling funding from science will ruin the momentum that has already been invested in current research. It is encouraging to see on the ‘Science Is Vital’ petition that has been launched to try and protect science funding so many people signed up that are not scientists and that non-scientists appreciate the impact that research has on all our lives. And with that I urge you to go to the ‘Science is Vital’ website and add your name to the list.
http://scienceisvital.org.uk/

Science Mis-communication?

Down the pub of a Friday evening and I get chatting to a biology teacher. I explain what it is that I do, we have a bit of science chat and he asked if I would come and speak to his pupils about being a research scientist 1) because a lot of his students only take science to get into medicine and 2) because I was so enthusiastic.
This made me think a number of things:
A. How often outside of work or a classroom do I chat about science (with the exception of those ‘and what is it you do ?’ moments at dinner parties/ meeting the Queen (not really the Queen))
B. I am enthusiastic about what I do when I am not in work or a classroom.
C. Do I want to go and tell a bunch of high achieving school kids to try research science instead of guaranteed well paid job of a doctor?
Let’s take these in turn.
A. I have enjoyed science communication activities for about 4 years now, giving me another forum to talk about science but it’s not something that I do ‘socially’. Recently, around a dinner table, I was asked to explain nanotechnology and broke out into a cold sweat. I wasn’t prepared, even though I have been involved with this concept for the last 6 years of my life. I got through it and think I gave them satisfactory answers but these events did make me think, it would be beneficial for scientists and the public, if we got a bit more chatty about it. So much of our research is a precious little secret but non-researchers really are interested, have great questions and to be able to break down what we researchers do into concepts that can be understood (and have confidence in this), can do wonders all round. This is something that maybe experienced researchers will nod their heads at in remembrance, “been at that stage”, the stage of fulfilling an expectation. I rather enjoyed it.
B. Generally when you speak in front of an audience, you’re projecting your voice and its quite a high energy thing. In work, you want to appear competent and enthusiastic too, so when I wasn’t in any of these modes, I was delighted when I was asked to talk to the school kids because of the pleasure I took in explaining what I do. And it’s true. Despite at times, how much I gripe about CHNs that are out, supervising students etc., I really love research. (Please don’t be sick.)
C. I always get this pang of guilt when I talk to school kids about careers. I feel like I’ve not told them the whole truth even if I do put a pro’s and con’s list in. My partner is a doctor, all his friends are doctors (just about) and they have lots of money and guaranteed work, and work that they talk about down the pub. Research may not pay as well as NHS doctors but if you love it like I do, then it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t pay a pittance, you get out what you put in and it can take you anywhere. My worry is the lack of permanent contracts, continuous work and this is a worry that I neglect to pass on. Noone likes a party pooper and because I have my own unanswered questions about this, because I am not quite at the stage of my contract to test the job market out there, it’s something I am not ready to open myself up to. It is however, great for kids to know that there are other ways to use science to help people and have an impact.
Anyway, I will definitely be going into the school as I think it is very important for researchers to answer their public! And to show school kids other options. Research science was something I knew nothing about 12 years ago, it was the stuff of movies (namely Back to theFuture, Jurassic Park and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.)
In other news, I will be going to see Roger Tsein speak so will let you know how that goes. Ali has moved to Germany to start her post-doc which is why she has been off the radar. I’m sure she’ll be updating us soon. I have been in Zambia which made me want to write about science in Africa. This has taken longer to research than expected but hopefully this is what I’ll blog about next. If not, it’ll be my CChem PDP. All thoughts on any of these things, especially the latter, are welcome!
Sarah x