A flawed experiment: I'll vote Remain for science

A number of friends have tried to express their feelings about the upcoming Referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, largely via social media. While I applaud my friends’ and colleagues’ efforts to bring their side of the issue to the table, I worry that the echo chamber of social media will be most adequate at simply confirming that I feel a similar way to many of my friends. However much I feel that writing this blog article is in any way better than just pasting it to Facebook, I am going to promote it on that platform and several others anyway once I have finished, so perhaps I’m just putting my Facebook rant on headed notepaper. Well, so be it then, here we go.

I normally try my best to distance myself from political debate – I unhappily admit that I often find many of today’s discussion topics divisive and ultimately upsetting, with a general feeling that my small vote or voice is a drop in the ocean of much stronger, ominous currents that are recklessly manipulated by a press that exerts undeserved power, and even does that irresponsibly.  I’m just not that good at this kind of debate, and maybe I should practice, but as a scientist it is all to easy to feel like I should just ‘get on with what I am good at’. However, with the Referendum upcoming I feel like there is just too much at stake to say nothing, and therefore I must say something for the small amount it is worth.

It is my belief that the right thing to do for the greatest number of people the United Kingdom is to remain a member of the European Union and so I will be voting to Remain on Thursday 23^rd June.

The start of the argument for me is that scientific research strives to answer questions and challenges of science, food, water, medicine and health, etc. etc., and generally to improve the quality of life of people inside the UK and in the rest of the world. Therefore retaining a direct and honest connection with our European partners is crucial to making the most of the vast pool of opportunities that the continent provides. An exit would be a self-inflicted injury to our relationships with our key collaborators. Much science is funded internationally, with European collaborations very important in bringing together the best of expertise throughout the continent. By pooling together our resources, time, equipment, labs, money, people, etc., we become more than the sum of our parts. A prime example of a successful European collaboration is the Institut Laue Langevin centre for neutron scattering whose original partners were France, Germany and next the United Kingdom, with about 12 further associated nations. (Another great example is CERN.) Freedom of movement allows us to easily bring the best researchers to the UK, and allows UK researchers the chance to work overseas, to learn, to network, and to set up collaborations that feed back great science and experience. These are my friends, my colleagues, my collaborators. (There are many groups out there who have researched, phrased and argued this all much more eloquently than me, and good example is Scientists for EU). EU membership smooths and facilitates funding of major projects and allows us all to benefit from each other’s successes.

Again, researched and argued much more succinctly by many, many others out there, but the economic arguments seem elementary that staying within the EU is better for our economic health, not only because we trade so extensively with our EU neighbours (we’re not exactly self-sufficient on our island), but also because of the negative economic shock most of the quoted economists I have heard believe that the uncertainty Britain’s exit would cause. Now the latter should not be too much of a barrier – if we really want to make things better then let’s take the boat and rock it. The only problem is, in my perception of the debate, those who campaign to exit are not convincing me that they know what will happen to our good ship if the exit were to occur. I have heard countless predictions by experts like the International Monetary Fund (a word with clear negative connotations for some sections of society, the campaign appears to be teaching us) that the UK’s exit would degrade our economy – followed up by a statement that the Leave campaigner says the opposite. It never seems to be backed up by anything, though. Where are the heavy-hitting predictions of the benefits of leaving the EU? What are they even supposed to be? T-minus a few days and I am yet to understand what the plan is if we leave the EU. I have no idea whatsoever what the UK’s exit from the EU is meant to look like, or what it should achieve, therefore I have no confidence in it and will vote against it.

I’m wary of anything if I am uncertain of its origins, and I am deeply uncertain about how and why we are having this referendum, particularly now. That may be naivety, of which I can easily imagine I am a victim. I have also at times been deeply concerned by the tone of the campaigning, before realizing this was an opinion shared by many. My concern is that ‘yes or no’ is not now, nor ever was, the right question on Europe. I do not think that voting Remain should mean doing nothing. I believe in constant reform driven by elected governments, and if having our own currency and a place at the bargaining table is not a strong enough platform to work from, I must misunderstand what a special place in Europe should look like. It is my view that a relatively small number of powerful people would benefit from the UK’s exit from the EU and are utilizing our current delicate political situation (think instability in the Eurozone, think migrant crisis) to attempt to recruit vast swathes of the population, in particular the working class (who for my interpretation have been offered no demonstrable benefit at all to exiting the EU) in to their way of thinking. I’m afraid to say that I don’t think we understand enough to be effectively able to make a ‘yes or no’ judgement that will have any known or understood effect on the person on the street. We’ve been asked the wrong question. It is this mixture doubt about the true motivations, insufficient clarity of argument, and lacking body of (even predictive) evidence from the Leave campaign that convinces me to vote Remain. 

I have huge respect for both sides of the argument though, if a healthy and well-informed debate can occur. I’ve heartwarmingly seen a little bit of that genuine debate, against the backdrop of many more worrying parts. I just hope everyone takes the time to think long and hard before they cast their vote  in the Referendum.

Planespotting for Beginners

Once upon a time when I lived in Sydney, Australia, I was standing down at the beachfront one night looking out into the dark distance of the Pacific Ocean when a single, plaintive light came twinkling into existence on the horizon. The lonely light gradually drifted closer and grew in strength, and without a great leap of recognition I soon realized that I was watching a late evening flight arriving in from New Zealand. Covering those vast distances, even at the jet-powered speed of a commercial airliner, there was something slow and sad about the light drifting wistfully closer.

I don’t know about you, but for me there are few more humbling sights as a human being than to look out on a clear night and see the silent winking of an aircraft’s lights, especially when it’s high overhead and as it makes its way into the distance. There is something about the scale and distance of the immense and powerful aircraft covering its monumental journey, whilst looking no more than a speck in the sky, that brings me for some reason very much in touch with the fragility of life, and the true tininess of human beings in comparison with the vast space of our planet and its atmosphere. Even though commercial airline flight is clearly a widespread commodity in many parts of the world these days, we can always imagine that the people on the plane have some special trip ahead of them, some work meeting, or are perhaps heading back to their families and friends and the familiarity of home.

I couldn't resist choosing this particular picture of an aeroplane (it's not even an Austrian airline).
The work of RuthAS under a Creative Commons Licence.

We recently had a visit from a relative from Germany who is a commercial airline pilot. He was stopping over ready to pilot his flight the next day from a nearby airport, and having some free time decided he would come and see us and visit my grandfather, his great uncle. When he was growing up, he would see my grandfather on visits to my Austrian grandmother’s home village in the mountains. There they spent long and happy hours in each other's company, though as I understand it, the ambition to become a pilot did not come until many years later. Fast-forward to 2015, and there we were sitting in my grandfather's home in England, with a living breathing pilot telling his wide-eyed audience about the wonders of flight and the true realities of the career of a pilot, the good and the bad. We were of course, suitably starstruck.

During that meeting he suggested we get hold of a cheap plane-tracking app, easily downloadable from the app store or whatever, for a bit of fun to track him back home the next day. I went for PlaneFinder, but in reality I see there are many available, and (even normal) people use them to track relatives flying in for a visit.

There are more planes than I thought.

Apart from happily tracking our relative back home the following morning, directly over the roof of Grandad’s care home, my current usage is far more nerdy than tracking my rellies. If I’m walking through the park or on my way to and from work, and see a vapour trail tracing across the sky, I will look it up. I find out which airline and aircraft is flying the journey, and where the people on board are headed (sometimes bringing back unpleasant memories of long-haul flights to and from Australia). I see how long I can keep sight of a particular plane as it soars into the distance. It helps me to visualize something that has often captured my interest and imagination: the true scale of the island upon which I live. The other night I just about managed to watch a plane from passing mostly overhead to the point where it passed the coast and headed out over the North Sea, before I lost track of it in the haze. 

They say the aeroplane has shrunk the planet, but I think in a way it can also help to teach us how big it really is compared to us, or rather how small we are in comparison to it. As a physicist I appreciate anything that helps me to make these visualisations.

Parental leave: this is where we get people from

I have returned to work after six weeks of an extended paternity leave for the birth of my first child, taking advantage of new UK rules that let both partners share the total amount of maternity leave - in my case meaning I have taken four of my wife's weeks of leave and added them to my statutory two weeks. By doing this, I've tripled the normal amount of time I would usually have had off work for this happy occasion, and have spent six great weeks learning how to look after, and getting to know, a bouncing baby boy.

Under its more relaxed guises, academia *can* be a very flexible environment, so I'm pretty sure I'm nowhere near the first person to take this amount of time off (or more) for the birth of a child. However, because the regulations only came in around April of this year or so, I do know that I am one of the first batch of fathers in my workplace to take the official shared parental leave arrangements.

Fairly obligatory.

These rules are a step forward in gender equality in the workplace since they acknowledge that parents may wish to share out the early parts of childcare and that this crucial time is not solely the responsibility of birth mothers. From a new father's perspective, it reinforces the idea that fathers are primary parents and not second class mums. Also, I have read before words from aggressive business leaders bemoaning the risk of hiring a woman who may fall pregnant, or choose to adopt perhaps, incurring the operational and financial costs of maternity leave. These arrangements are a step in the right direction to alleviate this inequality, removing the requirement that it is necessarily the employers of mothers who foot the "bill"; that in some cases men will take extended periods of absence too. In this way, men and women can be in it together. Now our split was very moderate, with me just taking four extra weeks, but as I understand it things could be a lot more equal, or even skewed to the father or non birth partner taking more leave.

The personal benefits of taking this extra time off (six weeks instead of two) were clear from the outset. More time off is more time with the new baby, this brand new and wholly inept person who famously does not come with a rule book. It was also a wake up call to the possibility that returning to work might actually be in some ways the easier option (with the caveat that this strongly depends on where you work, hats off to the policemen and doctors I knew for example, who were back saving people after precisely two weeks). I'm sure a lot of workplaces afford good opportunities for a quiet tea break, or just a nice regimented regime to counteract all the crying and nappies. I feel more confident after six weeks that I understand the challenges my partner faces in the approximately 9-10 months she has left on her maternity leave.

Bringing up kids not a full-time job. It is three full-time jobs: 9 - 5, 5 - 1 and 1 - 9 (thanks Mum, thanks Dad).

Mike Monomer: "Polymer Song"

Dear all.

My YouTube account was hacked today by someone going by the name of "Mike Monomer" in what seems best described as an act of educational vigilantism.

He left this calling card. Enjoy.

Mike Monomer: Polymer Song
(c) 2015 Reptation Records

Intro:
Well I'm a polymer scientist and when I meet new people
We talk about the weather or the news
But I always dread the question where they ask, "what do you do?"
So I wrote this little song to see me through.

1.
I say I work on polymers and sometimes they go blank
'Cause polymer is not a common word in people's memory banks
If I say I work with plastics I sometimes have more fun
'Cause everyone knows what plastic is 'cause we use it by the tonne

Chorus:
Well polymers are molecules that make up things like plastics
But also things like rubber, or you could say elastic
Even DNA is polymer that's very, very long
But I think we'll do that in another song

2.
The plastics mankind uses are too numerous to sing
But they're extremely versatile and good for processing
And once we've used some plastic, it doesn't go in the bin
'Cause it's good at being recycled and then used all over again

(Chorus)

3.
Yes, polymers are molecules that look like bits of string
Or much like cooked spaghetti if you happen to zoom right in
But for that you'll need a microscope to see what's really there
'Cause each one is one millionth of the width of a human hair

(Chorus)

4.
There's polystyrene, Perspex(TM), and uPVC
There's PVA and PEO and PET
There's one certain polymer whose name I think is great
poly(2-[dimethylamino]ethyl methacrylate)

(Chorus)

To volunteer or not to volunteer : doing something extra in academia (via Think Ahead Sheffield)

I originally wrote this post for the Think Ahead Blog, brought to you by the Researcher Professional Development Team at The University of Sheffield. You can find the original post here. Many thanks to Think Ahead for the opportunity to write this article!

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us”.

- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of The Ring (voice of Gandalf)

Successful time management could well be the most critical challenge for research staff trying to forge ahead in the early stages of their careers. Gandalf’s words of wisdom may well have been about dealing with the looming threat of cataclysmic evil, but I don’t think many post-doctoral researchers today feel too far away from the cutting realities of the ‘publish or perish’ academic world. I’ve certainly been reminded enough times that a healthy publication record is a huge part of securing that elusive permanent academic position.

This train of thought leads me to one conclusion: close the blog post you are working on, step down from your committees and get that research manuscript submitted. Your sole job is to produce research, and everything else pales into insignificance. Right?

Actually, I would argue that a small and considered amount of ‘extra-curricular’ activity, e.g. volunteering on a committee, engaging in outreach, or even teaching (if that’s not already an integral part of your job), can greatly boost the rest of your research life.

It’s certainly true that as a research associate (like me for example) working on a grant for a principal investigator (PI), it’s more that likely that you are very deliberately employed to produce research as your main job. Relationships with bosses, and perspectives can vary a lot, making it more or less difficult for some of us to engage in activities outside research. It’s certainly the culture of some bosses to expect an almost unerring commitment to research, to the exclusion of other activities. However, some contracts allow for a small amount of flexible professional development, and it may be worth checking yours and your funding body’s rules for clarification if you are not sure. For example the RCUK owned Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers stipulates 10 days per year professional development activity for each of us – how you interpret, negotiate, and use that is up to you.

This is the point at which I ask myself, “what sort of researcher do I want to be?”. Your profile as a researcher, at any level, depends on how you engage with others. Although writing scholarly articles is one form of engagement, and one that connects us with a global community, I suspect there is a large part of our profile that comes from those extra things we do closer to home. 

Professional development is a vital part of the make up of any successful researcher, and the skills we’ll need as young Lecturers, or independent Research Fellows (or whatever we would like to be doing), in the future are relevant right now. Take part in a measured amount of ‘voluntary’ work outside of the normal route of your research and I believe you will develop these skills and meet some brilliant people along the way.

For example, apart from attending thrice-yearly meetings of the Faculty of Science Researcher Development Group as a post-doc representative for Physics & Astronomy, I have also become involved with organizing an Away Day for post-doctoral research staff. This has been an eye-opening experience, not least because of the great people I have met from parts of the University where I would never have ventured to tread; our team now spans several departments and crosses faculties. These fantastic, motivated people have inspired me, whilst also showing me a fresh perspective on the research life of the University – I have quickly learned things are by no means done in the same way in different parts of the institution. Organizing an event ‘by the post-docs, for the post-docs’ has allowed me to think about what it is that I want from my role. For example, our Away Day theme this year is about communicating your research, and in devising activities and inviting speakers based on this theme, we as organizers have all found examples of good practice that we can apply in our own work. Not to mention experience in managing a mini project and a budget.

Going back to the quotation, getting the balance right and deciding “what to do with the time that is given to us” is the hard part, and I’ve no doubt that at times we will all wish to dial down our voluntary activities and concentrate on our research. There might not be as simple a balance as we expect, though: US science writer Jennifer Ouellette (@JeanLucPiquant on Twitter) explained in a recent talk (for the American Physcial Society) that the normalized research output of academics has actually been shown to increase when subjects took on a small amount of engagement or outreach. Those who took on too much, however, saw their productivity fall again. So while it really is about balance, it may not be the case that it’s in the best interest of our research to minimize all other activity!

One thing that I am certain about is that we are all different, and success is about finding the balance that works for you and your career.

All the best to you in experimenting with the formula.

The internet is furious with Science

I recently read this article summing up the relative financial cost to US science graduates and PhDs of staying in science. This article of course raises some pertinent issues around a US science system that seems, to my delicate sensibilities, a bit cut-throat, not to mention keeping people in ‘grad school’ into their 30’s even without any gap years. There are many valid points in this article. I also would not like to try and make ends meet in New York City or London as a scientist, and fair play to you if you are.

It pains me though to think in terms of the cost of science, and I can’t help noticing a lot of articles on the web bemoaning the general lot in life of scientists. A lot of them are the comic strips and memes (bleugh) I see shared a lot on social media that I think romanticize a sense of martyrdom among scientists and a general feeling that we are all hard done by, unique little snowflakes having to put up with terrible, overbearing supervisors, awful dungeon-like laboratories and the career prospects of an ice-road trucker in the era of some advanced runaway greenhouse effect. There just isn’t enough out there to balance it out (it probably makes sense… “Scientist happy in job” is about on an interest level with “cat gets stuck up a tree” I guess).

The internet is furious with Science.

I just can’t get on board with this notion that science is some savage taskmaster that chews up and spits out early career researchers (making the internet furious in the process, by the way). Yep, it’s hard. It’s meant to be. I’m going to tell you what I think is the benefit of being in science. It’s our job to find out interesting and cool things about the way the world works. We are allowed to think long and deeply about why and how the particular part of the universe we study works. We get paid (even some Ph.D. students do too) to explore and think and play around with stuff. On the other side, we are of course expected to produce data, interpretations, theories, inventions, results etc. that benefit the scientific community and the general public, sometimes in immediate and tangible ways, and sometimes in ways that will filter down in time. Some of what we do will benefit nobody at all, ever, but that is the nature of life and a risk we can never avoid.

I think a lot of the stuff I see on the web is trying to be positive, really. It serves to unite people around their experiences. It’s only human to like having a common cause (or enemy). By making our occasionally rankling feelings known we are acknowledging the difficulties of scientific life, which are there for all to see; we are saying that this is a hard life but a good life and we moan about it because we really want to succeed. It means a great deal to us. We see the value and therefore we feel the frustrations all the more acutely. I would also venture that British scientists need to take what’s written (or drawn) as a result of the US science system with a very critical eye; I don’t think we are necessarily always talking about the same things.

Being able to do science is a great gift. In the words of this blog and previous sage scientists who have gone before me, you must go in to science with your eyes open. The privilege to work on these problems is one to be treasured. It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be competitive, but if you ever feel like science has cost you something then you’ve lost me. 

26.2 miles for science and lifelong learning

Things have been rather quiet on the Science on Toast front for a while, and that due in part to lots and lots of running. My wife and I have signed up for the Dublin Marathon which is taking place at the end of October 2014, in order to raise funds for a charity which is very close to my heart, both scientifically and otherwise: Inspiration for Life, which I have talked about before on this blog.

It appears that the world these days is running mad, and also fundraising mad, as the recent ice bucket challenge phenomenon has proven. The power of social media enables people to share their messages of fundraising easily, quickly, and even virally within their immediate and extended networks. The result of this ease of communication is that the world is full of good causes, so numerous and so well-publicised that each individual can't possibly donate to every single one, nor even give to a fraction. Instead, we must choose causes that mean something to us and motivate us to get moving and help in some way, such that the combined efforts of all fundraisers across the world can be more than the sum of their parts.

Mike and Kim Weir after a race in Sydney.

So, to marathon training. To the most hardened runners out there (and they are out there for sure, there are people in Sheffield for one thing, who do marathons up massive hills and stuff for fun and then run home etc.) this might seem a walk in the park, but let me just have my say.

A marathon is stupidly far! It is a very, very silly idea to try and run this distance. This is a brutal challenge which will leave you physically and emotionally drained. If you can finish it. In the words of the Dublin Marathon officials:

Whatever your target or motivation, remember that the marathon is a rough and tough event. It is not for the faint hearted. If it were easy it would be no challenge.

Speaking of challenges, this brings to mind the amazing Michael Hilton who recently completed an Iron Man challenge for the charity totalling over 140 miles - incredible!

So far we are more than half way through our training, but it is getting tough. Just finding enough contour lines to run along in Sheffield is a challenge in itself. I am a modest 3 kg lighter than when training started about 10 weeks ago (with the realisation that diet is an extraordinarily important part of a healthy lifestyle, and how frighteningly easy it is to eat calories compared to burning them).

If you would like to sponsor us for this event, you can do so here. Every penny donated will go to Inspiration for Life in order to help them do their work. We have already received extremely generous donations for which we would like to express our gratitude: knowing we are making a difference will help us get across the line.

Neutron holiday

I have recently come back from one of the 'big experiments' that I have mentioned from time to time on this blog, in this post in particular.

Travelling in the British summer sunshine is a pleasure in itself, but this was a particularly sunny and rewarding trip to the ISIS facility at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories. Coke was quaffed, burgers were consumed and good company and conversation abounded. Neutrons were plentiful and samples were well-behaved. At times like these this doesn't really feel like a job at all; and maybe it isn't ("I don't really feel like I have done a full day's work", I reflected to one of my coworkers. "We haven't", said he).

OK, I have been slightly rash here. This type of experience is of course is countered by difficult, exhausting and almost fruitless trips. Preparation for this trip has taken many 'person-weeks' of intense preparation, and a fair quantity of stress, to be honest. Work is work, but it doesn't have to be so all the time, so I'll settle for that. Anyway this post is about walking up hills and taking pictures and not "philosophosising" too deeply, to be pronounced as spelt.

ISIS Target Station 2 (in the sun). Image Mike Weir but thanks to STFC.

One thing I find a real pleasure is to climb up ISIS's man-made hill and survey the scientific scenery. Apparently, there was already a hill of leftover earth that was dug out from when the first construction was done on the ISIS site (although it might not have been called that in those days). This hill was then 'in the way' when construction was planned for Target Station 2 (pictured) and so was moved. For good measure, some more earth was excavated and dumped on top of that in turn to create a sort of arc-shaped mound. You can see a scar on the side of the hill where ground level once was. There is a little path up there where you can go and look at the scenery while your experiment chugs along.

The view is of a fairly flat Oxfordshire scene although I am told you can see all the way to the Ridgeway - there were some ridgey looking things in the distance but I can't say I could have identified any correctly. The scientific scenery of the Harwell Campus (if I am indeed giving it its proper name) is spread out all around, from the shiny blue ISIS Target Station 2 to the flying saucer of Diamond. Beyond this scene, in the distance, are the monolithic cooling towers of the power station at Didcot. Bountiful numbers of Red Kites soar in the skies above this part of the world.

The scientific scenery from ISIS hill. Image Mike Weir but thanks to STFC.

I was accompanied on this trip by two colleagues who had never been to ISIS. I would like to think that they were impressed with ISIS and all of its facilities.

As I write my computer is chugging through the data we collected, rejigging and reprocessing it to get the best possible result. There is definite heat coming up through the laptop keyboard.

Well, it just finished, so I am off to fit the data. Enjoy the summer (now or in six months, depending on your hemisphere).

Eccentricity at northern latitudes

I spent a couple of fantastic years out in Sydney, Australia, as I have alluded to several times on this blog. One huge, obvious difference between the UK and Australia is the climate, and when I speak to people about the whole experience, this is the first port of call in their minds – the weather in Australia is hotter and sunnier, and therefore, “better”, and this perception is very near the top of people’s mental pros and cons lists as they try and understand our reasons for returning to England.

Sunshine: Australian...

To be a pedant, Sydney experiences much more tumultuous weather than most Brits really realise; twice as much actual rain falls out of the sky in Sydney than in London, say, and the wind howls in off the ocean at times. Sydneysiders are also occasionally rewarded with truly spectacular thunderstorms (although if the lightning occurs without rain there is a terrible risk of bush fire). On the other hand, while a week of drizzle and rain is perfectly possible in the Sydney winter, the rain does all tend to fall at once in rather biblical downpours, leaving many more sunny days to enjoy. It does get “stinking hot” in most bits of Australia too, to use the local parlance, and in my humble opinion as a “delicate English rose” (as a wise Australian once described me), the novelty of 35+ degrees Celcius wears off pretty damn quickly, especially on a work day.

OK, it's still better in Australia. I lose. If you have never been there, you should really go!

One category though where Sydney falls down is that for a pontificating Brit, the days in the Summer are just too short! The latest the sun ever sets is approximately 8pm – the longest day being about 14 hours. Not much chance of a long stroll after tea in the twilight! In the UK we get much closer to 10pm and a longest day of 17 hours.

...and English

OK, say my critics, why is this whinging Pom getting excited about an extra 3 hours of daylight? Doth the gentleman protest too much? 

Well I’m just getting excited about Britain’s northerly latitude, is all. I love the fact we pay such a high price in the winter, experiencing days where the sun only peeps its pale yellow face a glancing angle over the horizon for just 7.5 hours, only to be rewarded with those long, balmy evenings in the (beer) garden. I love the fact that at the vernal equinox, around 21^st March each year, the days in the UK are lengthening by a mind-boggling 3.5 minutes each day! I think our varying seasons and wonky northern latitude fuel our creativity, our industry, and even our eccentricity. There is something about that pale and slanting light...

I loved it in Australia and I would go back there in a heartbeat (particularly if it actually did only take that long to get there!), but I love the seasons here in the UK. It makes it all the better when the Sun does actually come out, because it feels a bit special.

My grandfather on my mum's side has a story that up in the east of Lancashire in England, the light of the sun never truly faded from the sky in the middle of summer. He would spend long nights out working on the railways and reported seeing a dim light in the sky that persisted all night long around the summer solstice (many Brits will also report a difficulty in sleeping at this time of year due to the light). When I recounted his tale to former residents of that particular area they seemed surprised that such an effect was possible "that far south". 

When doing some trawling on this topic on the internet however, I discovered that twilight does in fact last all night on the summer solstice anywhere north of 54 degrees north - the latitude of the city of Lancaster, UK, that is. The sun never truly stops illuminating part of the atmosphere since it never drops more than a certain angle below the horizon. I was pleased that my grandad's story has some scientific backup, although of course, he knows what he saw! Although this is not the land of the midnight sun, we Brits are truly living at an eccentric northern latitude.

Fun for nerds:

The BBC's Sydney weather page (the nerdy bit is the graph at the bottom) and their London page 

Time and Date.com's Astronomy Calculators

About twilight and its relationship with latitude

The 24 Hour Inspire 2014

The 24 Hour Inspire will take place on the 27th and 28th of March 2014.

Back when I was a Ph.D. student during my first stint at the University of Sheffield I had the pleasure to share a department with Dr. Tim Richardson, a gregarious, outgoing and altruistic Reader in Physics with interests close to my own. We would share a friendly chat in the tea room and a joke or two about our shared recent discovery of running (jogging!) and how it was helping us get somewhat more into shape. I could tell Tim was a likeable and sociable man for myself, but it was really through others that I began to realise just how far reaching Tim's positive influence was: he was a mentor and even friend to countless undergraduates who raved about his teaching style, his lectures legendarily full of demonstrations and the admission that learning physics isn't always easy (or the admission even that lecturers had to learn things at all!). Tim was also a respected boss and colleague. A few of my good friends down the pub have passed through his research group at one time or another and give happy accounts of their time in 'Tim's lab'.

In my first post doc in Australia I got as far as offering to run experiments for Tim and we were discussing our preparations to get the samples shipped over and ready for action; but that was the last time I ever spoke to him.

While I was in Australia, Tim was diagnosed with cancer. Wishing to turn his illness into a positive message to help others, Tim along with his friends and colleagues set up a charity, Inspiration for Life. The rest of the story has been put in to words much better elsewhere, (on the Inspiration for Life website and blog, for example) so I will not attempt to do so in very much detail. Above all this, Tim began keeping a diary after his diagnosis in order to share his experiences, fears and hopes with others, before he sadly died on 5th February 2013, aged 48. His diary will soon be available through Inspiration for Life.

The charity decided that a fitting tribute to Tim would be to host an annual event in the form of a 24 Hour Lecture-a-thon, called the 24 Hour Inspire. The first event took place in 2013, and the second will take place this week (at the time of writing): from 5pm on Thursday 27th March to 5pm on Friday 28th March 2014. This exciting event sees speakers from across the University of Sheffield and beyond tackle a wide range of topics as diverse as poetry, music, physics, sperm, robots; perhaps more accurately, life, the universe and everything. The event will raise money for the Sheffield-based Weston Park Cancer Charity and Impact (makeabigdifference.org).

I am excited about the event, not least because I am privileged to be able to play a small part in this amazing effort. I have volunteered to play some music at various times, not to mention contributing delicious items for the bake sale that will also take place throughout! I would encourage anyone in the Sheffield area (or further afield) who would be interested in taking in some lectures, some music, all whilst helping raise money for a very good cause. The event is taking place in Firth Hall at the University of Sheffield and starts at 5pm on Thursday 27th March. Admission will be £1 for one lecture or £5 for all you can take!

For more information about Inspiration for Life, or to donate to support their work:

http://www.inspirationforlife.co.uk/

https://mydonate.bt.com/events/24hrinspire

Follow Inspiration for Life on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Inspiration-for-Life/340350772727621 or on Twitter @inspirationfor2

#24HrInspire

UK facilities: the big science of looking at small stuff

Somewhere in a field in Oxfordshire, there are, side-by-side, two very large scientific instruments. One is housed partly in buildings as large as aircraft hangars, and partly under large mounds of earth; it fires protons onto a huge metal target to produce neutrons and muons. This is ISIS. The other is housed within a ring, looking side-on like the landed saucer section of the starship Enterprise; this machine accelerates electrons, causing them to produce exceedingly bright electromagnetic radiation in the X-ray spectrum. This is Diamond, the UK's synchrotron. These machines are the engines chugging at the heart of research facilities; scientific communities built around central instruments, covering square miles of buildings, employing hundreds of people and providing a scientific 'laboratory-from-home' for thousands more scientists, engineers, technicians, students and collaborators.

ISIS from the air. Image credit: STFC.

Diamond and ISIS are examples of big science that live right here in the UK. Facilities like these and others overseas happen to have become the bread and butter of my own scientific work, but more about that later.

It's a sort of rule* that the smaller the thing you wish to see, the larger a machine you will require to see it: think of CERN, the vast underground ring straddling the borders of countries and accelerating its packets of particles to collide together with the energy of a double decker bus, and all to reveal the tiniest and most fundamental particles in the Universe. We are talking a little bit smaller in terms of facility size, and a little bit bigger in terms of the structures we are looking at. Still we are in impressive territory; the primary ISIS beam line is hundreds of metres long from accelerator to target (and then some, for each instrument), and it's fair to say that the typical length scales probed are measured in nanometres; that is multiples of 0.000000001 metres, or billionths of metres. To use the obligatory reference, that is 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

I often cite a major turning point in my career as a Ph.D. student as the first time I entered the guide hall of the first Target Station at ISIS. I stepped along the raised metal gangway into that vast edifice of science, crammed with equipment, cranes, and portakabins. Among the concrete shielding blocks was an electric hum and the mechanical breathing of countless fans and compressors. It was a truly inspiring experience - and although on that first visit I had no idea of the difficulties and challenges that lay ahead (the beam is switched on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for most of the year), I nevertheless had the strong feeling that I had just entered into a new, and special, scientific world.

The experimental hall at Target Station 1, ISIS. Image credit: STFC.

On that first occasion, I was helping out with a neutron reflectivity experiment. Like the bands of colour visible when a thin slick of oil sits on top of the surface of water, seen for example by the side of a road on a rainy day, the reflection of neutrons from a surface is sensitive to extremely thin layers of material and can tell us accurate information about the thickness and the chemical composition of what is deposited there. In this case, we were studying polymer brush layers: single polymer chains tethered at one end to a silicon surface to create a brush-like layer rather like a carpet of seaweed waving about in the water, but only nanometres in height. Such layers have extremely low friction and so are good lubricating coatings; they also hinder proteins from sticking to surfaces and so help to prevent the fouling process which can lead the body to 'reject' foreign objects, and so polymer brushes have uses in medical applications.

In my current work on polymer nanocomposites, we have a material which consists mainly of our host polymer but with mixed with a small proportion of a 'nanofiller', or additive, to change its properties. In our case, our nanofiller is usually some form of graphene (the flat sheets of carbon that have commanded so many column inches since their relatively recent discovery in 2007). We know that the nanofiller is in the composite (it is now a different colour, for example), but how is it distributed? What shape and size are the lumps? What effect, if any, has the nanofiller had upon the polymer chains themselves? From these questions and other, macroscopic experiments, we aim to improve and tailor these materials for use in engineering applications. For my part, we use small-angle neutron scattering, another of the techniques commonly available at facilities such as ISIS (and many others across the world).

That is, we take a beam of neutrons and 'shoot' them at the sample. As they interact with the sample they are scattered, forming a reciprocal-space scattering pattern which we collect on a detector. From that pattern we are able to deduce the shapes and sizes of features in our sample. The inverted nature of scattering is apparent: small features scatter the neutrons through wide angles, and conversely, the larger the feature, the smaller the scattering angle. Thus, even though we are talking about the big science of small stuff, you need a big instrument tens of metres in length that can see very low angles, to look at the bigger end of the small spectrum - objects up to 300 nanometers and beyond! (The smaller the angle the bigger the object you can see - hence the existence of 'ultra-small angle neutron scattering' for even bigger stuff).

These two examples are just a tiny taste of the breadth of science that goes on at facilities like ISIS and Diamond. We are lucky and indeed privileged to have such facilities, and to be able to use their unique powers to dig down and explore the fundamental structures of materials and of life, since a large and growing part of our community is looking at biological systems, such as proteins, DNA and living cells.

An experiment at ISIS or a similar facility can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To me, it usually means a hearty full English breakfast followed by long days and longer nights of measurement, experimentation and investigation: labours in the laboratory and trials on the beamline. Above all other things though, it usually means that unique feeling that you are doing something that you quite simply can't do anywhere else, and that is special every time.

For more information about ISIS click here, and to find out more about Diamond click here.

*Only sort of, because we have very huge telescopes and other instruments that look at very, very huge things that are very, very, very far away, and they are way outside of my knowledge, although well worth getting excited about.

So, what do you do? Working on a science 'elevator pitch'

Despite the fact that I regularly write about science on this blog, I find communicating science quite a challenge and I often go away from a situation wishing that I had done a better job of answering that most crucial of questions:

"So, what do you do?"

The question can come from a variety of sources, ranging right from the hot-shot visiting Professor to an interested (or just polite) friend or acquaintance in the pub. In fact it could be almost any situation, anywhere, anytime, and you have to be ready. If you are anything like me, you will have already come across people who switch off immediately from you the moment you start explaining that you are a scientist, and what you do. On the other hand, I've had some really great conversations with people where I've felt they really got into what I was saying and I've come away with my perceptions changed a little bit too.

It's my general opinion that not an awful lot of useful conversations happen in lifts, but this science communication challenge is just like the 'elevator pitch' that I have heard mentioned quite a few times, usually as a means to improve one's communication skills. This is a 30-second to 2-minute pitch to get across the important aspects of yourself or your work (or any thing or concept for that matter). One of the skills I suppose is to get to the point by cutting through the jargon and specialized language (which on one hand empowers scientists to express themselves to one another) to reveal the true motivation beneath. I heard a rumour that there is a Pro-Vice-Chancellor out there somewhere who likes to ask a similar thing as an interview question to prospective job candidates: "How would you explain what you do to my mother over tea and biscuits?"

Typical lift conversation.

I'd argue that in most circumstances if you've been asked "what do you do?" your initial answer needs to be done well inside thirty seconds. By some reckonings that is half a side of paper in response to a four word question. In my mind the key is to have layers and then come back with more details if the person is interested.

So I've come up with this Twitter elevator pitch which fits into ten tweets. I'll tweet it from @scienceontoast around the time I post this up. The aim here is that, like with the interested acquaintance in the pub, a good way to build your pitch is to start simple and then give more information as it becomes relevant, i.e. not answer the "what to you do?" question with a fifty minute lecture. I hope that this pitch would make sense if you only read the first tweet, the first three, or all ten. And of course, we all know that science is a long story really, but even the longest stories have to start somewhere.

Mike Weir's 10 tweet science pitch:

1. I'm a scientist at the University of Sheffield. I work on plastics. I study what happens when we mix other materials into plastics. 

2. We make composites by putting additives into plastics. The composites' properties are (we hope) improved over those of the pure material.

3. Our aim is to make plastic composites that are stronger, conduct electricity, feel different to the touch, amongst many other things. 

4. Some industrial companies are interested in our composites since they may be able to make new and interesting products out of them. 

5. There is much science dedicated to understanding the behaviour of plastics and polymers (a more general term that includes plastics). 

6. My job uses radiation (x-rays and neutrons) to look inside materials and see their structure; to see how the molecules fits together.

7. For a polymer composite, we might ask: are the additives all clumped together or are they dispersed evenly throughout the material? 

8. What shape and size are the additives ('fillers')? What shape and size are the polymer molecules? Are they affected by the additives?

9. To make polymer composites industrially we need to understand how they behave, how they melt and freeze, and how they flow.

10. We hope that by understanding the structures we create, we can tailor them better to suit particular purposes. 

Post-doctoral patience

My first post doc contract was in a scientific facility out in Australia (ANSTO), and I took that job on for just over two years before moving back to the UK for my adventure in publishing. I was acutely aware while working at ANSTO that life in a facility was not the same thing as life in a university. Difficult to put into a nutshell, but a facility focuses on its technical capabilities and has to maintain a user programme. On the other hand a university arguably focuses more on its individual research projects, bids to extend its personnel and technical prowess in areas that benefit its research, and of course (well, far more likely than a facility) has a teaching programme, which usually means the presence of a vibrant community of undergraduates. So basic definitions done, blah blah, I had yet to work as a post doc in a university, and sample the opportunities and experiences that might offer, and so when the opportunity came knocking I was keen to try it out. Back to Sheffield I came.

As some of you may know all too well, the life of the university post doc is fraught with a longstanding problem - it seems to be increasingly difficult for post docs to follow on from their temporary research contracts, tied to a particular project, and find that ever-elusive permanent academic position. Many, and perhaps including me when my current project comes to an end, will find themselves adrift, project completed, but without a new project to go to or another, more senior, or more permanent position, to look forward too. The more cynical amongst us might interpret this to mean, "thanks Private PostDoc, you've done a good job on that project and completed it as set out. You're sacked."

In the 'good old days' the post doc was seen as a stepping stone to an academic position but it would seem that is increasingly not the case. I say this, but people have been telling me this story ever since my short research career began in 2006, (seven years ago at the time of writing), and so it's difficult to really say with my current lack of knowledge exactly when those good old days used to be.

The main impetus behind this post however is to encourage patience, foresight and positivity. When I was coming out of my publishing adventure and back into academia, one thing that struck me in the job market (albeit in a fairly economically depressed part of the Midlands and at a time of limited confidence) was that for someone with my qualifications, a post doctoral research project really was a rather good job. Trust me, I've looked, and you can't apply for very many jobs that are as interesting, rewarding and with so much potential 'off the shelf'. That's not to say these opportunities aren't out there, but I suspect you might need to work your way up to them, or even possess some other professional qualifications etc. So what I'm saying is, a post doc is a bloody good job. There, I said it.

A sage piece of advice I was once given when I was umming and ah-ing about whether to pursue academia or not was given to me by a young lecturer. He said, "go into academia by all means, but whatever you do, go in with your eyes open". I really took this advice on board, and although it remains early days for me I will do my best to follow it. For example, to be a lecturer is to work hard. Very hard. To become responsible for your own research funding, to supervise students, to work together with others in widely varying fields, to perform admin tasks. What I'm trying to say is, the permanent academic position is not the promised land. It's just an opportunity – usually a very well-deserved opportunity - to continue to strive in exactly the same way you have done as a post doc. So it's a position to be sought after, even striven after, but not necessarily to be envied or coveted. 

Another aspect of the 'eyes open' advice is to take your time. So what if you have to work as a post doc for a long time? Well, it could be difficult in terms of your personal situation, houses, mortgages, partners, relocation etc. You might find yourself unable to keep living in the same place due to lack of opportunities for you there, having a disruptive effect on your life. Well OK, we all know this now. We need to be aware of the rules of the game in which we are playing. We might not like it, but until we can change it, we must attempt to live with it too, succeed in it, and then change it from within.

We are all responsible for our own personal development, in partnership with our employers, and so we should make sure we understand what it is that we need to do in order to grow and progress. Likewise it is the job of our employers to keep us properly informed of opportunities, schemes, funding, fellowships and jobs to apply for once our funding term is coming to an end. We are then also responsible for finding stuff out. We need to challenge our employers (nicely!! we are their employees) and make sure they clarify our situations.

Positivity and patience are key. The main way 'up and out' of the post doc life is to succeed in research, become independent, and publish lots of papers. Like it or not we are going to be measured by the quality and quantity of the research that we produce. (Spend less time writing blog posts!) I'm not necessarily saying that I'm going to succeed in this grand scheme or that I know how. I don't, but I do know it is going to be hard and I'm going to try and enjoy it, and, if I don't enjoy it, I should probably go and do something else. It's definitely worth asking the question of your human resources department and your boss when your post doc is coming to an end: what happens now? 

All I know is, if you've embarked on a research career and you've got this far, you're quite a long way along the rainbow. Keep going to the end, and you may just find a pot of gold.

A pot of gold.