IUPS2013 - Monday highlights

So the first full day of IUPS2013 is done and I am full of lovely Chinese food (Tin Tin just out the back of the ICC across the canal is very nice) and also very thankful of the air con in my hotel room (it's very warm and I'm from the cold lands of north east Scotland). Oh, and the science has been good too. Here are a couple of highlights from my day.

The FEPS (Federation of European Physiological Sciences) prize lecture was from Juleen Zierath, in which she told us about her work on the health promoting effects of exercise in diabetes. Rapid changes can be seen in mRNA levels of exercised skeletal muscle leading to adaptations in metabolism. These changes are different depending on the type of exercise: aerobic or resistance. Even after only 7 days increased exercise a study group of men showed improved glucose tolerance. One particular important protein she spoke on was DGK delta. Removal of this protein in mice, through knock-out, caused them to become "pre-diabetic" and increasing its levels improved glucose lowering and prevented insulin resistance. Transferring this to humans, increasing walking to 4 hours per day increased levels of this protein. The message here is clear, and one many of us should listen to, exercise is good for you!

My second symposia of the day kicked off with my other highlight, Markus Amann from the University of Utah talking about his work on the role of muscle afferents in the ventilatory and circulatory response to endurance exercise. Afferents provide the sensory link between muscle and the CNS, but their role in exercise has been debated. Markus' work elucidates their role using a range of whole body endurance exercise studies in humans. The afferents are blocked using u-opoid antagonists (they check there are no central effects in each subject) and various parameters are measured during differing exercises. Among other changes he showed that afferent block causes a 20-50% decrease in ventilation response, 15% decrease in leg blood flow and increased fatigue. These changes suggest the feedback provided by afferents plays an important role in the ability of skeletal muscle to work optimally during exercise.

What does a 9 year old know about neuroscience?

What does a 9 year old know about neuroscience? What should they know about neuroscience? What would they find interesting about neuroscience? My friend and I sat for quite awhile pondering these questions after being asked by a primary school teacher to come along to her class.

They idea of working with small children when, like me, you've never really interacted with one, can seem daunting. But I must admit it was also exciting. Here was an opportunity not only to teach them something but to get them excited about science.

So we came up with a plan. I had recently worked with the Naked Neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow on her show to secondary school pupils as part of the British Science Festival. As well as helping with her show, this gave me the opportunity to discuss with Hannah ways to interact with children and young adults, which had given me a few ideas.

I want to tell you what we came up with and delivered to the pupils. Maybe you can take away some ideas to use or maybe you could let me know what else we could have included.

Firstly we decided just talking "at" a 9 year old wouldn't work. They would probably loose interest pretty fast if we just rattled off facts about the nervous system to them. Instead we used questions. Things like, "What is your nervous system made of?" and "What does your nervous system use to send messages?". This allowed us to find out what they knew and then speak to them about these things, rather than just telling them.

In our lab we work on the interaction between nerve and muscle, so naturally, we have a TENS machine lying around. This isn't there because we need pain relief but because it gives gentle electrical impulses and so can be used to demonstrate that an electrical signal makes muscles contract. We used this in the classroom to do just that (on ourselves). This was met with the perfect response of "ooohhhhs" and "ahhhhhs" and a few "yuks".

In the second half of our time we had the children make a neuron out of card, glue, beads and pipe cleaners. While telling them how to add each part we asked and then described what each part was for. One pupil when asked "What do you think the nucleus is for?" gave the answer I was preparing to give - that the nucleus is a bit like the brain of the cell, telling the cell what it needs to do. Turns out, children are really smart!

We then asked the children if they had any questions for us. If you are a PhD student, postdoc or even a senior academic you will know that questions can be the hardest part in any presentation. However when presenting your research at a conference you have a sort of idea what questions may come up. Children are a different story. "Do you keep brains in jars?" , "Would I damage my neurons if I did this to my finger [he was bending and squeezing his finger with his other hand]" , "What sort of stuff is in your lab?" , "How clean do you have to be to go in the lab?".

We ended our visit by having a look at the pictures of scientists we had asked them to draw before our visit. As expected there were lots of bearded men in white coats. There were a few ladies and even a marine biologist (turns out to be one of the pupil's mum). When the teacher asked them whether they still thought scientists were all like their drawings, the answer was a definite no.



What does a 9 year old think a scientist looks like?

Overall I really enjoyed being with the children in the classroom. I remember how exciting it was when at school there was a visitor but I never met a scientist at 9 and that, I think, my 9 year old self would have enjoyed.

Have you been to teach children about science? What are your hints and tips on engaging children in science? Have you thought about it but don't know how to get started or are worried about working with children? Let me know below, or tweet me @nonisa

Addition:

We got thank you letters from the children we went to visit. They had some great pictures so I thought I would include a couple.

Repeat, repeat, repeat

One of the first things my supervisor said to me when I started my PhD was "science can be doing the exact same thing, the exact same way, a lot".

As well as trying to instill in me the importance of repeating things in science he was also warning me that sometimes doing science can seem tedious. Actually I don't mind doing the same thing every day for weeks because when I analyse my data at the end of a run of experiments the results are always interesting.

Today I was thinking about how lots of researchers must look at the same thing A LOT. My usual view is this:


 This is the scale and dials I use to precisely stretch a muscle so that I can record the electrical activity from its nerve.

What is the thing you end up looking at mostly as a researcher?

Industry or Academia?

When I graduated I knew I wanted to stay in science but I wasn't completely sure where in science I wanted to be. When I was offered a job in industry I jumped at the chance to experience being a fully fledged, tax paying member of society with a decent pay packet.

However it turns out I didn't really enjoy my experience in industry. The particular job I was in often meant that just as one project became interesting it was finished (or was pulled) and I had to start on another. The size of the company also meant that although I gained a lot of useful experience in skills other than those related to lab work, I found that not enough of my time was dedicated to research.



There are lots of ways to go in science



And so I quit my job and soon returned to academia to pursue a PhD. Although I no doubt gained a lot from my two and a half years as a 'real person' I can't see myself returning to industry. I enjoy the intellectual freedom that academia seems to give and the feeling that all results are interesting and never overly disappointing in the pursuit of science rather than a product.

As I approach the half way point in my PhD I know that my experience was a one off and worry that my view is jaded and that having the option of working in industry would be useful.

Do you / have you worked in industry in science? Did you enjoy it? Do you have stories that you think could make me consider returning in the future? Or maybe you agree that academic life, although far from perfect, is better. Let me know below!

Science / Skeptical Podcasts

As I spend a lot of my time walking or getting the bus to places and I like to spend that time listening to podcasts. It's a great way to learn and be entertained while having to look where you're going. 



If you want to listen to podcasts on the move,
don't wash your headphones like I did...



Here is a list of my favourite science and scepticism based podcasts, some you will have heard of, some you might not and will hopefully give them a go. Most have great back catalogues to pick and choose from. I listen/subscribe to mine via iTunes but most are available elsewhere and so I will link to their websites and you can take it from there. Let me know if I've missed out your favourites.

STEMinist Interview

I was interviewed for the website STEMinist. It's a site that features stories from women that work in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) with the aim to "promote and elevate the perspective of women in these traditionally underrepresented fields".

My interview with them can be found here.

PhD planning

Not sure what my plans are for tomorrow. It feels odd because I'm normally quite well organised. I have experimental plans for the rest of the week and I also know I need to continue to work on a poster and start work on a talk when not in the lab, but tomorrow, I'm not too sure.

This made we wonder whether I’m as organised as I think I am and whether I can do it better. 

I have a large over-arching plan of my PhD: the aims, the experiments I'd like/need to do, labs I hope to visit, but these broader plans are flexible. I also have a similar, loose but more specific ~6 month plan: approximate times of when I want to finish a particular set of experiments, when I need to start working on posters/talks etc. Most specific are my weekly plans - which particular experiments I need to do, what analysis needs taking care of, what talks/seminars I want to go to. Generally my mid-term plans are now in a list on my iPad and my weekly plans are usually in my head and on a bit of paper.

How do other PhD students plan their time? Do you go for old fashioned post-it notes or have you found an amazing iPad app that I need to know about? Do you, like me, just keep some short term plans in your head?

So far I've found notepad on the iPad useful as you can type out stuff and then draw/scribble on it also adding pictures (I find it handy to add a copy of a graph or table to help remind me what came before a particular experiment for example).

Looking for ideas on how to organise yourself in the lab? Take a look a Happy Science's post