A night at the museum...

Your pot of Earl Gray tea, madam?'

I could get used to this.... I graciously accept my tea, then return to my sumptuous breakfast from the buffet of the palace hotel. A text comes in I my phone: Sarah, my supervisor, is on the way. We discuss the plans for the day and I flag up some enquiries I have received from journalists. It seems that the press releases on fish are getting the most attention, although one writer seems very keen on the scorpion piece. Wifi is such a blessing, I think as I tap away at emails with one hand and finish my tea with the other. No time to dwardle though in the luxurious surroundings, and soon I meet Sarah back in the lobby where she is now weighed down with posters for her careers session. A short stroll along Oxford street in the early, weak sunshine brings us to the Conference Centre. Here we meet the team from SEB, who are busy decanting boxes of programmes, pens, delegate bags, etc onto the registration desk. We collect our passes ( including tickets for the conference dinner on the final night!), check the room venue then leave the team to get stuck into a delivery of wine for the social events.

SEB notebooks ready for collection by the delegates at the conference venue

The conference proper doesn't start until tomorrow, but today Sarah is hosting a careers day for young scientists, to give them an opportunity to network and meet people before the 'established researchers' arrive. I give her a hand setting up the room and putting up posters as the younger delegates begin to arrive. And so I meet one of the researchers whose work I wrote up as a press release, Miss Lauren Nadler, studying how rising carbon dioxide levels inhibit the ability of fish to recognise one another. Sarah soon has everyone mixing together, pairing off to perform one to one introductions, then 'presenting' each other to a larger groups. I check my emails for media enquiries, flit about taking photos and grab a few delegates for quotes over lunch. In the afternoon, Mary Williams, an American plant scientist passionate about developing teaching aids for universities ( see interview in a later blog!) and Jennifer Sneddon, a researcher on equine injuries gave a master lass on getting papers published. Although I have attended many sessions on this theme, Jennifer provided a rare insight into the review process, whereby papers are sent by journal editors to be assessed by fellow scientists in the field ( so called 'experts'!). It was encouraging to hear that even young scientists are often welcomed to become reviewers, as it certainly gives invaluable insight into the publication industry. Meanwhile, Sarah ran a concurrent session on alternative careers in science; given that only 3.5% of PhD students ultimately continue in academia ( with only 0.45% making it as a professor) , it is important to consider different avenues. Rather than seeing scientific careers as a 'pyramid', with a broad base narrowing to a tiny elite, Sarah encouraged us to think of a 'tree of scientific careers', with innumerable interconnected possibilities.

Young scientists practice their presentation skills

Getting to grips with the "review process"

Meanwhile I was receiving email requests thick and fast for telephone interviews for the researchers whose work had been featured in a press release. First priority tomorrow, get a phone set up! Suddenly it was time to move to the 'science with impact: big data' session. The talks were varied, including the important of using the ORCID citation system, and the incredible power of the latest genome sequencing technology. It is incredible to think that scientists once had to select which organisms should be honoured with the immense effort required to sequence a genome and now there is currently a project at IRRI to sequence 120,000 varieties of rice... The most entertaining talk was given by Rory Wilson from the Swansea Laboratory for Animal Movement, which demonstrated how far remote animal tracking devices have come. From early moving-dot outputs (similar to "pac-man" style pinball games), to sensors so sophisticated that it is now possible to recreate moving simulations of animals as large as Whale Sharks (and why not?! Everyone loves Whale Sharks...). It was a timely session to have - big data is only forecast to get even bigger!

After the science, the social! Although this involved more learning on my part: how to juggle canapés whilst carrying everything else... Our venue couldn't have been more appropriate, in the Manchester Museum. Animated conversations, networking, and catching up with friends was overseen by a soaring T-Rex skeleton, ancient plants, spider crabs, mammoth teeth... Why ever do people have their wedding reception in a hotel? A museum is much more romantic!

Canapés and networking in Manchester Museum (with Stan the T-Rex)

I feel that today has even busy enough but the conference hasn't even kicked off properly yet. So it is an early night for me...whatever everyone else plans to do in the bar this evening!

The marble staircase in the Palace Hotel