Life in the slow lane...

Today has felt rather more quiet ... Although our press releases have been picked up and are going live, there have been few enquiries for me to deal with and no telephone interviews today. My favourite 'reinterpretation' was for the article on scorpion burrows...Israeli scientists have found that scorpions design their burrows to include a long shelf, where they can warm up in the suns heat safely before going out to hunt, but also a cool, dead end chamber deep underground as a refuge in the heat of the day. This was summed up by Discovery News as 'Scorpions build mansions with sun rooms and cool beds!'

Attending a Plenary Lecture in the main Theatre

I also received my first piece of 'hate mail' in this position. A single lined response to Dr Hamilton's study on the memory powers of African cichlids - 'what a waste of tax payers money!'. I didn't respond but I was intrigued by the motivation behind this. What was this person looking for? Did they want me to agree with them? Did they want to be interviewed? Or were they just purely 'sounding off?' I also received a long account from an aquarium hobbyist detailing how they trained their Cichlid to feed from their hand. Again, I'm not sure if they are expecting me to respond to this.....

The SEB careers stand... my "home from home" during the conference!

I did use some of my "free time" to attend the WoolHouse lecture, given in memory of Harold Woolhouse, director of the John Innes Centre between 1980 and 1989.  George Coupland gave a fascinating account of the differences in environmental sensitivity between annual and perennial plants. Many plant species can only flower after being exposed to cold temperatures (known as vernalisation"). In annual plants, once the flowering process is underway, vegetative growth ceases and the plant dies afterwards. Perennials, however, revert back to vegetative growth after flowering and can survive for another growing season. By studying flowering mutants in the model organism Arabidopsis (thale cress), including plants that can flower without requiring vernalisation, researchers have identified a gene that appears central to controlling these differences. PEP1 - which stands for Perpetual Flowering 1 - acts as a transcription factor; a protein which controls the activity of other genes. Active PEP1 prevents flowering however PEP1 itself is inhibited by vernalisation. In annuals such as Arabidopsis, PEP1 remains stably repressed but in perennials, PEP1 is only transiently inhibited and becomes active again. However, PEP1 cannot be the only agent controlling the flowering transition as when very young shoots are exposed to vernalisation (causing PEP1 to be repressed) flowering still does not occur. Such shoots are described as "non-competent" - but what is it that makes them so? Recently, plant scientists have found that short transcripts of ribonucleic acids (similar to DNA), known as "micro-RNAs" determine the competency of plant meristems. In young shoots, miR156 seems to inhibit flowering, but this becomes downregulated by age. The whole flowering transition, however, requires both PEP1 AND mrRNA156 to be inactive, ensuring that only competent shoots that have been exposed to cold temperatures can flower. Just another of the exquisite control systems that plants demonstrate - which is partly why I am so fascinated by them!

Frogs, telephone interviews and women in science...

Another early start...and even earlier for Dr Hamilton, who was picked up at 6.00 to be taken to the recording studio for his interview on the Today Programme. Unfortunately, I miss this whilst I was in the shower - after all the excitement it was only four minutes long! It certainly seems to have generated a lot of interest thigh, even being picked up by The Telegraph.
But, I have to look forward to the next lot of interviews; two this morning both for German Public Radio. I escorted first Dr Amanda Adams ( who works on scorpion burrow design in Israel) then Miss Lauren Nadler ( who investigates social recognition in tropical reef fish). Once again, the landline works fine and my German colleague, Michael Stang, seems pleased with the results. I tell the researchers not to be too nervous, after all their words will have to be dubbed over into German!

I feel slightly awkward about how few talks I have attended so far... There is a wealth of fascinating science being discussed here but I am hardly sitting in on any of it. One example was the Presidents Medallist talk this morning, on auxin dynamics in the root. I had hoped to attend this but ended up trying to arrange the room to do the phone interview in. Foiled! I made up for it in the afternoon by dropping in on the session on animal biomechanics. This covered a fascinating range of organisms but I was struck by a talk from PhD student Miss Marta Garcia- Vidal, investigating how the environment influences a frogs jumping style. I grabbed her afterwards for an interview and may be able to get another press release out of it. Watch this space!


Another highlight was Dr Christopher Clemente's talk describing his work on lizard locomotion. Larger animals put greater stress on their limb bones and Dr Clemente was investigating to see whether larger sized lizards adopt a more upright posture to compensate for this. Although the PowerPoint kept breaking down on him, he ploughed on with gusto, entertaining us with videos showing him running after the lizards to get footage of them in motion...and occasionally, they turned round and chased him! Further information on his research can be found on his blog: http://biomechanicsdownunder.blogspot.co.uk

Networking at the Poster Session

Meanwhile, I was excited to see that the BBC exclusive about dormice had gone live (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-28036330). I always think the 'BBC treatment' gives a very professional touch! After the main session finished, the poster session opened. This is an especially good opportunity for early career scientists, including PhD students, to showcase their work to a large scientific audience. It can also be an invaluable way to  network, make new contacts and find potential collaborators in research. It feels a bit like an eclectic art gallery, where one is free to wander and browse the 'advertisements' . It is much more enjoyable, if course, when you KNOW some of the scientists and can have a catch up with old acquaintances.

The Women in Science Dinner at the Palace Hotel

After checking in with friends and former lecturers from Durham University, I had to dash back to the Palace Hotel to be in good time for the Women in Science dinner. This has been an organised event at the SRB Annual Meeting now for 12 years and is designed as an informal chance to discuss the big issue of gender equality in science. The setting, in the Grand Room, was sumptuous indeed with chandeliers, towering marble arches, silverware and lighted candles. Our after dinner speaker was Sarah Dickinson, strategic director of Athena Swan, a award scheme by which Universities and research institutes can gain recognition for implementing strategies to promote gender equality. Encouragingly, their results suggest that institutes that are part of the award scheme see benefits for all their staff; when women are able to work more effectively and have greater support, the whole working environment improves, resulting in tangible results, including more papers. After dessert, the floor was opened up for questions with even the ( relatively few) makes attendees getting involved. In the end, the discussions moved into the bar area and I decided to head up to bed, fortunately in the same building. It was a thought provoking evening, but as one attendee noted ' How will such events have impact when so few men are present? Half of the decision makers are missing!'
A good point for the next meeting - women, invite your male colleagues!

Women in Science Dinner, Palace Hotel

We're on the Today Programme...Tomorrow!

"If you just take a seat here Dr Clissold and German public Radio should be phoning you any minute now...'
I am alone in a quiet room with an academic I have had a lot of contact with over the past weeks but have only just met for the first time. The stillness in the room is at odds with the thriving hustle and bustle of the general conference. Yesterday I received an email request from a German Radio Station for a telephone interview with Dr Fiona Clissold, whose work on locust diets I covered in a press release. It feels slightly surreal but suddenly the phone rings and we are connected through to Deutschland...
Whilst Dr Clissold answers the journalist's questions, I field more enquiries on my iPad, juggling information and tasks; ask Dr Sagi for more photos, who wanted the video on the ants story?, is that the correct embargo date? ... Fortunately the conference organisers are as good as their word and we are not disturbed. My first interview to organise on behalf of the external media!

Dr Lauren Nadler has a telephone interview with German Public Radio

The morning passes in a similar stilted frenzy of answering enquiries, and I feel surgically attached to my iPad at times. The afternoons highlight for me is the 'Public Engagement' session, featuring a 'celebrity' - television broadcaster Alice Roberts- most famous for her appearances on Coast but also the face of the Don't Die Young series. She conveyed her passion for 'science storytelling' using the example of a carved ivory bison figurine whose origins she researched during time spent with aborigines. Unfortunately she had to dash off so I wasn't able to nab her for an interview! The following speakers then gave a series of 'quick fire' selling pitches of ideas for the future of public engagement - these included commissioning plays, having bioscience students run training sessions for journalists and 'citizen science' projects where the public can play a part in sorting through the masses of data generated by researchers. Although the ideas flowed and conversations thrummed with vibrancy, there was the nagging sense that SOMETHING else needs to happen to keep the impetus up outside these sessions....

Fielding press enquiries

Whilst sitting in on the 'bidder' lecture ( William K Milsom on the evolution of breathing control in vertebrates) a VERY exciting email comes in....The Today Programme want to feature one of the press stories on their show tomorrow! Cue a frantic emailing and texting session but we manage it! Dr Hamilton will be picked up early tomorrow morning at his hotel to be taken to the recording studio for the LIVE interview. I feel a bit sorry for him as he probably had no idea what he was letting himself in for when he agreed to do a press release... But he is very nice about it! Meanwhile the rest of the delegates are suddenly keen to explore the trade stands...mainly because they have been turned into a 'wine trail' with a prize for anyone who can guess the provenance of the entire selection on offer. This seems a little more excessive than 'wine tasting' judging by the size of the glasses... It gives me a good chance to catch up though with colleagues from Durham University, where I did my undergraduate degree. Instead of heading off to the bars and nightclubs afterwards though, I headed back to the hotel. Still three days left and I need to be on form!

The SEB wine trail

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

A visit to London......

The BIG city.... home to our capital, historic palaces, the Olympic stadium, the hub of industry, shopping galore... and also where the head office of the Society of Experimental Biology (SEB) happens to be located!I had been invited down to the SEB office at Charles Darwin House to discuss my duties as the official media intern for the Annual meeting in Manchester, to be held in July.

Traveling from Sheffield to St Pancras late morning meant that I avoided the worst of the commuter traffic and I arrived in good time to meet my supervisor Dr Sarah Blackford (who had only just landed in the country after a week running a summer school in Germany) at the Goodenough Club Hotel. Due to a mix up in the bookings, Sarah had been upgraded into the Master Suite - an opulent room complete with balcony, chandeliers, generously proportioned sofas and a table large enough to host a boardroom meeting. After a quick introductory talk about the internship, we headed out to Charles Darwin House, conveniently just around the corner. I hadn't realised just how pleasant London could be - far from the smog and traffic I associate with the capital, here was a district of quiet and broad streets, expansive leafy plane trees and hidden parks & gardens. Perhaps the sunshine helped to set it off though! I was similarly impressed with the headquarters- the open-plan office had a buzzy, stimulating atmosphere with the other societies that shared the building (including the British Ecological Society and the Journal of Experimental Botany) close at hand. Imagine having daily access to all of that expertise! It was nice to meet the faces behind the emails that I receive as a member of the society, including the head of membership and the conference organiser.

As it was absolutely sweltering, we decided to make use of the refreshment facilities and spacious room back at the Goodenough Club and decamped there to spend the afternoon looking through the abstracts. Dr Blackford had sent me these a week ago - a dossier so large I had to have it delivered to the Department as it would never have squeezed through my letterbox! - so I had already had a chance to read through the abstracts for the talks that would be presented at the meeting and to pick out the ones which I thought had public appeal. Between us, we managed to whittle these down to a shortlist with most of the talks coming from the "Animal" section, rather than the Plant or Cell talks (people will always be more interested in Koalas than Thale Cress...). By this time, the heat of the day had passed and an evening breeze was rippling through the long curtains. We were both in need of an early night so after an excellent meal at Caluccios' Itallian in Brunswick Place, we headed back to our rooms.

Tuesday morning and a bright and early start to plan the day's activities over breakfast. We took our shortlist over to Charles Darwin House where Sarah had booked one of the small suites for us to work in that morning. Having identified possible press stories, our job was now to contact the researchers and ask if they would like me to write an article about their work. We first had to check to make sure that none of the stories had already been reported by science media streams. I had been quite interested in a group which had produced a "transparent soil" so that plant root growth could be observed non-invasively (this was different to agar medium as the texture resembled soil particles). But would you believe it? It had already been picked up! (see http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23823-lasers-watch-plant-roots-grow-in-transparent-soil.html#.U58wALSgp_c). Enough stories hadn't been spotted by the media yet for us to have a fair list to work on. After a busy morning compiling and sending emails, we joined the other members of the SEB office to head back to Carluccios for lunch.

By the time we returned, the first replies had come in! Unfortunately some of these were to say that due to the work being under review for publication, a press release would not be suitable at this stage. But some people had said yes ... and were pleased that we were interested! It reaffirms how most scientists love nothing better than to pass on their passion for their research.

All too soon, it was time for me to catch my train back to Sheffield. Since then, I have had more positive replies and have been compiling lists of questions to help me shape the press articles. It is like having a full time job! As thew conference gets closer, I find myself getting increasingly excited. It's all happening now!

Exciting News!!!

I have just learned that I have been awarded an exciting Media and Communications Internship with the SEB ( Society of Experimental Biology)!!! This means that I will be their unofficial Press Officer for the main annual meeting, this year held in Manchester on 1st - 4 th July.  I greatly admire the society for promoting innovative and pioneering research across the whole spectrum of biology and it will be thrilling to have an inside view on how such an organisation operates. My duties will involve compiling advance Press Releases for journalists working in general media and fielding enquiries during the conference itself. Already I have been sent a book of abstracts to work my way through, so that I can highlight which scientists to try and interview before the conference. I have also had to book train tickets to visit the head office in London, research dictaphone models and start learning the schedule for the event itself. I was very pleased to be awarded this as the application process was very rigorous and involved submitting examples of written work , interviewing a researcher in my department and a phone interview. Previous interns have gone on to become news editors and science writers, so this could be a fantastic boost to my hopes to working in science communication! Watch this space, it's going to be a busy summer!

It only happens once a year: SUGS - Sheffield University Grad School!

I didn't really know what to expect when the coach delivered us to the door of Kenwood Hall, a luxury hotel on the outskirts of Sheffield. Career development activities certainly, however the terms on the programme were ( deliberately?) vague: team building, commercial awareness,  interview workshop....

The first day was clearly designed to help us to 'get to know' the other members of our group through immersive team activities...the first being to balance a marshmallow on a free standing tower of spaghetti.... Besides helping me to appreciate just how heavy a marshmallow actually IS, this served as a good introduction to the Belbin model of team roles.
Reading the outline of these roles, I was struck by how often I felt 'Yes! That's me, I do exactly that!'. Understanding the Belbin model is particularly useful for spotting the weaknesses associated with each role. For instance, "Co-ordinators" can have a tendency to "off load" work onto others and, if they are not careful, may even take credit for work done by others. The Belbin model also provides advice for how to approach different team members - for instance, "Resource Investigators" are brilliant at suggesting new approaches or contacts, but one mustn't suppose they will deliver on every promise!I have decided that whilst I would love to be a 'Plant' ( creative source of ideas), I am probably more of a 'Monitor Evaluator' ( takes care of details, tries to be practical).



We had plenty of opportunity to apply our new insight during the afternoons onslaught of challenges... These included herding blindfolded sheep, directing workers across a chessboard with moving obstacles and defusing a nuclear reactor using string and inner tube tyres. The last benefitted enormously from the engineers in he team! My favourite task was 'colour blind' where we were each blindfolded before being given a set of shapes, in different colours. However two pieces were missing! Somehow, without passing the pieces between us, we had to work out which colour and shape combination was absent. This stressed the importance of establishing a common language when working in a group as the shapes were very imaginative and hard to define : ' has anyone else got what feels like a back to back letter C with two knobs on the end?!'

After all that, I was in need of an early night back home ( the course wasn't residential) but it was an early start again tomorrow and on arriving through the door it felt like we didn't stop once! I had bee quite daunted when reading through the preparation notes for the 'commercial awareness' task the night before. Somehow, split into different groups ( univeristy officers, research departments, legal officers, etc) we had to come up with a research funding strategy for a fictitious univeristy in dire straights. This involved networking, arranging meetings with companies, consulting legal advisors on intellectual property, sealing deals.... Meanwhile our eyes had to constantly be on the time so that we didn't miss the crucial deadline - reporting back to the pro- vice chancellor! It was a real lesson in how difficult it can be to formulate a strategy when different groups have access to different information. The task also involved a lot of running around as different offices were scattered across the whole building. It was almost like being in an episode of the apprentice and cluedo at the same time. But I was pleased with helping to secure a deal between the ministry of defense and the polymer materials group; using low weight molecules to develop greater wing stability, using additional input for the paleobiology group into the evolution of wing structures in pterosaurs.... You could almost imagine it happening, couldn't you?

The afternoon wasn't quite so rushed and hectic but we were still faced with rebranding SPAM for the modern generation. We decided to play on the product's convenience and rapid accessibility, creating an advert where busy people, in need of emergency nourishment, were saved by spam! There was an imaginative range of products between the groups, including British Weather, Fax machines, traffic wardens ( who now became traffic support officers), celery and estate agents. I think the group tasked with rebranding 'chess' did well with their idea of 'performance chess', perfect for X-Factor wannabes!

Day 3... All too soon the Interview workshop was upon us. I had asked to be considered for a research fellowship position and anxiously looked over my cv, which I knew the other members of the group were also studying! The arrangement was very formal, and despite having done so many fun activities together, my fellow tea workers took their role seriously and gave me quite a grilling. Their feedback was incredibly useful however, and I was surprised to hear that I spoke much louder towards the end than at the start, as far as I was aware I hadn't changed volume at all! I found it harder that I expected to be an interviewer myself and can now appreciate the pressure this role generates.

The final afternoon was given over to a spot of career planning, which included suggesting careers for our fellow team members. I was pleased when my group suggested I could make it as a writer, but surprised that they suggested roles with authority , including mentoring and teaching. Suddenly it was time to fill out the feedback sheets, take a last group photo and collapse on the coach for the last time.

I would like to thank the Univeristy of Sheffield's Career Service for organising the event and highly recommend it to any postgraduate researcher. You will be inspired!