Weekly Round-up 28th July 2014

Happy Monday everyone! Here are a selection of things that have caught my eye on the internet during the past week.

1. Making plastic from food scraps!
   A research group in Italy has come up with a new way to make plastic from food scraps. You may have been given bioplastic bags (I believe One Stop use them) in the past which are sometimes biodegradable and tend to be made from plant starches. However, these are sourced from food crops, which isn't a great option due to the world's growing demand for food. The new plastics come from unusable food scraps from farming processes and the method to make the plastics is quicker and simpler. Unfortunately, due to the costs of manufacturing it may not currently be industrially viable to scale up this new method, but maybe in the future we'll be able to have more environmentally friendly plastics!
2. New Scientist looks at some of the new technologies to help people with disabilities.
   This week the New Scientist have produced a slideshow of some of the recent developments in technologies to help people with disabilities. From electronic chips to provide eyesight to robot carers, have a look to see what awesome inventions might be improving peoples lives in the future.
3. New form of radiotherapy for breast cancer treatment.
   A new form of radiotherapy is going to be offered on the NHS in the near future which will allow breast cancer to be treated with a single targeted dose of radiotherapy. In this new treatment radiation is delivered directly to an early stage tumour during surgery. The new method has a similar level of effectiveness to standard radiotherapy, except it reduces the level of radiation that other organs receive, along with the number hospital visits for the patient.

And finally, it was San Diego Comic Con last week and along with exciting new concept images for the next Avengers  film the biggest surprises came during the Game of Thrones panel with announcements of the new cast members for season 5 and the characters who won't make it from the books into the show. However, the biggest news came when GRR Martin dropped a revelation about a certain character who was omitted/changed in the TV show appearing in the prologue to The Winds of Winter (Book 6 of A Song of Ice and Fire). GRRM also said that he wouldn't be writing a season 5 episode so he can finish Winds of Winter. Fingers crossed this means we might be seeing Winds of Winter on bookshelves in the near future (haha, I wish).

Currently Reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Bad Science is a fantastic book which looks to lift the lid on science in the media, homoeopathy and the current obsession with nutritionists. It's a fantastic book which I'll be talking about in more detail in another post in the near future.

Currently Watching Gurren Lagan on Netflix. All the Anime released this often discussed anime to Netflix in preparation for it's DVD/BluRay release next month. I'm very glad they did because I'm currently enjoying having its maximum rediculosity fill my evenings before Doctor Who lands next month!

The Work/Life Balance

Depending on who you ask, there seems to be 2 conflicting ideas about PhD lifestyles. Some believe PhD students work all the hours of the day, through the nights and at weekends with very few days off. Others might argue that we're spinning our wheels, working short days and wasting time before we have to go and get a 'proper' job. As with most things there is arguably a slight ring of truth in both versions, but really neither are fully correct. I don't work all hours, and would not call what I do wasting time. I tend to work from 8:30am to somewhere between 4:30pm and 5:10pm (so pretty much standard working hours), but I have had a few short spells of working overtime (which was not very fun). But really, for me doing my PhD has been very much like any other job really, but with the benefit of having relatively unrestricted flexitime.

From PhD Comics purveyors of humour and home truths.

Now I'm not going to say there isn't someone somewhere who works every weekend in order to hopefully finish their PhD, and I actually know of one person who works really long days (11 hours +) because they just absolutely love their project and actually want to be in the lab all the time. But, in my experience, this is not the normal state of affairs. What seems to be more usual is that most of the time PhD students work normal hours, but every so often you'll have everything happening at once and will have to spend a couple of weeks or so working all the hours you can, in order to fit everything in. When do these times crop up? Well they tend to appear at the end of the year when you have a lovely report to work on (see 'So what exactly did you do this year?'). I had a month of long days and weeks when I was writing my first year report, but other than that I've not had any other real nightmare stretches. 

So, where do people get the idea that PhD students are chained to their desks? I think its something that's actually our (the students') fault. We keep the idea alive via our interactions with communities both on and offline and I'm not really sure why that is. Maybe it's because people feel the need to seek help and support when they are at their most stressed and tired, so a lot of the chatter is about dealing with the workload at these points in time rather than the staus quo. Also, I think we actually quite like to moan. Not to say that out moaning isn't justified, but it does seem to be a favourite PhD pass-time!

On the other side PhD working culture coin is the slacker. Is it actually possible to get through a PhD by hardly working? Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. Now, I think its fair to say that we all have quiet weeks in between experiments, where we're in limbo without a large pile of work stacking up for us. I've had points where I've been waiting for equipment to be fixed and although I worked on other things, my days weren't quite as full as they normally are. But can you sit back and take it easy all the time? Nope. You'll get kicked in some form, either kicked out or kicked up the bum to actually do some work. If you get a kick up the bum, maybe then you might end up not having enough time in normal working days to get everything done, becoming the quintessential overworked PhD student after all, an interesting thought don't you think?However, I would not advise coasting along until you need to suddenly knuckle down, its not going to be fun in the long run.

Like many things, PhD workloads come in cycles. The busy times don't last forever and neither do the quiet ones. All you can do is power through as much as you're able and remember that things will go back to normal hopefully sooner rather than later.

Weekly Round-up 14th July 2014

Happy Monday! Here's this week's link round-up for you of freshly squeezed internet goodness.

1. What happens if you stick your hand in liquid nitrogen?
   Ever wondered what happens if you stick your hand in liquid nitrogen? I hadn't until this IFL Science post popped up on my facebook feed. Don't get me wrong, I love fun with liquid nitrogen, I've seen it poured onto hands and floors, as well as make a magnet float but still, dipping my hand into it never crossed my mind. However, it seems it has crossed someone's mind so check out the link and video above to see what happens!
2. Common science myths debunked.
   This week IFL Science have also lifted the lid on some common science myths that just won't go away. Have a look and see if you learn something!
3. The LHC warms up by cooling down
   CERN have begun cooling down the LHC ready to start a new round of experiments in early 2015, after a 3 year stop for repairs, which will let the LHC smash particles together at even higher energies. After lots of data analysis the Higgs appears to be behaving as expected under the standard model, but there is so much more to look for such as new particles and super symmetry (the LHC has already ruled out some forms of this). Fingers crossed the switch on goes well, but in the meantime I'm sure there will be further news on the properties of the Higg's Boson coming our way.

Finally, this week has seen two exciting reveals; firstly the cover for 'A Wicked Thing', my friend Rhiannon's first novel (coming out in Feb 2015 in the US)! Secondly, the first full trailer for Doctor Who Series 8, roll on August 23rd!

Currently Watching Tokyo Ghoul and Terror in Resonance aka this summer's 2 most hyped anime series. After 1 and 2 episodes respectively I'm impressed, both have interesting premises and characters as well as directors with impressive pedigrees so I can't wait to see what happens next! (I also tried Sailor Moon Crystal, but erm... I think I'll just watch the abridged series of that...) You can catch both series legally and free on wakanim.co.uk in the UK now.

Currently Playing (well about to start playing) Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition, and I'm both excited and apprehensive about it. As a fan of the much maligned 4E version of the game, the striping down of powers (I like being epic), optional nature of tactical combat and grids is a little bit worrying. However, I love the new back story features in character creation, and the look of main line adventure series, so fingers crossed it turns out to be good!

So what exactly did you do this year?

We're reaching the end of the academic year. Undergraduates are getting their exam results and starting their summer holidays and the school year is nearly over. You might think this doesn't mean much for research students as we, like the rest of the working world, book holidays as and when we want them (or when experiments let us) and aren't tied to the school holidays. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. While we may be looking forward to a couple of weeks away, there is something else us PhD students need to be looking at doing, the joy of end of year reports where we get down to answering the question, "So what exactly did you do this year?".

At the end of every year of a PhD you have to hand in some form of report. A document that describes what you've spent the year doing, whether its the first year transfer/upgrade report, a second year progress report or the thesis itself. Needless to say, while in many ways summer is our quiet time in terms of teaching, demonstrating and problem solving for undergraduates; it is a hot bed of writing activity. However, not all end of year reports are created equal. Obviously the thesis, handed in at the end of your PhD, is the longest and most difficult to get right, but you'll have the most time devoted to doing it and although you may want to finish by the time they stop paying you, you can keep writing. First and second year reports are normally fitted in around your normal work with a couple of weeks devoted to just writing when your deadlines are fast approaching. In many ways it's this juggling of tasks makes it quite hard to get a grip on what you should be doing especially when your supervisor may have a very different opinion of what should be in your report that your examiners and department.

The first year report goes by many names in different universities. At Leeds it's the transfer report, at Sheffield it's the upgrade report or first year report depending on who your speak to, but the main gist of what you're doing is pretty similar across the board. You are presenting the work you have done in your first year, along with a comprehensive review of papers and books important to your project. This is in effect the first year examination in a PhD; if you pass you are upgraded/transferred from provisional PhD or MPhil status to full PhD, where the expectation is that you will complete a thesis of a sufficient standard to achieve your doctorate. Why do you have to do a report? Well, it has 2 purposes, it's designed to pick up anyone who may not been working hard enough in the year and its designed to spot where there may be a catastrophic problem with a research project. The most difficult thing to navigate when preparing the report is what your supervisor expects vs what the department expects. One of my supervisors told me I should just write and submit a less than 10 page paper for my report as it shows I have made enough progress to create a document ready for publication. However, this contrasted starkly with the guidelines given by my department to include a through literature review and comprehensive report of the experiments I had performed. It's not that easy to be in the middle of! In the end I decided to follow the department guidelines, simply because it wouldn't be my supervisor marking my work (marking policy varies wildly between universities) and I could just picture my examiners pulling my 'report' to pieces. From my first year report experience, I have 5 pieces of advice:

1. Ask your supervisor about the deadline. These can actually be quite *cough*  flexible *cough*.
2. Don't worry about making it perfect.
3. When playing with data and making all the graphs you'll need, don't use a track pad it'll give you RSI, and you won't be able to do anything very quickly. Trust me on this one.
4. Give yourself about a month to write and remind your supervisor if they complain about you not doing 'useful' work that if you fail this you won't be around to do any work at all.

You may think I'm leaving out an obvious bit of advice, "Write everything up as you go along so you'll have less to do later!". Well, I think everyone knows that one. Also, you probably won't have time to write up everything and the things you write up might not actually be that useful. I'd written up my cell culture experiments as I went along, but I used very little of that write up in my report except as jumping off points. I'm not saying don't write up as you go, rather don't expect it to be an assembly job if you do and don't beat yourself up about it if you don't.

At the moment I'm beginning to think about making a start on my second year report although it's currently looking like I don't have to do very much. A thesis plan  how hard can it be? Probably much harder than it should be, but at least it should be useful! Overall, my plan for this report is simple, throw some words down and don't worry about it too much. I also have a plan in mind for if someone complains it's too brief; direct them to my supervisor and throw draft papers at them!