Link Round-up 25th August 2014

It's another Bank Holiday Monday! Yey! This week I've found some interesting links mostly looking at gender issues in science from the gender balanceto Field's Medal winners.

1. Maryam Mirzakhani becomes the first woman to win the Fields Medal for mathematics
   Fantastic news! We finally have a female winner of the Fields Medal, which is a bit like the Nobel Prize for maths. It's just a shame that it took until 2014 for a woman to win one don't you think?
2. Arguing over whether girls can’t or won’t study science stops us fixing the problem
   An interesting article on the conversation caught my eye this week, about the argument (which I think isn't an argument at all) of whether girls aren't able to do science or just don't want to do it. It's a  really good read which suggests that we should get busy fixing the problem, rather than going on about the drivers behind it.
3. Ten myths that blame women for sexism
   Laura Bates (of Everyday Sexism) recently wrote a really great article in the Guardian addressing the 'reasons' people like to use to justify elements of sexism that we still see in society today. This is one of my favourite articles I've seen from Laura, but you should check out her other work too.
4. The heart might actually have a repair mechanism
   It's been a long held idea that heart tissue doesn't have a repair mechanism. However, a team from Vanderbilt University have observed that cells from the blood vessels in the heart can become heart muscle cells, albeit at a very slow rate. This is a fantastic and interesting piece of research, which could also indicate other ways in which heart diseases can damage the heart. Fingers crossed this knowledge might be able to be converted into medical treatments.

And finally, the results of the Hugo Awards, the premier awards in genre fiction, have been announced. Best Novel went to Ann Leckie for Ancillary Justice with the Game of Thrones episode The Rains of Castamere winning the Best Dramatic Presentation (short form) Award.

Currently Watching Doctor Who! The eleventh hour is over and the clock strikes twelve. I saw Deep Breath in the cinema on Saturday and I can't wait to see the rest of the eighth series of Doctor Who. Roll on next Saturday! 

Currently Listening to The Blinding Knife audio book. In preparation for the release of the next volume in the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks being released, I'm refreshing my memory of what happened in the last book. If you hadn't ready The Black Prism or The Blinding Knife, you should!

Nine Worlds Geekfest 2014

I'm now back at work after an awesome weekend (and following week off) at Nine Worlds geekfest. What is a geekfest? You may ask. We'll you're about to find out. A geekfest is a celebration (unsurprisingly) of all things geeky, from Doctor Who to SF and Fantasy books, from Steampunk and Science. It's actually quite hard to explain the scope of the event from the number of different tracks to the different activities you could do. Listen to an academic presentation, go see a panel of great authors be quizzed on genre fiction, get your books signed by said authors, learn to (I kid you not) water dance from the First Sword of Bravos (What do we say to people who don't get that reference? Not today), see a science comedy show, take part in a writing workshop, join in a LARP, dance away the night to a Queen tribute band and so, so much more. Whatever your choice of geekery (except boardgames this year *sad face*) Nine Worlds probably had something there for you. They even had a program item to do with (bubble) football.

As this post waxes lyrical, follow the link below to read more about my adventures.

Weekly Round-up Monday 11th August

When you read this I'll have just finished having an incredibly geeky weekend at Nine Worlds Geekfest in Heathrow. If you want to know more about my convention adventures you're in luck as I'll be bringing you my Nine Worlds convention diary next week. However, today it's time for a weekly round-up and in honour of Nine Worlds I'm going to be looking at some of the conventions coming up soon which you should be looking at going to.

1. Loncon 3 (World Con)
   On Thursday World Con, the world science fiction convention, comes to London in the form of Loncon3. Loncon will be celebrating all kinds of science fiction and fantasy works from TV to tabletop board gaming with a strong focus on literature. Some highlights include George RR Martin and Robin Hobb's readings and panels. Attendees will never be stuck for something to do that's for sure.
2. Sheffield Film and Comic Con
   The first ever Sheffield Film and Comic Con will be taking place later this month at the Sheffield Arena! So far guests include Burn Gorman, Eve Myles, Paul McGann and John Rhys Davis to name but a few. As it's so close to home for me it would be rude not to go and I wouldn't be taking full advantage if I didn't use it as a fantastic shopping opportunity either!
3. MCM Expo
   I've never been to an MCM Expo, something which I'm planning to change in the next year. MCM run a pretty packed program of conventions all over the country, so there's bound to be one relatively close by (normal venues include Manchester, London and Birmingham). The only downside is that guests are often not announced to the last minute so you don't always know who you're going to be seeing.
4. Nine Worlds 2015
   Should you be going next year? Definitely! Ok maybe wait until you read my diary,  (I'm writing this before the convention so you never know, it might not have been good this year) but then get your tickets booked at the super early bird rate. Nine Worlds is one of the more expensive conventions on this list, but it is also one of the ones with the most to do, so it all balances out.

And finally, it's slightly old news by now, but the season 8 premier of Doctor Who will be streaming to cinema's around the country, along with bonus content and a live Q and A from London's Leicester Square Odeon. Also, tickets are now on sale for the Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, a concert celebrating the music of Doctor Who, conducted by the amazing Ben Foster, which should be coming to an Arena near you.

Currently Reading The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, so I'm behind the times, but I'm very much enjoying catching up on this excellent book. If you like Brent Weeks or GRRM you'll love this!
Currently Playing Dungeons and Dragons 5E, I may not have known what to expect at first, but I really love 5E so far and I can't wait to get my hands on the players handbook later this week. If you want to get into Dungeons and Dragons and don't know where to start the D&D Starter Set is a great place to begin your quest.

Bad Science - A Review

Every now and again you come across something you feel you have to shout about from the rooftops. Recently I've been reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre and it is definitely in that category. In short it's a must read for everyone. If I was suddenly made Prime Minister tomorrow I would put this book on the curriculum as a compulsory text. Basically, it's a really important book.

We live in a world built and defined by scientific advancement. Science and engineering powered the industrial revolution, many people are kept alive by a cocktail of scientific discoveries and we carry technology in our pockets everywhere we go which could only be found in science fiction in the not so distant past. Therefore, isn't it important that as a society we are well informed about the innovation that powers our lives? Is it right that the media are constantly reinforcing the message that science is hard? I think that it is almost impossible to make a viable argument that it is a good thing to have a public who aren't engaged in one of the most important cornerstones of their daily lives.

However, I digress. What is Bad Science about? What is it that defines it as a really important read? Bad Science is basically a guidebook to help people see the real science behind the fluff we are often presented with in the media. When did you last see a newspaper story claiming food X will prevent cancer? I'd guess it was pretty recently, and often journalists overstate the effectiveness of these sorts of studies. It's unfortunate, but in order to produce more exciting column inches and sell papers huge sweeping statements are much more appealing than working through the minutia of a piece of research. If you'd like to cut through this kind of hype and see the truth in science stories, then Bad Science is the book for you. It does a really great job of giving us a tool kit to try and see through the spin, advertising and news coverage into the heart of what's actually going on. By using case studies Goldacre looks at various fields from the tablets that make you smarter, to homoeopathy and the unfounded MMR scare. Don't worry this isn't a stuffy textbook; Bad Science is well written with a great sense of humour. However, no amount of humour can cover up the often concerning nature of the material Goldacre addresses. For example, from the book I learnt that the experts chosen and quoted by the media, might not be quite so expert after all and, even more worryingly, health scares tend to be reported on by non specialist correspondents. I'll certainly be bearing these points in mind when the next big scare comes along.

To me, the key thing that makes Bad Science great is its accessibility. You don't need any prior knowledge of science or journalism to enjoy it. In many ways it simply tells us that science is for everyone, and that with a bit of thought you can see through the journalistic haze right into the heart of an issue. One of my favourite aspects of the book was how it looked at the placebo effect in quite a lot of detail, and I now want to find out more about how our mind and body can be influence each other.

Bad Science isn't perfect. There are times when Goldacre talks about a subject and I found myself thinking "Yes that would be great in an ideal world, but is that achievable?". I also think that there are some issues with the "Bad Stats" chapter as there seems to be a skirting of experimental error (on which I have made my views clear in the past). However, as a window into the world of journalism and why so many people get swept up in bogus claims about wonder cures, it is brilliant. I will most definitely be getting myself a copy of Bad Pharma, the follow up to Bad Science which focuses on the pharmaceutical industry, very soon. So, do yourself a favour and get reading!

Bad Science is published by 4th Estate in paperback and has an RRP of £8.99. At the time of writing it could be found online for around £6.50 or as an ebook for under £4.

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!