Snowflakes are special. Their immediately recogniseable shape evokes the smell of glögg, the taste of pepparkakor and the spirit of Christmas. But before the snowflake was popularised as a Christmas icon by Wilson ”Snowflake” Bentley, the delicate and intricate structures had captured the imagination of physicists who wanted to understand how they formed. They were… Read More #14 The physics of snowflakes (yes there is a graph)
“Hospitals as we know them today will eventually be extinct.” – Eric Topol You’d be forgiven for thinking that Topol is referring to a distant future where lifelike robot doctors tend to our every medical need, but he’s not. The extinction he refers to is much more imminent, in fact, it is already well underway.… Read More The extinction of today’s hospitals
The year is 1800 and you are lying in a hospital bed. You broke your leg and need surgery to set it. In other words, you’re dead. You’re not literally dead of course, that comes soon, but not quite yet. Before then, you have to lie in a dirty hospital bed as the “good old… Read More February 10th: Anniversary of the death of Joseph Lister, the father of modern surgery
Baking is synonymous with Christmas cheer. In Sweden, a favourite Christmas treat is the Pepparkaka (PK) which is a thin, crunchy biscuit flavoured with Christmas spices and enjoyed with Glögg, the Swedish mulled wine. Current methods of Pepparkakor (PK’s) synthesis fail to address the needs of scientists who often required the integration of geekiness into… Read More Christmas baking for science geeks: Pepparkakor Synthesis
Nothing says Christmas like the 80’s. It’s just impossible not to feel Christmassy when you’re wearing a neon shell suit on top of oversized acid washed jeans while doing a Rubik’s Cube. We got into the 80’s Christmas spirit at the Department of Neuroscience yesterday and here are the results to brighten up your day.
It’s already the 9th of December. Glögg is flowing and Julbords are full. The question is, at this special time of year, how do we tell our friends and loved ones how we feel? Microbiologists like me never ask this question because we know, the best way to express yourself is with agar. Here are… Read More Say it with agar
header image credits Andreas Eldh under CC BY 2.0 We should experiment with Twitter Academics tend to have an unhealthy relationship with social media, especially Twitter. There are the people who blindly love it to the point of obsession. Then there are people who adamantly declare that Twitter is a bigger waste of time than… Read More Video Post: Why Twitter is perfect for sceptical academics
The young investigators' science blog
An inside perspective on being a researcher and career advice
An inside perspective on being a researcher and career advice
a blog about the PhD student experience, University of Warwick
