Kirsty the Scientist

Another #scicomm review today, but this time a very fun one!  Last Christmas, my 15 year old little brother got me a fantastic little Christmas present - a smartphone microscope from the Science Museum: Smartphone microscope in my hand to show you its size. It's a really nifty little gadget - you can just clip it over you smartphone's camera at the top and it lights up and magnifies the image up to 30x. It's definitely designed as a gadget just for a bit of fun, but I thought it could be such a good #scicomm (science communication) tool. Its tiny, portable, quite cheap and loads of fun, especially in the garden or outdoors! So below I've shared some of my favourite snaps taken with the microscope. All the best ones are the ones from nature!  Maybe this is a tool that could be used to make using a microscope easier and accessible for young people, who knows...!  Daisies Bluetac Grass and a feather (left bottom = grass, right bottom = feat...

One of the things I'm really excited to introduce as part of my #kirstyblogseverydayinjune challenge is a new series of posts - #scicomm reviews. I love watching a good documentary or reading a good book that covers science in a non-academic way. It's relaxing, fun and introduces me to areas of science I don't study and become fascinated by, or areas I do and love to see portrayed in a different way (and see how accurate I think they did it!).  So the first thing I'd like to review from my #scicomm perspective is a recent BBC TV programme - Michael Mosley vs the Superbugs . The programme discussed antibiotic resistance and some of the new research exploring ways to avoid using broad spectrum antibiotics. And I thought it was fantastic.  The show opened with a very visual, if a little gross/awesome, representation of the skin microbiota - the different types of bacteria that live on human skin, completely natural and harmless in healthy people. The show's...