Kirsty the Scientist

As scientists, we are always trying to put things into boxes, carefully researching and labelling discoveries in an attempt to make the world make sense. Just as there is an organ system for each process of the body – for example, a digestive system for absorbing nutrients from food - the immune system is responsible for defending the body against invading pathogens and foreign objects. The immune system is divided into two main ‘boxes’; the innate and adaptive response. The tortoise and hare of biology – the innate system responding immediately to the threat of invasion, a fast but simple response; the adaptive system taking longer to develop but providing a more specific and targeted response. But one immune cell is slightly more complex than the others, and doesn’t quite fit as clearly into just one box. Dendritic cells have many important roles as part of both immune responses. Much like other innate cells, (such as macrophages), dendritic cells locate the invading pathogens ...

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...

Following my post yesterday - #scicomm reviews: Michael Mosley vs the Superbugs - I wanted to take a closer look at the potential alternatives currently being researched to combat antibiotic resistance. What might we be using when we run out of antibiotics?   So let's take a step back for a minute - What are antibiotics and why is antibiotic resistance such a problem?  Antibiotics are drugs that kill bacteria or prevent them from reproducing or spreading - treating or preventing bacterial infections. Most people first take antibiotics but antibiotics are used for much more than helping those at the GP surgery. Modern medicine would be unrecognisable without antibiotics - they are used to prevent bacterial infections to keep surgery and transplantation safe as well as for immunocompromised people who cannot fight infections themselves, such as cancer patients who are treated with chemotherapy or radiotherapy or patients with autoimmune diseases who take immunosuppressive dr...

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...

A few weeks ago,  I completed my last assessed piece of work before my final exams - a 10 minute presentation on my dissertation research, followed by 5-10 minutes of questions.  And as part of this session I also listened to 15 other students' presentations.  As someone who is fascinated by science communication, I was really excited to explore how to change  But it was hard work. M y main goal was to engage my audience of peers, making sure they could grasp my specific (and pretty niche) subject in just a few minutes. For me, by supporting all this information (which is new and possibly confusing to my audience) with a key story. Why this research means something - essentially why they should listen/care about what I was telling them.  But when I watched my peers, this story link was the key thing I thought was missing from all of their talks - why I should be listening? Why their piece of research helped to fill a gap in the knowledge we have in that fi...

With my final exams almost out the way, I've set myself a challenge this month - to kick start this blog by writing a new post every single day in June!  As I've mentioned many times before, I loved recording my research project with daily blog posts, but with my focus on the project, the content of this blog was quite limited. So this month I'd like to try out lots of different types of content and blog styles. Blogging is definitely something that had to take a back seat during exam time, but I've been so inspired by the twitter #scicomm community and I can't wait to get back to typing away here.  So look forward to more tales of my adventures from the lab bench, my thoughts on #scicomm, blogging and uni life, with a few book, TV and film reviews thrown in too!  Let me know in the comments below what your favourite type of science blog posts are to read. And I'd definitely recommend a browse through the #scicomm and other science tags on twitter - follow...

There is such a long list of things to do and topics to be excited about, hundreds of research papers to read... ...so why do I feel bored? As you've probably already gathered, I'm now deep in the pits of revision! With no more final assignments or dissertation presentations to complete, there is only one final hurdle of this degree left - finals. Amongst the healthy combination of stress and the happy buzz you get each time you cross something off your list, I also sometimes feel bored by revising. Which seems like such a strange feeling, given how much I love my subject! Now I'm at the end of my degree, I am so happy with my choice of course and university, I feel like a definitely chose the best next step for me. So why with a subject that excites and interested me so much, do I feel bored at the moment?! And I don't think its just me either, I've heard so many others in the library say the exact same "I'm so bored of revising". To start with,...