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Meet the Scientist – Dr Jaclyn Bell

October 8, 2018June 17, 2019

Meet the Scientist- Melanie Jackson

July 12, 2018June 17, 2019

Meet the Scientist- Kathryn De Abreu

June 20, 2018June 17, 2019

Real science vs movie science

June 8, 2018June 14, 2019

Skincare secrets

May 25, 2018November 28, 2018

The truth about hay fever

May 17, 2018November 28, 2018

Meet the Scientist- Kirsten Hawkins

May 10, 2018June 17, 2019

How do Plants know when to flower?

April 24, 2018November 28, 2018

Turning a bad day round

April 12, 2018November 28, 2018

Natures Medicine Box

April 6, 2018June 14, 2019

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🌾Mamma scientist looking lovingly at her babies!! - - Its fridayyyyy so it's time I get myself ready for some new experiments! This afternoon I have been popping a load of wheat grain onto some plates. The plates contain some filter paper which has been wetted with a mix of water and some gibberelic acid. - 🌱 Gibberelic acid is a plant hormone which works to promote plant growth. - 🌱 The plates containing grain will be put into the cold room over the weekend, which is kept at a chilly 4 degrees. This helps to promote a process called stratification. - 🌱 Seed stratification is the process where dormancy is broken to promote germination - this mimics the conditions the seed would be exposed to in nature before germination. - 🌱 It also helps all the seeds to germinate at the same timepoint rather than at different rates (as you could see in the garden). - 🌱 After the weekend I will move the grains to the lab workbench for them to begin sprouting, and then they will be sewn out into soil! From there I can genotype (check the genes of the plant) when they are about 3 weeks old. Plants which have the desired genotype will be grown on to maturity (about 3 months)! - - - #plantscience #postdoc #postdoclife #academia #instascience #womeninstemm #plantbiology #scicomm #biology #science
Having a WILD saturday night! 🤣 • • This week has been hard, my brain has been doing its best to keep me busy with all the thoughts all of the time and just... 🙄 - - - Sometimes instagram and other social media can make you feel like you are missing out (even if you actually want and need to spend time doing nothing), so here is me celebrating a much needed night in with music, pimms and a jigsaw!! 😂 p.s my pimms looks odd cos its 'not real' pimms and I bought cloudy rather than normal lemonade 😅 - - Hope you all have a great Saturday night wherever you are and whatever you are doing 💕 - - - - - #saturdaynightfun #postdoc #scientistsofinstagram #scientistonweekend #mentalhealth #wellbeing #timetochill #saturdaynightin
Easing myself into the week with some 🔬 - - Cheesy grin in bad light to show my love for my newest set of microscopy images! Swipe 👉 to see the **magnificent** images 😍 - For all you non-starch nerds out there, in the right image you can see lots of round shapes with crosses in the centre. The big spheres are A-type starch granules and the small ones are B-type granules. These have been extracted from wheat grain 🌾. - The crosses in the centre of the spheres are called Maltese crosses, these are only seen under a particular type of light called polariser light. Maltese crosses are caused by the highly ordered way that starch granules are made. - If you were to take some starch which has been disrupted, like some heated starch for example, you would either see no maltese cross,vor a highly irregular cross showing that the structure of the starch granule has been disrupted. - Using this technique we can look at the internal structure of starch, and combining with all the other data we are beginning to get, can truly start to understand what happens to starch granule formation if elements are disrupted! Pretty neat huh?! - - What have you guys been up to this Monday? My week is looking to be pretty hectic... a lot of planning will be needed to balance my to do list! - - - - - #scientistsofinstagram #scientistswhoselfie #microscopy #plantscience #plants #biology #Postdoclife #academia #scicomm #science #instascience #sciblogger
Itsa hotttttt ☀️🌡 - In Norwich it has just reached the balmy heights of 32 degrees 😳 This is not normal English weather!!! Our poor cities are not made for this, and it is even more a shock to the system when it was just 20 degrees like... saturday! - Luckily the lab air con is holding up, and we have a cold room we can go stand in if it gets too unbearable! 😂 The write up room however... no aircon, but slightly cooler than the corridors due to open door to lab letting in some cooler air!! - Its certainly giving me flash backs to similar hot days last year trying to write up! - Our lab was meant to be going to the broads on a boat, but we made an executive decision that maybe sitting on plastic, on a humid day with the only sun shelter being plastic may not be the best... so we are instead going for a lab picnic in a nearby park where we can sit in the shade! - - Hope all you other english scientists are holding up ok! Seek out the aircon and cold rooms and plan to perform all experiments there! - - - - - - - #englishsummer #labsummer #englishheatwave #cantdealwiththeheat #idontdoheat #atleastwehaveaircon #lablife #science #academia #postgradlife #biology
👩‍🎓 you can call me Dr Hawkins now 💁🏻‍♀️ - At age 17 I was told to reconsider what I wanted to do at Uni as my grades probably wouldn't be good enough. - At age 18 I didn't get into Uni and made the decision to resit the second year of my A-levels. - At age 22 I graduated, unsure of what I wanted to do. I nearly didn't go back to university. - At age 23 I did my masters, and there I met the best people and had the most supportive community ❤ I was convinced to try for a PhD. - At 24 I started my PhD, and yesterday I graduated! - Thank you so much to all of you who supported me along the way, who made me believe in myself, made me push myself and helped me through my dark patches. To all the friends I made along the way, and the amazing people I have met 💕 - This PhD has been the best thing I have ever done, and I wouldn't change the last 4 years for the world- depsite the difficulties I have had along the way, the trials and tribulations, the setbacks and the real lows. - I had the best time celebrating with my cohort, my other graduating lab members (all 4 of us graduated yesterday!) My friends, family, colleagues and supervisor💕 I loved seeing all of us dressed up in our finery (mushroom cap and all!) and celebrating the amazingness we have achieved! I am so proud of us all!! Extra-thank you everyone so much for all your kind words of congratulations!! 😚 - - - - - #graduation #ueagrad2019 #postgrad #phddone #imadrnow #doctor #nothatkindofdoctor #theotherkindofdoctor #nevergiveup #phdchat #celebrations #UEA #JohnInnesCentre #UEABIO2019
*** NEW BLOG POST*** - These 2 pictures were taken at my previous graduations, on the left is me graduating from my bachelors and on the right from my masters. - On both of these occasions my anxiety very nearly got the better of me. In this weeks post I decided to write truthfully about my experiences of my previous graduations and how my anxiety impacted my celebrations. (Read more via link in bio) - This is to show how even on the most exciting of occasions anxiety can sometimes come for you. I wanted to share my experience and what I have learnt since then, and some of things I would maybe do differently- like not care if I just wanted to celebrate with family, or not worry about tripping over my robes and to talk about my worries with friends and family. - My PhD graduation is next week, and this time I am focussing on me! Its a celebration of my achievements and how far I have come since here! I am going to enjoy my moment and flounce around in my robe and not think about my previous experiences as thats in the past. - To anyone worried about graduation- I recommend you talk about your concerns, do what makes you happy and celebrate all your achievements! - - - - - #mentalhealthchat #anxiety #realtalk #mentalhealth #graduation #anxietywarrior #thisgirlcan #academia #sciblogger #blogger #postgrad

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🌾Mamma scientist looking lovingly at her babies!! - - Its fridayyyyy so it's time I get myself ready for some new experiments! This afternoon I have been popping a load of wheat grain onto some plates. The plates contain some filter paper which has been wetted with a mix of water and some gibberelic acid. - 🌱 Gibberelic acid is a plant hormone which works to promote plant growth. - 🌱 The plates containing grain will be put into the cold room over the weekend, which is kept at a chilly 4 degrees. This helps to promote a process called stratification. - 🌱 Seed stratification is the process where dormancy is broken to promote germination - this mimics the conditions the seed would be exposed to in nature before germination. - 🌱 It also helps all the seeds to germinate at the same timepoint rather than at different rates (as you could see in the garden). - 🌱 After the weekend I will move the grains to the lab workbench for them to begin sprouting, and then they will be sewn out into soil! From there I can genotype (check the genes of the plant) when they are about 3 weeks old. Plants which have the desired genotype will be grown on to maturity (about 3 months)! - - - #plantscience #postdoc #postdoclife #academia #instascience #womeninstemm #plantbiology #scicomm #biology #science
Having a WILD saturday night! 🤣 • • This week has been hard, my brain has been doing its best to keep me busy with all the thoughts all of the time and just... 🙄 - - - Sometimes instagram and other social media can make you feel like you are missing out (even if you actually want and need to spend time doing nothing), so here is me celebrating a much needed night in with music, pimms and a jigsaw!! 😂 p.s my pimms looks odd cos its 'not real' pimms and I bought cloudy rather than normal lemonade 😅 - - Hope you all have a great Saturday night wherever you are and whatever you are doing 💕 - - - - - #saturdaynightfun #postdoc #scientistsofinstagram #scientistonweekend #mentalhealth #wellbeing #timetochill #saturdaynightin
Easing myself into the week with some 🔬 - - Cheesy grin in bad light to show my love for my newest set of microscopy images! Swipe 👉 to see the **magnificent** images 😍 - For all you non-starch nerds out there, in the right image you can see lots of round shapes with crosses in the centre. The big spheres are A-type starch granules and the small ones are B-type granules. These have been extracted from wheat grain 🌾. - The crosses in the centre of the spheres are called Maltese crosses, these are only seen under a particular type of light called polariser light. Maltese crosses are caused by the highly ordered way that starch granules are made. - If you were to take some starch which has been disrupted, like some heated starch for example, you would either see no maltese cross,vor a highly irregular cross showing that the structure of the starch granule has been disrupted. - Using this technique we can look at the internal structure of starch, and combining with all the other data we are beginning to get, can truly start to understand what happens to starch granule formation if elements are disrupted! Pretty neat huh?! - - What have you guys been up to this Monday? My week is looking to be pretty hectic... a lot of planning will be needed to balance my to do list! - - - - - #scientistsofinstagram #scientistswhoselfie #microscopy #plantscience #plants #biology #Postdoclife #academia #scicomm #science #instascience #sciblogger
Itsa hotttttt ☀️🌡 - In Norwich it has just reached the balmy heights of 32 degrees 😳 This is not normal English weather!!! Our poor cities are not made for this, and it is even more a shock to the system when it was just 20 degrees like... saturday! - Luckily the lab air con is holding up, and we have a cold room we can go stand in if it gets too unbearable! 😂 The write up room however... no aircon, but slightly cooler than the corridors due to open door to lab letting in some cooler air!! - Its certainly giving me flash backs to similar hot days last year trying to write up! - Our lab was meant to be going to the broads on a boat, but we made an executive decision that maybe sitting on plastic, on a humid day with the only sun shelter being plastic may not be the best... so we are instead going for a lab picnic in a nearby park where we can sit in the shade! - - Hope all you other english scientists are holding up ok! Seek out the aircon and cold rooms and plan to perform all experiments there! - - - - - - - #englishsummer #labsummer #englishheatwave #cantdealwiththeheat #idontdoheat #atleastwehaveaircon #lablife #science #academia #postgradlife #biology
👩‍🎓 you can call me Dr Hawkins now 💁🏻‍♀️ - At age 17 I was told to reconsider what I wanted to do at Uni as my grades probably wouldn't be good enough. - At age 18 I didn't get into Uni and made the decision to resit the second year of my A-levels. - At age 22 I graduated, unsure of what I wanted to do. I nearly didn't go back to university. - At age 23 I did my masters, and there I met the best people and had the most supportive community ❤ I was convinced to try for a PhD. - At 24 I started my PhD, and yesterday I graduated! - Thank you so much to all of you who supported me along the way, who made me believe in myself, made me push myself and helped me through my dark patches. To all the friends I made along the way, and the amazing people I have met 💕 - This PhD has been the best thing I have ever done, and I wouldn't change the last 4 years for the world- depsite the difficulties I have had along the way, the trials and tribulations, the setbacks and the real lows. - I had the best time celebrating with my cohort, my other graduating lab members (all 4 of us graduated yesterday!) My friends, family, colleagues and supervisor💕 I loved seeing all of us dressed up in our finery (mushroom cap and all!) and celebrating the amazingness we have achieved! I am so proud of us all!! Extra-thank you everyone so much for all your kind words of congratulations!! 😚 - - - - - #graduation #ueagrad2019 #postgrad #phddone #imadrnow #doctor #nothatkindofdoctor #theotherkindofdoctor #nevergiveup #phdchat #celebrations #UEA #JohnInnesCentre #UEABIO2019
*** NEW BLOG POST*** - These 2 pictures were taken at my previous graduations, on the left is me graduating from my bachelors and on the right from my masters. - On both of these occasions my anxiety very nearly got the better of me. In this weeks post I decided to write truthfully about my experiences of my previous graduations and how my anxiety impacted my celebrations. (Read more via link in bio) - This is to show how even on the most exciting of occasions anxiety can sometimes come for you. I wanted to share my experience and what I have learnt since then, and some of things I would maybe do differently- like not care if I just wanted to celebrate with family, or not worry about tripping over my robes and to talk about my worries with friends and family. - My PhD graduation is next week, and this time I am focussing on me! Its a celebration of my achievements and how far I have come since here! I am going to enjoy my moment and flounce around in my robe and not think about my previous experiences as thats in the past. - To anyone worried about graduation- I recommend you talk about your concerns, do what makes you happy and celebrate all your achievements! - - - - - #mentalhealthchat #anxiety #realtalk #mentalhealth #graduation #anxietywarrior #thisgirlcan #academia #sciblogger #blogger #postgrad
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