Crystals And Catalysts

In today's favourites I will be listing my favourite twitter accounts to follow. Some of them are bloggers and some just lovers of science.  1 Sci Art #sciart : there's an MSc for that! Finished a BioSciences degree? Check out Bio Photo & Imaging @UniofNottingham http://t.co/rqRjVhRtLK — SciArt (@Sci_Art) March 26, 2015 2- RealTimeChem Kids, this is why you titrate BuLi: sometimes the concentration is half what it says on the bottle! #RealTimeChem pic.twitter.com/CFeIcbpwOx — Matthew Katcher (@katmatcher) May 28, 2015 3- Chemjobber @UnstableIsotope It's the thrill of potential serious injury that makes them want to understand the universe better. — Chemjobber (@Chemjobber) May 27, 2015 4- ASAP Science We all have fantasies... Even sharks. (via @elclimo ) pic.twitter.com/Cbmp5GR0pW — AsapSCIENCE (@AsapSCIENCE) May 28, 2015 5- Psy Post Hallucinations and delusions more common than thought http://t.co/kXe5mGyt2S pic

Even though Facebook pages can seem to be split into two groups — brands trying to advertise and people trying to socialize — there are other pages on Facebook that deserve some attention. The dedicated science pages. In fact, some of my favourite pages on Facebook are science blogs / magazines and pages that utilize the social media giant to spread the love of science and how majestic science can be. Whether they're making us laugh, enlightening us with the latest science news or teaching us new things, these five Facebook pages provide an excellent break from all those baby pictures and engagement announcements. Here's a list of my top 5 Science Facebook Pages... Chemistry World Compound Interest Fake Science I F****** Love Science Science Lovers Only What are your favourite science Facebook pages? Share them in the comments below. Images: Facebook

I have found that, no matter what the context, I will click on nearly any article with a type of experience in the title. I enjoy reading peoples different views in what they work in, if its working on their PhD or working in a company or their undergrad studies.  Maybe you’re an ordinary person, not a scientist, and you've just clicked here for some light lunchtime reading. But if you’re a scientist, perhaps you can relate  to my experiences in the laboratory.  If you personally know me you'll know that another hobby I have is cooking. I feel like the kitchen is like a laboratory except you make edible items. I think this is the basis for loving the laboratory, even if things go wrong its still a great place to work in. So here's a list of prominent things from my experience from working in a laboratory... 1. You don't know where time goes or what time it is... You can easily forget that time goes by in the lab. When I was working on my project I would be sho

A book I have read and has become of my favourite science books is Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre. It is a nonfiction book which has been translated into 25 languages. Although this is not a book to necessarily enjoy, it's to be read and receive the message that Goldacre intends to pass onto the reader. The book has a solemn tone but Goldacre is also able to maintain a good, conversational tone and keep the reader interested and intrigued to read more. Goldacre also gives all references to everything he states in Bad Pharma so the  reader knows where each piece of information he quotes came from.  Therefore the book and all it contains comes across as very reliable.  Bad Pharma is extremely detailed and gives a fascinating insight into the pharmaceutical industry. It's simple and easy to read, especially if you are interested in the pharmaceutical industry, and does not require any previous study of science or medicine in general. Goldacre does not make the book feel lik

Just as I love writing on my science blog, I also love reading other science blogs and seeing what science looks like through other peoples eyes.  Here's a small list of my favourite science blogs which I recommend you go and check out! Compound Interest The Chemical Blog Pictures from an Organic Chemistry Lab Just Like Cooking From the Lab bench IFL Science The Chronical Flask Chemistry Blog New Scientist Guardian Science SciCurious

Personally, I love instagram. Its great for sharing images be it in the lab or personal interests. Here's a list of my favourite science Instragram accounts, hope you like them and if there's someone I've missed out, comment below and tell me about them. 1- From the Lab Bench The account of Paige Brown Jarreau - She's recently completed a PhD in science communication and she blogs about science communication & her research. But Paige's instagram is filled with her beautiful photography such as this blue bird here. 2- PopSci This is the account of the popular science website: Popular Science, who post about the "latest science, tech and futuristic nerdery" 3- WIRED This is the account of the popular science blog: WIRED, who post about the science, technology and everything in between. 4- CellPress This account goes by the saying "Science is Art" and their instagrm is full of colourful images, such as this one of ne

What is a scientist doing inside an art gallery? 🔻English translation below🔻 ماذا يفعل العالم داخل معرض فني؟

This weeks #SOTW is  Elsie Widdowson CBE CH FRS . The well-known British chemist and dietitian. Famous for her research on food composition tables and setting the limits of dietary intake of food, vitamins & minerals in World War 1. Biography  Elsie was born in Surrey, United Kingdom. Her schooldays were spent in south east London where her favourite subject was Zoology. But she had a dedicated chemistry teacher how encouraged her to study chemistry at university instead.   Elsie studied chemistry at Imperial College London and graduated in 1928. She was one of the first females to graduate with a Bachelors of Science from Imperial College (there were only 3 women in her year of a group of 100 students). Elsie took her final exam after only 2 years of studying however had to continue at university for another year before her degree was awarded. In her final year, she spent time in the biochemistry lab presided over by Prof. Sammy Schyver.   Elsie received an offer fo

Some #sciart in light of the #NYCBlizzard RT @TomKierein : Another frozen bubble pic by Candice Trimble pic.twitter.com/PTvlOgxblf — SciArt (@Sci_Art) January 27, 2015 #SciArt leaf prints with linocut organic molecules responsible for their colours http://t.co/H57dew88bN #printmaking pic.twitter.com/MjdJqDI6if — Ele Willoughby (@minouette) March 7, 2015 Trending now on #Biocanvas - titanium carbonide crystals http://t.co/L6eGLD9GqT #chemistry #sciart #microscope pic.twitter.com/LezUa1s2p6 — Biocanvas (@biocanvas) December 7, 2014 Amazing Photographs Of Drugs Under The Microscope http://t.co/Z6GzxQNRlr #microscopy #sciart — GE Life Sciences (@GECellBiology) July 15, 2014 Crystals vibrating to hue of Love. -CB " #art @CRoullardArt #MicroCrystal my piece "Crystal Rock Garden" #SciArt pic.twitter.com/7nijCfNm9i " — Carl Barbarotto (@Carlolight) April 22, 2015 The infectious beauty of salt transforming metal. S

There is a huge difference between finding out that your favourite author uses a ghostwriter to write their novels and finding out that the pharmaceutical industry uses ghostwriters for the majority of their scientific content. Who are the medical ghostwriters? These writers aren’t called ghostwriters; they have a more professional name: medical writers. They are anyone with a science background (which doesn’t have to be a background in the therapy areas the agency is working on) and most likely a PhD.  Medical writers work in agencies and these agencies are employed by pharmaceutical companies to help them with the approval and the promotion of new therapies coming to the drug market by providing advice and the preparation of various scientific materials such as slide decks and publications for scientific journals. This is where the problem arises, a medical writer can write publications but will not have their name published on it, and instead, the name of the

With Christmas being next week everyone will be buying their groceries for Christmas dinner, and Brussels sprouts are bound to be on some of your shopping lists - but they may not be your kids favourite veggies and here's why... Scientists have published new research in the  open access journal  BMC Neuroscience . They've compared how domestic cats and humans  perceive bitterness in food at a molecular level, and could explain why cats and children are sometimes such picky eaters. It's thought that the ability to  detect bitter chemicals is thought to have evolved because of its utility in avoiding toxic compounds often found in plants.  Cats are carnivores by nature so they don't consume a lot of plant-derived products; domestic cats, though, still come across bitter flavours in foods and medicines.  The researchers at AFB International and Integral Molecular studied the behavior of two different cat bitter taste receptors in cell-based experiments, inv

If you love both science and art, Twitter was a wonderful place to be last March. #SciArt week, which officially ran from March 1st through the 7th, was initiated by  Symbiartic bloggers Glendon Mellow, Kalliopi Monoyios and Katie McKissick, who  encouraged  science artists of all types of backgrounds to come together and tweet their work to the world.  The product was a storm of  scientific illustrations, paintings, sculptures and animations, that  the Internet had never seen before.  Their original goal was to get a total of 1600 #SciArt tweets a day but within the first 24 hours they managed to reach 4000 tweets of scientific illustrations and paintings and other artworks. SciArt is a great way of representing science using art and photography. It also shows how beautiful science can be and encourage the love of science through art. Although  #SciArt is overloaded with biology related artworks it needs more chemistry artworks. This could be due to the lack of popularity of

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." - Marie Curie  I personally love this quote because it encourages everyone to learn. Just because you've stopped studying doesn't mean you should stop learning. You can learn new things in different ways, and the more you learn the more you understand the world around you.  I see science communication as a means of getting people who may not know a lot about science to understand it more.  Science communication is a great way to communicate science with everyone with the latest advances of science and also a way of diminishing any myths or misunderstandings people may have about science and health.  << Click here to find out more about Marie Curie >>

I've been thinking about what would make a really good 200th blog post for the past couple of weeks when I came across my blog analytics and the things that you search for in Google that lead you to my humble corner of the internet. So, let's go, I'm going to answer all of your questions in detail. Let’s start with your most favourite question: Lemon crystals are a crystallized form of lemon juice , which is used in cooking and food preparation to give a citrusy, tart and sour taste to whatever you're making and can also be used to create lemon juice or lemonade.

Whilst I was preparing a new blog post, I decided to take a break on Facebook (that’s just my way of glorifying procrastination- LOL) and I saw this post –  I'm  not going to say by who – and it was from a blog claiming to give the truth about cancer and how a certain type of chemical in food causes obesity and “excites the brain to death”.  If you know me personally, or if you realised this through my posts, I absolutely HATE scaremongering and I hate using that technique of writing in my blog.  They even use this technique to scare people into not taking protective measures against possible deadly diseases -  i.e . anti-vaxxers.  If you want to explain something, explain it without using excessive comparisons in order to scare people. Fear  isn't  the right way to explain science. There are bloggers out there that fill their blogs with pseudoscience; they are self-proclaimed experts in their chosen field, especially after  they've  graduated from Google Univer

There are loads of tips on how to go about science blogging all over the internet. A simple Google search will lead you to so many different pages. After reading hundreds of pages about science writing & blogging (before I even started writing Crystals & Catalysts)  I have come up with a list that covers the top tips of science blogging: Number One: Don't Start  a blog until you have aimed and completed writing over 10 posts, and making sure that this is not just a phase and you will be able to keep on writing on your blog. Number Two: Read, Read and read again. Go through scientific journals, other science blogs and read as much as you can. The more you read the more you learn. Number Three: Choose your blog name carefully as it will become like your "brand name". You could choose to write under your name publicly or under a pseudonym.  Number Four: Pick a blog host for the blog you want to start ... Such as Wordpress / Blogger