SoreThumbThinking #4 - The Scientist

Re-blog

I've always wondered if being a scientist isn't closer to being an artist than most people think! What I mean is that we have to be incredibly creative in our experimental designs and particularly imaginative when we analyse data and need to find a meaning out of black and white lines!

I’ve always found that scientists despite their geekiness and nerdy looks could be super creative. When I was one of them (actually, I still am a scientist, it’s a way of life really…), I would see countless videos of fellow scientists parodying songs to depict the true life of lab researchers.

But of course, this goes completely against what we all know, which is that the left brain is the analytical, practical, organised and logical (i.e. Science) side; and the creative, passionate, arty part sits on the right side of the brain.

How do we then explain why scientists spend hours and hours pouring their hearts out and losing their minds over scientific enigmas if there is no passion and poetic craziness involved?

Although there is some truth to the left brain/right brain distinction, there is undeniably a more complex relationship between both sides of our brain.

(If you have time to watch it, this is a very interesting video… and his voice is very addictive!) 
 
For example, on the neuroscience of creativity, latest findings by neuroscientists have now shown that the entire creative process – from preparation to incubation to illumination to verification – consists of many interacting cognitive processes (both conscious and unconscious) and emotions.

Depending on the stage of the creative process, and what you’re actually attempting to create, different brain regions from both the right and the left side are recruited in large-scale networks to handle the task.

So if we accept that science is not just the left side of the brain and can be interlinked with the artistic potential of an individual, could it be considered as a mean for influential creativity?
From my own definition: “Influential creativity is about connecting with an audience on a personal, emotional or practical level; it is about understanding their lives, getting comfortable with them and letting them know that you are there to make them feel better, or be better, or make them question themselves by providing them with an emotion, an ideal, a service, or a product.“
I do think you could apply this definition to the concept of science by saying: “Science is about connecting on a practical level, understanding lives, and it is there to make us question ourselves by providing us with both emotions and product i.e. knowledge.”
What do you think? Is it too farfetched?

Influential Creativity

 What influential creativity means to me

Last month, I bought a set of plastic cups for my toddler to drink from a glass. However, my son found that plastic cups could be used in a wide variety of ways other than their primary destination; such as for example stacking them, or throwing them on the floor. To me, using influential creativity in the advertising world is not a dissimilar process.

Your target audience can either accept the information and drink your every word, or accept it without processing it, or he can refute the information. That’s when the danger of losing the attention arises.

Influential creativity is about choosing the right vector to convey your message:

Music is a big influence in my life; from the beat to the lyrics, I feel and love songs for different reasons. Some songs are more influential than others, either to me, you or to the world. One of my favourite songs of all time starts with the lyrics “Mama, I just killed a man, put a gun against his head, pulled the trigger now he’s dead”. I don’t like this song because of its lyrics, and I doubt anyone does. This song has had a massive impact on, not only a whole generation of musicians, but also on the general public. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is the song that has been recognized so many times as the best song of the past few decades for its sheer craziness and arrangement, which influenced the evolution of music.  Another song, also one of the best of all times, but with dramatically different lyrics is “Imagine all the people living life in peace”. “Imagine” makes you stop and think about what the world would be if we stopped focusing on borders, religions, and material possessions. John Lennon‘s song appeals to people because we all want to live in peace, it’s an ideal.

From the advertising world, we can also encounter dramatically opposite messages that would still both appeal to anyone in this day and age. The Coca cola advert on the “Social Media Guard” and the EE’s Kevin Beacon “It’s a no Brainer” advert couldn’t be more different. Kevin Beacon promotes the possibility of accessing the same internet network whatever device each family member uses, whereas Coca-cola promotes bringing people together by guarding family members from social media. Somehow, both appeal to everyone because although we all need a reliable internet broadband, we want to respect traditional values.

Last week, I was invited to an art installation called I am not the Cancer. It was about combining art and information on advanced breast cancer. The art installation consisted of 6 TV screens showing face and back of the head of 3 silent patients suffering from advanced breast cancer. Opposite each TV screen was a comfortable armchair; and above each armchair was a speaker from which you could hear their devastating story. So to hear their story, you had no choice but to sit in this armchair and look in the eyes of this silent patient on the TV screen (not a comfortable thing to do). The point of this art installation was to make you realise that, however uncomfortable it is, that’s how we should support friends and family as opposed to using escapism as a coping method. This art installation was created to make you feel differently; like John Lennon’s song, to question yourself in order to make you behave differently.

Influential creativity is all around us, from everything we see, everything we hear, which ultimately leads to how we feel and behave. How we use creativity to influence our surrounding through music, art or advertising is about connecting with an audience on a personal, emotional or practical level. It is about understanding their lives, getting comfortable with them and letting them know that you are here to make them feel better, or be better, or make them question themselves by providing them with an emotion, an ideal, a service, or a product.

As a science blogger of Science is So Sexy, I use influential creativity to connect with my readers, the tone is light - I don’t write the same way I used to when I wrote academic presentations and my thesis for example - and I assume a Sexy persona in order to feed scientific information to my readers without them using the usual escapism method that most people employ when hearing the word Science. I know who my readers are, what they expect when they come by my blog and what I can do to retain their attention. The best blogging tip you will always find on any blogging blog, is “amazing content”. But once you have your amazing content, you have to dress it up using the right fashion tools so people will want to read and see more. 

Last but not least, I cannot forget that I am a job applicant trying to convince you to offer me a job in your company. Job interviews are also all about influential creativity: how do I answer competences questions such as where do you see yourself in 5 years or what is your biggest weakness without sounding boring and common. I am the product and services. What are your needs? How can I fill those needs? Using my personal and professional experiences, we want to make sure we fit together and we can build the best team.

Like the cups, I need to make you drink my every word, I can’t be on the pile of boring candidates and I certainly don’t want you to throw away my application. If I managed however to retain your attention and make you want to see more of me, that’s also what influential creativity means to me!

Home made moisturizer

Being a chemist and seeing recipes for home made moisturizers, I was bound to cave in and make up my own!
There are a few online, I think for me the easiest was from a Hubpage so I kind of followed that one! It was fairly easy!
So here is how I did: 

Ingredients
1 tablespoon of beeswax 
1/4 cup of oil (~63mL)
1/3 cup herbal tea (~83mL)
A few drops of lavender essence
1 capsule of grapeseed extract 

I went to a Nature shop and bought some Grapeseed oil (the cheapest!) but quite frankly I could have used my kitchen's olive oil. 
I also bought some lavender essence, simply because it was the cheapest and I love the lavender scent. 
I then bought some beeswax pellets on Amazon because that shop didn't have any but any nature shop should have Beeswax, it's kind of a basic ingredient for cream!
I used some decaf green tea as my herbal tea ingredient.
The capsule of grapeseed extract is basically a "vitamin" you can buy at any good vitamin shop! Mine was from Holland and Barrett! 

I created a double boil whereby I placed a bowl containing the oil and beeswax, on a sieve placed on top of a pot, kind of like this except that here the mixing boil is directly on top of the pot:

Once the Beeswax was well melted into the oil, I let it cool down on the side for 2 minutes. Needless to say, be very careful not to burn yourself, we're playing with hot oil!!!!!!

Then I drizzled it into the tea while whisking vigorously so the oil mix droplets can disperse equally amongst the tea water molecules! (use your mixer/liquidizer?)

The mix will turn into a creamy whitish spread. Chemically speaking, it's called an emulsion (like a mayonnaise).

I added a few drops of lavender scent for a nice smell and a capsule of grapeseed extract for preservation - although it's only an antioxidant and not anit-microbial agent!

I sterilised a baby bottle I haven't got any use for anymore, spooned the mix in there. I left it in the fridge to make sure it will stay bug-free as long as possible but we're only talking a good 2 months!

When I wanna use it, I make sure I wash my hands first before dipping into the mix so I don't introduce any nasties!

The result is quite pleasant, the cream is a bit moussey which is nice, slightly sticky on the spread but all absorbed and not sticky any more after a few minutes!

I like it ;)  

Things are getting ready...

Well, 9 months is NOT a long time at all!!
Of course if you consider that by the time you realise you're pregnant, you're already at week 4 to 5!
At this point of writing I have 5+ weeks left to go!! So of course I'm in full speed to prepare everything!
How to dress, feed, clean, make your baby sleep are all steps being underway!! Classes are booked, next check up scan booked, midwifes appointments taking place for the "administration" bit but also, nursery corner being prepared...

To have time to prepare mentally and physically, I was lucky enough to have my contract ending last Friday 3rd August (well, actually 17th but for HR purposes, my last day was 3rd). That was weird enough! Every day, I would do one single experiment and think OMG this might be my last of that kind EVER! Indeed, as I don't know what kind of job I will be doing once I've nursed my baby for 9 months, and as I don't think science research would be a good next move, I need to find my new career path!
For that future plan, I'm hoping to be able to work on my blog Science is So Sexy a maximum of time and  use it as a basis for my future beautiful CV!!
When I was younger, my mum used to take picture of my brother and myself on each first day of school, so it was only fitting that for my last day of work before a very long break, I should take a pix of myself.

Although I don't know what the future holds, I will never ever in my life be so long without either studying or working. Technically I can stay out of job for 10 months, I'm sure I could do more but I will see how I feel of course, maybe I will miss work, maybe work somewhere will look for me...

My 5-year plan...

As I'm entering a new chapter in my life that is going to be considerably different from the others, I have decided that it deserved a new blog!!!

The life of my yet-unborn child will have his own diary, starting with pregnancy!!!

It is written in French as it is primarily for family and friends overseas, but there is a Google translation tool!!! Translation is very funny sometimes - very interesting!!!

BLOG ADDRESS

As I was thinking about what I have achieved in my life, I realised that my life seems to be written in chapters of 4 to 6 years!!!:

85-91 Primary school

91-97 Secondary school

97-02 University

02-06 New life in London and PhD

07-12 Professional life and beginning of love story with PF

12-...  Newly parents

It is funny how at interviews you always have that question "Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?"

I've never been able to answer this question because quite frankly my luck in love has been more than disastrous, and professionally, science is such an unstable career path, you never know when your next job will be!!! 

But now, I actually know what I'm gonna do!!!:

1. Have a baby!! ah ah if all goes well he's on his way...

2. Find a new career from March 2013 (don't know what though but ideally something to do with science communication!) that will pay a nice mortgage, my bills! To achieve this:

2a. Write write write for my blog Science is So Sexy

2b. Read read read everything to do with medical writing 

2c. Take editing course

3. Buy a cheap ready-to-move-in 3-bedroom house in my area for a move in October 2013 at the latest - and organise move of PF mum's furniture from Belgium!

4. Get married somewhere sometime in 2014 - maybe twice: in Belgium for family and in London for friends. Or in London for immediate family/friends and an exotic island for us+best friends

5. Make another baby around 2016

Admittedly 2. and 3. are gonna be the hardest ones!! But I am so hopeful I can get a nice job!!!  Once job is in the pocket, 3. should be a matter of chance more than real work!!!

Ok, time to get back to actual work!!! ;)

The Mystery behind your eyes...

Is the title of my newest post on my sister site Science is So Sexy.
Please do come along and leave me beautiful sexy comments, I love them, they are always interesting...
Here is an excerpt:

Iris colour is a highly complex phenomenon consisting of the combined effects of texture, pigmentation, density within the iris stroma, and the scattering of light in the stroma. 
Only Melanin, a yellowish-brown to dark brown pigment exists in the stroma. 
This pigment lies in a thin but very opaque layer across the back of the iris. 
Neither blue nor green pigments are ever present in the iris! 
So it all depends on the lighting conditions and all the other components beside the stroma and how lights reflects/scatters and is absorbed on them - Especially if you have lighter-colored eyes, since there is no melanin pigments to enter this equation. 
Now that we know this, we can understand better why some babies, usually Caucasian ones, are born blue-eyed:
Read more

Book review #4 - Confessions of a GP

Title: Confessions of a GP

Author: Dr Daniels (pseudo)

Publisher: The Friday Project

ISBN: 978-1906321888

Synopsis: 

Benjamin Daniels is angry. He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions. A woman troubled by pornographic dreams about Tom Jones. An 80-year-old man who can't remember why he's come to see the doctor. A woman with a common cold demanding (but not receiving) antibiotics. A man with a sore knee. A young woman who has been trying to conceive for a while but now finds herself pregnant and isn't sure she wants to go through with it. A 7-year-old boy with 'tummy aches' that don't really exist. These are his patients. Confessions of a GP is a witty insight into the life of a family doctor. Funny and moving in equal measure it will change the way you look at your GP next time you pop in with the sniffles. 

Science Is So Sexy

After going to a Science Career fair, I decided that I should do something about the fact that I love science communication. But it really doesn't matter to say it, I had to do something about it! 

Since I started this blog here, I discovered a whole new community who could really help me in achieving my new project, a blog on science! 

I chose the title Science is So Sexy because the first thought that cross people's mind when the word Science is pronounced is Geek, or Nerd, and the first image is one of a goggled person in a lab coat.

And although it is true that we work in lab coats...

We're not all geeks and nerds.

Look at this beautiful picture of my friends and I 

Do we look like Nerds? lol

What's in that blog?

It's a collection of interesting science press releases explained with normal words that I find need to be interpreted the right way, such as "Cannabis may help Post Traumatic Stress disorder". Or it might be questions that I get from friends or followers about things they want to know such as "Why do we cry when we cut onions?"

There is a dedicated chat box on the right hand side of the page (such as this one here) where you can add your questions and queries.

So please Hop to that one too - ScienceSoSexy.blogspot.com - and follow me, ask your questions, check out my first posts to see if you can find something interesting for you, THANK YOU!!!