I have, for the most part, lived a charmed life in research. My labs have been located in the middle of the UK a country best known for its dull, grey weather which at worst is ‘a bit damp’ or ‘slightly warm’. Also, being in the middle means that by the time any mildly more …
When I was in school, I was often told that I had to practice essay writing because I’ll need to do it later in life. When I was about 10, it honestly sounded like the sort of thing your teachers tell you so that you’ll actually keep doing something that is clearly pointless. Up until …
No, they shouldn’t. Wow – this might be my shortest article yet. Good thing I’m not paid by the word… or at all. This question comes up a lot when I talk at universities, conferences and events, and as much as I’d like to stick to a glib reply I think my opinion deserves some explanation. Now, I’m …
This year you can go see me (Matthew) be irreverent about science, live! On the 22nd of August I will be performing a 1 hour show called “Fibre Optic Sensors Can Save The World” as part of the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas and the Edingburgh Fringe 2017. The Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas is a series of event organised by the Beltane …
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A little while ago I got a new laser system. It’s a very nice laser system and can laser in ways that are both exciting and lasery (yay, lasers!). When it arrived it had one thing that stood above everything else as something to be excited about – it came with a small, black, dedicated control box. …
Seminars are a critical part of the academic learning experience. Academic teaching essentially takes three forms: lectures, seminars, and one to one project supervision. Lectures are the dry boring things that students sleep through and surviving/getting something out of them is worth an entire guide in itself. One to one supervision is like a duck …
Research tends to breed/attract people who are very subject-focused. The nature of the job tends to push people into narrowing their expertise down to a very finely focused point. This is in someways unavoidable and in fact quite required to push the boundaries of your chosen researcher area, or at least understand the boundaries enough to …
My plan to head out for a fancy dinner and drink Austrian wine was an excellent one. Drinking as much Austrian wine as I did was excellent at the time but a whole bunch less excellent this morning. 06:40 – On the one hand changing my alarm form the birdsong to something more ‘alerting’ was …
As I wrote yesterday I had nothing planned for my evening and I enjoyed a very nice Spar bagel in my room while watching Netflix. I’m not going to lie, it was amazing! But that was my one relaxing day in the middle of EGU conference madness. 07:45 – I woke up this morning to a …
