The average Earth Science PhD student

Guest post from Charly Stamper, third year PhD student. In her own words, "I'm an experimental petrologist which means that I make pretend volcanoes, and occasionally play with real ones." Originally posted from our (non-Bristol University affiliated) blog 'Between a rock and a hard place'.

Just who are the mysterious creatures who spend their days tucked away in the Wills Memorial Building, beavering away at their computers and in underground labs? I set out to find out the answer to this question using a rigorous and unbiased scientific survey*.

Is this what the average geologist looks like?

There are currently about 75 PhD students in the University of Bristol Earth Sciences department. Most of them are aged between 22-29 (with some minor but valuable contributions from the older demographics!), so thankfully have no experience of the real working world and strange concepts such as "deadlines" and "budgets" that would hinder the groundbreaking research they do. Pretty much all the students have a geology undergraduate degree, though a few exceptions to the rule are the odd mathematician and physicist (the majority of the cohort view them with suspicion because they actually understand things like calculus and statistics).

Surprisingly, most people who completed the poll described their average working day as 9-10 to 5-6...for some reason I was under the impression that PhD students didn't follow the same reference frame as the rest of the working world. For some people, eight hours of work is clearly a struggle, with 35 % of respondents needing 3-4 caffeinated drinks just to make it to the end of the day. It also seems like the student budgeting is a hard habit to kick: 55 % of people make their own lunches, with Boulangerie the clear runner-up.

So does that equal healthy work-life balance, or are students consumed by their PhDs? Encouragingly, when asked to list "two to three hobbies", the responses were wide and varied:

Good god people, on this evidence Earth Science PhD students might be NORMAL; however, my favourite answer came from an anonymous participant who was clearly having a bad day:

"[My hobbies are]...Mooching, trying not to think about my PhD, drowning PhD-related sorrows in the pub. (There is no 'away from the PhD')."

A quarter of of PhD students surveyed said they had no idea what they wanted to do with their lives to do after graduating. For those that did express a preference, the overwhelming response was the desire to continue in academia; other career options being considered were oil, gas, mining, consultancy and baking.

Finally, asked to rate themselves for attractiveness between 0 and 10, the overwhelming response was a solid 7 (and you can add on at least 1 for a good fieldwork tan).

Notwithstanding all of the survey answers, perhaps the most revealing aspect of the poll was that 50% of responses were completed within the first ten minutes, definitely doing nothing to dispel the myth that PhD students just sit at their desks hoping to be distracted by some form of procrastination.

*Survey was unscientific and probably biased.

The most amazing volcano video ever?

Putting a volcano on front of a science magazine is a sure fire way to grab attention, especially mine as a geophysicist/volcanologist. Whist waiting for a train in Cambridge recently I bought the BBC’s Focus magazine. I got it without hesitating or even leafing through the pages purely because I saw a thumb sized image of an erupting volcano on the front cover. Simply, I was sold.

Geoff Mackley descending into Marum volcano, Vanatu. www.geoffmackley.com

New Science Faculty Videos

Check out these 3 wonderful new films on the Faculty of Science website, a really fascinating look behind the scenes at what it means to do science. As the web page says:

Researchers working on everything from theoretical chemistry, to geology, to psychology, discuss what it means to be a scientist in the 21st century, and what it takes to survive the emotional rollercoaster that sees them tackle frustration and failure before critical acclaim.

Here's a taster, entitled "Quantum collision: A Meeting of Science, Art, Dance and Music" - a beautiful and thought-provoking film:



There are also lots of profiles of the scientists who were interviewed in the films on the website. Says Aliya Mughal, part of the team who made the films:

In a nutshell, the films explore some of the perennial issues in science – the role and responsibility of science and scientists in how their discoveries are used; how scientists feel about the role they play (or not) in influencing policy when it comes to issues such as climate change, global poverty, etc; how much of science is about progress and impact and how much is about pure curiosity. That’s the first film. The second explores the idea of failure and how scientists deal with frustration and mistakes, what gives them the resolve and determination to continue, basically what it takes to succeed in science when you are continually reminded of how much you don’t know versus how much you do.

The film above focuses on danceroom spectroscopy (dS) –  spearheaded by Dave Glowacki, a science-meets-art interactive installation that brings the atomic world to life and seeks to encourage non-scientists to engage with the world around them at a molecular level. Dave’s project debuted at the Barbican in November so we followed his group from Bristol to London to show just how and why it works, with some very interesting perspectives from members of the public who were quite philosophical about how dS made them realise their place in the world!

The films take quite a candid look at the reality of science, hopefully offering a more personable insight into the ideas, thoughts and people that shape scientific discovery. Our aim was to pitch them in such a way to make science accessible, inspiring and interesting, and to move away from a pure academic exploration to a more imaginative one – in particular, we want to encourage more students to think about science as a creative, exciting (ad)venture that is worth pursuing on a multitude of levels. We worked with some of the newest recruits to the University, selected for their passion, enthusiasm and understanding of the importance of communicating about science.

As Sandra Arndt says in her Q&A, “Science is not really a job, it’s a passion. You get to follow your ideas and do what you really want to do," and this is something that really comes across in these wonderful films!Find it all on the Faculty of Science website.

Higgs Boson Song Composed From Research Data

Higgs-boson-inspired story on Radio 3's The Verb

So on Monday I got a call, from Radio 3's The Verb. Would I be able to write a Higgs-boson and physics-inspired very short story by Wednesday morning to read and chat about on this week's show? Would I? Oh yes! I did, (and the very tight deadline definitely brought out something new, something I'd never done before) and then yesterday morning at the BBC here in Bristol I was recorded reading it and chatting to the fantastic host of the show, Ian McMillan, about physics & fiction, flash fiction and the wonderful words of science. It will be broadcast tomorrow night, Friday 13th, at 10pm UK time, and should be available as a podcast for 7 days after that. Find out more here>>

If you are a physicist, forgive me for what I have done to your words...:)

Biology and the Humanities – Workshop at the University of Reading

Calling all biologists... from the British Society for Science and Literature:

 ‘Cultivating Common Ground: Biology & the Humanities’

 What do biologists know and think of the humanities? And what do they make of those humanities scholars – literary critics and historians – who have made biology their area of study? University of Reading staff in the biological sciences and the humanities are currently seeking practising biologists to participate in an AHRC-funded workshop which will address these and other questions. The workshop will consist of short presentations by humanities scholars whose research focuses on biology, followed by discussion and analysis of these and other topics. The workshop will be lead by Nick Battey, a plant biologist with a long-standing interest in the value of humanities research to biology, and there will be presentations by John Holmes (Darwinian evolution in poetry), Karin Lesnik-Oberstein (pre-conceptions in biomedical research), David Stack (understanding Victorian science) and Françoise Le Saux (medieval ideas about magic and the natural world). The workshop will take place on Wednesday 18 July 2012 at the University of Reading’s Whiteknights campus between 0930 and 1700. Refreshments, including lunch, will be provided, as will reasonable travel expenses.

Please see http://www.reading.ac.uk/cultivating-common-ground/ for further information. To register for a place, please contact Rachel Crossland: r.c.crossland@reading.ac.uk.

Evo Devo Artist

There's a fascinating interview over on the blog of US literary 'zine Tin House with Anna Lindeman, who has a BS in Biology from Yale and an MFA in Integrated Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute:

AL: My work integrates animation, music, and performance to tell stories about evolutionary and developmental (Evo Devo) biology. I consider myself an Evo Devo artist.

My performance Theory of Flight begins as a biology lecture with scientist Alida Kear describing the developmental mechanisms of wing growth. The lecture goes quickly awry, though, when Alida reveals a feather she has grown on her own arm through the successful co-option of avian genes. It becomes clear that Alida’s interest in biological flight is rooted not only in scientific investigation, but also in a deeply personal quest for flight. The episodes of biology lecture, featuring increasingly extreme experiments, are punctuated by dream-like interludes that combine music performed by a singing bird spirit and a look into a cellular world animated with simple materials—yarn becomes DNA, lace and buttons become proteins.

Evo Devo stories appear throughout Theory of Flight. The lecture delves into the genetic mechanisms of feather development, evolutionary theories of flight, and ultimately, investigations into regenerative limbs and transgenics.

I like the way Anna talks about her work. She says:

I never felt inhibited by the facts that science provides us with; to me they are the richest treasure trove of source material. Beauty, absurdity, poignancy, whimsy—all of the sensations I hope to craft as an artist have already had some masterful manifestation in nature, and science is a profound way of understanding these manifestations. 

 Very inspiring! Read the whole interview here.