Hello From the Pilbara

I am almost a week into a three week odyssey in the Pilbara. Two weeks of it will be work in a lab broken in the middle with a week spent in Port Hedland. I’ve got a story to follow up and write about in Hedland for Science Network WA and that is all the work I am doing. Beyond that I’m going to take it easy and have a look around and take a few photos though my travels will be dependent on what roads are open.

There has been a lot of rain up here. The wet has arrived in the Pilbara. There has been two cyclones this month. Tropical Cyclone Heidi crossed the coast near Hedland and Tropical Cyclone Iggy, the most recent one is disintegrating in the Indian Ocean. With them there has been storm activity though I missed both lightning storms much to my frustration. No storm chasing in the Pilbara yet. I say yet with hope.

However, I have not missed out on awakening 4WD driving skills. The roads here have gotten incredibly soggy. The dirt roads that is. There is so much water out here small pools form and in some cases streams run across them. In some instances local traffic management teams directs traffic to minimise damage to the wet roads and to slow people down though this is when things get rather wet.

Anyhow, enough blathering from me. Here’s a really quick video from my point of view when driving in soft mud. It really is me driving and swearing quietly under my breath, (this can’t be heard, I’ve checked), as I get through and hoping that my poorly mounted iPhone doesn’t fall into the dirt encrusted crevices of the car. It was like driving through mousse or cheesecake. There was no grip. It was really slippery. It is definitely for 4WD vehicles only and takes skill to get through without getting bogged.

This is where my science degrees have gotten me so far. It’s an incredibly stunning landscape that I want to spend time in relaxing. Not every FIFO worker is just about the work and getting home to spend up big.

Investing in ASSETS for the Future

It’s the summer holidays and high school students around Australia have participated or are participating in science summer programs designed to show teenagers different aspects of science and engineering to encouraging them to consider careers in science. I attended one myself just before entering the final year of high school. I knew I wanted to do something related to science but I had no idea what and had even less of an idea how to beyond getting into university. After five days spent at a university, I had a better idea and more importantly no longer frightened by the prospect of walking into a laboratory at a university.

With the successes that I have had since my experience of a science summer school, I have a soft spot for them. I’m always happy to volunteer as a chaperone, speaker, or even run a lab activity. I love talking to the kids that attend especially when they realise they are in a place where they can talk freely about what they want to do in science. The conversation goes both ways and I am honest about what I’ve done in science and also about the times of difficulty as a scientist. If the kids are going to be honest then I too must be honest.

Often the reason trotted out for fostering a new generation of would-be scientists is that it’s safeguarding the future and ensuring that scientific research continues in Australia. Another reason which I think is more important is that with the new blood is that someone has an entirely new way of interpreting the science in front of them leading to new discoveries and progress. These are the things that bring excitement into science and keeps things moving.

I have recently come across the Aboriginal Summer School for Excellence in Technology and Science, (ASSETS), run by the Royal Institution of Australia. I think it’s a brilliant programme. It takes in 30 Year 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from across Australia at no cost to them to take part in a nine day program of science, engineering and mathematics in a diverse range of scientific fields. Directly from the RiAus ASSETS website:

The Aboriginal Summer School for Excellence in Technology and Science (ASSETS) program is for Year 10 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from around Australia with an aptitude for mathematics and science. The nine-day residential summer school in Adelaide is open to students from all Australian states and territories. It is cost free, including return travel, for successful applicants. Accommodation is provided at Wiltja Residence, a successful long term Indigenous boarding school facility.

Participants undertake an academic program in science, technology and mathematics at the Australian Science and Mathematics School. They are required to meet rigorous academic demands in such areas of study as:

• Nanotechnology
• Photonics
• Aerospace science
• Environmental science
• Biotechnology
• Health science
• Geosciences
• Mathematical sciences

There is also a cultural and social program that includes interaction with role models and exploring participants’ language group backgrounds to encourage personal growth and nurture leadership qualities.

As a trained scientist, I’m pretty very excited about the program and wish I could sign up. It’s an incredibly diverse program and I’m always wanting to learn more and more curiosity than a litter of kittens. So what do the students think?

It is really heartwarming to see students from previous years of participating in ASSETS earning a place at university and working towards a career in science.

You can read more of Dannielle Ghezzi’s story here. The RiAus is currently running a microdonation campaign online in an effort to fund at least one student place in the ASSETS program. There is a a disparity in the levels of education and health of Indigenous Australians and the wider population of Australia and there are many initiatives to help close this cap. This initiative resonates with me because it has the very real potential of doing both. Many of the problems  in Indigenous communities can be solved with science and technology but before that education is needed, not just for people living in those communities but also the education of the future leaders of those communities. If you’re able, consider donating to the ASSETS program and help close the gap. It’s an atrocity in 2012 Australia.

Hello 2012. How’s the Apocalypse?

Let me begin by stating the obvious. It’s a new year, a whole 366 days in front of us. It also means that the apocalypse did not begin during anyone’s New Year’s Eve celebrations or if it did or has, it has been sneaky as no one on Twitter has noticed.

Last year was a blast for me. Yes this is going to be a little self indulgent. It’s my blog and I rarely talk about me. I ended 2011 with one less organ than I had at the beginning. For the most part I am happy that my gall bladder has been removed and is no longer hurling gallstones my way when disgruntled. By the time of my operation, my diet was becoming frustratingly limited. Some salad dressings would even lead to hours of discomfort. Now I’m slowly expanding my diet but I will never reach for anything deep fried again. Even if it’s deep fried Camembert.

I am disappointed that my blogging in my Chemistry365 project became infrequent from September. It coincided with a full-time job, being ill, adjusting to living as a FIFO life and the ever constant ringing advice to take things easy. I will go back and fill in the holes. There aren’t too many and I have planned out what I want to write for each day. I will finish it. I just wish I could have managed to blog every single day like I had wanted to. I am so sorry. So incredibly sorry. The experience has taught me that despite all the planning and fail safes, I can’t control everything. And more importantly, the world does not end when things take an unexpected turn and I can carry on.

The year 2012 is going to be awesome. Yes, there will be some amount of crappy things but the best thing about it is that these crappy things will not bring the destruction and ruin of the planet. Terrifyingly, we have the means to wipe ourselves of the face of the Earth but Earth will still be around just fine without us. This isn’t a new information. It’s a statement of fact.

Instead of dwelling on the end of the world, I’m going to treat this year and all the days after as a demonstration that the people predicting The Apocalypse, (the one with capital “A”), are wrong. It would be incredibly polite of people predicting nonsense to lock in one date of their predictions like astronomers do when predicting eclipses and meteor showers but no. These aren’t people who follow the scientific method or use logic and reasoning to reach a conclusion. It’s just crazy talk.

A Toast to Chemistry

Image via Wikipedia

It’s the end of the year. It’s a time to reflect and celebrate and it’s also a time for Champagne. More Champagne corks are popped during the festive season than at any other time of the year.

Champagne isn’t all about the bubbles. It is a type of sparkling wine but only sparkling wine made from the grapes from the region of Champagne in France can be called Champagne. Everyone else has to call it something else.

The bubbles in Champagne and their equivalents are bubbles of carbon dioxide being released. In each glass of Champagned consumed there are over 600 chemical compounds that join with the carbon dioxide creating the aroma and flavour of the drink.

Legend has it that French Benedictine monk Dom Pierre Pérignon invented sparkling wine in the cellars of Abbey of Hautvillers. He didn’t. He did advance the development of the production of Champagne such as the muselet, you know the bit of wire over the cork to hold it in place to prevent the fermentation pressure from pushing the cork out. The explosive quality of Champagne resulted in the wine to be called le vin du diable, (the Devil’s wine). Bottles would explode causing bottles around them to explode, an event that does not lend itself to making a profit. Dom Pérignon was originally given the responsibility of removing the bubbles because of the number of bottles bursting in the cellar.

So who invented sparkling wine? It wasn’t just one person and it was a series of developments from different people, (including Dom Pérignon),  that led to Champagne. The oldest recorded sparkling wine is Blanquette de Limoux that was created by Benedictine monks at the Abbey of Saint Hilaire near Carcossone in 1531. Then in 1662, six years before Dom Pérignon entered the Abbey of Hautvillers’ cellar, an English scientist and physician, Christopher Merret presented a paper titled, Some Observations Concerning the Ordering of Wines to The Royal Society. He detailed the addition of sugar and molasses to wine to make it sparkling. This method in modern times is called the Methode Champenoise, a method to induce the second fermentation in wines without worrying about bottles exploding.

Here’s video from the American Chemical Society on Champagne including advice on how to pour the beverage to maximise the amount of bubbles in your glass.

Happy New Year!

Related articles

• Toasting the chemistry of champagne: New Year’s Eve video from the American Chemical Society (eurekalert.org)

Another Reason to Wear Safety Glasses

Safety Glasses, Source: Wikipedia

Something that is overlooked in the importance of wearing safety glasses in lab is that they provide UV protection to the eyes. A report in Harvard Crimson from two weeks ago is a timely reminder:

“On Tuesday afternoon, Adeyemi, [a student] whose eyesight has now recovered fully, had walked into Science Center 117 for her last three-hour LPSA lab of the semester.

The roughly 60 students in the lab would be completing the second half of a two-week lab that used polymerase chain reaction analysis to identify genetically modified foods.

Among their tasks for the day would be an electrophoresis procedure in which they would inject a sample of DNA into gel and then run an electric current across the gel. That process would separate DNA strands of different length. And when viewed under a blue light transilluminator, the strands’ differing lengths would become apparent.”

Some of the students didn’t wear safety glasses resulting in irritations to their eyes and blurry vision.  Several students were sent to the hospital and luckily no one is expected to suffer permanent damage. Just because there might not be a beaker of chemicals on the bench, it doesn’t mean that you can be complacent about PPE. It is also why lab safety inductions/manuals/regulations always stress that safety glasses need to be worn. Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean that it won’t hurt you.

Accidental UV exposure isn’t limited to the lab. Last night it was reported in the news that a broken floodlight cover exposed people at a basketball game in Katanning to UV light. People started presenting themselves to the town’s hospital from 8:30AM with stinging eyes, ulcerations to the eyes and even skin burn. At one stage the finger was pointed at a possible chemical or gas leak but has since been ruled out.