What’s Your Science Story?

Science Jamboree (Photo credit: Raven Photographic)

Way back in September I had a conversation with Ben Lillie, a writer for TED and director/producer of The Story Collider, a delightful podcast about the human stories behind science. I adore it because it brings forth the different kinds of people who work in and around science. It’s one of the mainstays in my podcast subscriptions because I have a fascination with how people got into science.

We spoke about science stories. I love reading them. I get paid to write science news. However I struggle with the most important science story of all – my own. I am invited to classrooms and science outreach events to tell my story by people who have painstakingly put some pieces of the jigsaw together that fit in with their needs. I don’t mind at all if parts of my story resonates but what about all of it?

I suppose this has been what I have thought about since early September as I have struggled to collect my thoughts into a blog post. I am better at telling other people’s stories and events. As I have meandered through the fog of my science story over the past two months I have realised that my science story is one that needs telling and one that does inspire. More importantly I have accepted that my science story affects greatly how I do science and communicate science.

Thank you Ben Lillie. This is the blog post that I said I would write. It took me longer than expected.

I was born into a family with a non-English speaking background in an English speaking country. I grew up in small towns far away from the city, 3,500km north of it to be exact. That’s around 2200 miles away from the nearest city. This was a time before the internet reached homes. Having television reception in the home was like getting the super fast broadband today. We didn’t even have a phone in the house until I was 9 years old.

I will never be able to thank my teacher Mrs Knight enough for her patience in getting through to a stubborn four year old girl who had declared the English language to be stupid. It could not have been easy but it is because of this that I have been able to take part in learning at school. Looking back on my early school reports, I did not show much promise. I was average in most things and at the beginning, I was below average in reading and numeracy skills.

Given this start in life, the odds are stacked against me to finish school and head to university, let alone become a scientist.

This is where my parents came to the fore. My dad when he wasn’t working night shift would always be reading something, newspapers, magazines and maps. My mum always had a recipe book around and was always jotting things down as she worked out how to prepare an authentic Singaporean dish with limited variety of ingredients. The nearest Asian Grocer was 3500km away. They always made sure I finished my reading homework which was to read aloud from a book no matter how much I hated it.

I remember when I asked my dad what he was reading in the newspaper. Instead of summarising, he would read snippets of the newspaper to me. I suspect he read the parts that would interest me because I always found it fascinating what people around the world got up to when all I did was to go to school. Gradually I progressed to reading the newspaper by myself and discovering books.

As this is a moment of being truthful, I will admit to loathing science in primary school, all seven years of it. I never found it fun. It was hard. I despised science. There were unpronounceable words. It was something for the smart kids. I never got selected to be in accelerated science programs. Science in primary school made me feel dumb and it was something I had to work really hard at. Teachers assuming me to be naturally brilliant or to be quite dull in science compounded the issue.

At some point during the last few years of primary school, I became aware that my grandfather with minimal English skills had enrolled in a formal horticultural course. He explained that he wanted to learn how to grow plants well and wasn’t interested in the exams or qualifications. He wanted to learn to do something in his life better. This has always stayed in my mind. It’s possible to study and learn for pleasure. I didn’t realise that this would become a life defining moment for me.

I started to add popular science books to my reading choices. Books that had been written so that the science was easy to understand that I could read at my own pace and stop to look up words in a dictionary. I was able to explore pieces of the scientific world. I was lucky to have parents who let me read and emphasised the preciousness of education even though all I was concerned with was doing well enough to stay with my friends.

It was a heavily pregnant woman who encouraged me to explore science and made me feel confident enough to take risks and make mistakes in science to learn from. Hell, it was even okay to mispronounce scientific terms so long as you learned what they meant and pronounced them correctly the next time. Sniggering and exasperated looks were replaced with patience and enthusiasm. She was my Year 8 science teacher. I do not know what my life would have turned out had I not been in that class. It was in that class I discovered what parts of science were fun for me.

From that first day in that science class, I haven’t stopped taking risks in science to do new things. I may not have any sort of award to show for my work in science or have a paper in a prestigious scientific journal that only a few will read. I have something that no one can take away from me. I have a sense of enjoyment in science that I share freely. I come from a background where people have shared their knowledge and sense of fun. This has shaped who I am and how I do things.

I get frustrated with myself if I am unable to explain a concept to someone who is desperately trying to understand. I will make the time to explain it in as many ways as possible and when that doesn’t work, I seek help. If I am not of any help in the learning process than at the very least I can facilitate it. This sharing of information isn’t limited to classrooms and lessons. This happens in workplaces and laboratories. Learning new things is vital to achieving goals, especially the difficult ones.

I have a firm belief that part of doing science is communicating scientific work to everyone and anyone who may be interested. That communication should also be open and inviting. The effect of scientific work is not confined to the hallowed halls and rooms of research institutions. It impacts upon every part of everyday life.

As I have come to grips with my personal science story, I have become ever more thoughtful in my approach in science communication whether it be in science outreach or talking about a science topic with friends. In recognising where my approach and thoughts have developed from, I have become much better about talking about science because I know why I keep talking.

I want people to have fun with me.

What’s your science story?

Chemistry Based Practical Jokes

Before I start this ranty post, I want to state up front that I make a habit of making chemistry fun. I’ve let off controlled explosions in demonstrations, used naked flames in demonstrations and have sent rockets so high in the sky, air clearance was obtained. I love doing this. It’s fun and demonstrates a lot of abstract ideas beautifully.

I also love it when chemistry gets a mention in mainstream media. No wait, I mostly like it when mainstream media covers chemistry. There are times when all I can do is yell obscenities at my computer monitor when I see articles titled, “How to Use Basic Chemistry to Scare the Hell Out of Your Neighbour” like I did over at Gizmodo. The only reason why I’m linking to it even though it irks me to do so is because it has high visibility and you have probably read it anyway. It is also what I’m about to rip into.

Halloween is around the corner. I live in Australia and in my neighbourhood with the absence of American expats, it’s mostly a non-event. However this doesn’t preclude me from filling with rage as I read some of the Halloween pranks that Eric Limer has suggested to Gizmodo readers. Rage because it’s ridiculously stupid purposefully harmful moronic pranks that make it that much more difficult to conduct a fun chemistry demonstration in schools in the name of education.

Let’s start with the suggestion of a sprayable stink bomb. A mixture of match heads soaked in household ammonia. Limer admits that ammonia is potent all by itself. No kidding. It’s so potent that I use gloves in a well ventilated space when using it around the home. I’m not even in a lab with extraction hood going when I take those precautions. Quite frankly, I don’t want to have red and runny eyes while wishing for clear air to breathe. It is absolutely nasty stuff and not something you want to get anywhere near your eyes.

There’s no logical explanation why anyone with any sense of responsibility would suggest soaking match heads in ammonia to create a smelly solution to load into a water gun to spray on other people. Every single time I have been involved in a water gun fight, water has gotten in my eyes and all over me. Think of all the areas with sensitive skin, eyes, nasal passages, ears, mouth. Awful huh? Now extend that to the nether regions. Yeah. I had to go there.

Try explaining those chemical burns in the emergency department to the attending doctors and nurses repeatedly because everyone will ask why you’re there. Maybe even one day, your story will become one of those emergency department stories told as a moral teaching to stave off acts of stupidity.

The prank that had me checking that I hadn’t slipped into an alternate reality accidentally where dangerous pranks are acceptable was Limer’s suggestion was to use methylene blue to change the colour of other people’s urine to blue. Just slip a tablespoon of the stuff into a 2L bottle of cola drink. I don’t even use a tablespoon of the stuff in titrations. I have only ever used drops.

Methylene blue has a wide range of applications. It’s an excellent fungicide in aquariums as well as treating fish infected with ich. It also has a wide range of medical uses and because of this, methylene blue has a list of medications that should not be used in conjunction with. Limer does point out,

“For the vast majority of people a tiny dose of methylene blue is harmless”.

True but how are you going to know whether someone else is on any of these medications:

• meperidine (Demerol);
• diet pills, stimulants, cold or allergy medicines, ADHD medication;
• migraine or cluster headache medication such as almotriptan (Axert), frovatriptan (Frova), naratriptan (Amerge), rizatriptan (Maxalt), sumatriptan (Imitrex, Treximet), or zolmitriptan (Zomig);
• medication to treat Parkinson’s disease or restless leg syndrome, such as carbidopa or levodopa (Lodosyn, Parcopa, Sinemet), pramipexole (Mirapex), or ropinirole (Requip);
• an “SSRI” antidepressant such as citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac, Sarafem, Symbyax), fluvoxamine (Luvox), paroxetine (Paxil), or sertraline (Zoloft);
• an “SNRI” antidepressant such as venlafaxine (Effexor), desvenlafaxine (Pristiq), or duloxetine (Cymbalta);
• a “tricyclic” antidepressant such as amitriptyline (Elavil, Vanatrip, Limbitrol), clomipramine (Anafranil), desipramine (Norpramin), doxepin (Sinequan), imipramine (Janimine, Tofranil), nortriptyline (Pamelor), protriptyline (Vivactil), or trimipramine (Surmontil); or
• other medications used to treat depression, anxiety, and other psychiatric conditions, such as bupropion (Wellbutrin, Zyban, Aplenzin), buspirone (BuSpar), maprotiline (Ludiomil), mirtazapine (Remeron), nefazodone, trazodone (Desyrel, Oleptro), or vilazodone (Viibryd).

or have either of these conditions:

• kidney disease; or
• glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency.

Also, pregnant women should also avoid drinking methylene blue. It isn’t known whether methylene blue will harm an unborn baby. And nor is it known whether methylene blue passes through into breast milk.

Do you ask? (I would part with money to watch you ask all of the women of reproductive age whether they are pregnant.) Do you label your methylene blue laced 2L cola appropriately during the party? If there is alcohol at the party, how do you ensure guests or even yourself don’t mix up the bottle with innocent bottles? All these questions for one prank because if you don’t ask, you could well end up with a guest needing a hospital stay.

Then there is the suggestion to make a homemade dry ice powered PVC cannon. Do I need to point out that law enforcement agencies do not take kindly to homemade cannons? And even with the suggestion to aim skyward for safety, just how many people will keep to that operating advice?

If that’s not enough, you can finish the night with a bang by lighting a balloon filled with hydrogen gas for any remaining guests and neighbours to marvel at. Lighting up a hydrogen gas filled balloon is fun. I have done it but then I wasn’t on a mission to annoy everyone in my neighbourhood thinking no one would think to call the police over a loud bang and ensuing ball of fire.

Limer walks through how to make and collect hydrogen gas. No big deal but when you have to write,

“If you don’t know what hydrochloric acid is, or where to get it, then don’t try this in the first place.”

perhaps you shouldn’t write about this stuff in the first place. Regardless whether people know about it or not, they will now in all likelihood seek it out and probably not bother to read the MSDS before using it. I am even less thrilled with the suggestion of how to light a hydrogen filled balloon.

“Using a long fireplace match (and still wearing your gloves and glasses), ignite the balloon by poking it. You should experience a surprisingly brisant and startling explosion.”

Umm….no. Just no. A long fireplace match is NOT something I would use to light up a hydrogen filled balloon. What I’ve used in the past is a long pole where a match is attached to the end to light the balloon. That startling explosion Limer mentions is not one you want to be within arm’s length of.

And finally, how does one dispose of the acid?

“To dispose of the acid, keep your rubber gloves on, and pour the contents of the bottle into a toilet bowl or sink. Flush everything down the drain with water.”

Down the toilet? Really? No. A world of no. When handling acid, you want to know exactly where that acid is at all times to prevent injuries, namely burns. I mentioned sensitive areas earlier and it’s the same situation here. Your sensitive groin area is very much exposed on a toilet seat. Thanks to Murphy’s Law, any remnant of acid on the seat will be found most painfully.

It would be best to neutralise the acid first before disposal but if you don’t know how to do this, you really shouldn’t be handling acid in the first place.

And after all that, the only suggestion that Limer made that I don’t have a problem with is adding baking soda to a nearly empty bottle of ketchup sauce resulting in a spray of ketchup everywhere. It is rather lame. Then again, pranks are lame.

Would it not be better to use basic chemistry to spice up Halloween where no one was at risk of getting hurt or is that not the in thing these days?

If you do want to do chemistry at home without ending up in an emergency department or having the local law enforcement visit, it is possible. Check out Try This at Home.

[UPDATE]: Royal Society of Chemistry has just issued a press release condemning the methylene blue prank.

Related articles

• Making People Hate Chemistry on Halloween (cenblog.org)
• These Halloween pranks from Gizmodo could seriously damage your health | Dr Mark Lorch (guardian.co.uk)
• When practical jokes and chemistry don’t mix (chemistry-blog.com)

Heady Heights of Higgsteria

If you have come here for information on the Higgs Boson particle, skip to the end of this blog post. It isn’t what I’m writing about. I’m focussing on the rumours and hype building in the lead up to the announcement.

My Inbox has been filled with background briefings and information on the work being done at the Large Hadron Collider, (LHC), by CERN. There has been a steady stream of emails since the 23rd of June because CERN announced that they would have a worldwide announcement on the 4th of July to coincide with the start of the International Conference on High Energy Physics, (ICHEP) being held in Melbourne.  It makes sense. The LHC is smashing protons travelling close to the speed of light releasing a lot of energy and sub atomic particles. That’s the gist of what happens and physicists study different aspects of the collisions so the timing of  CERN’s announcement ties in nicely with conference proceedings.

Now, every time CERN makes an announcement or announces that they’re about to make one, ripples of excitement and expectation are sent out. Everyone picks up on it. Ok, well everyone meaning physicists and anyone that has been following the activities of CERN. It’s a big thing. They have set out to look for things that have only been theorised for decades. I won’t lie. I am expecting an announcement on something to do with the Higgs Boson but this is all that I am expecting. I haven’t speculated because I haven’t got anything new to speculate with because I don’t work at CERN and I’m definitely not privy to the research and data leading up to this announcement.

Remember the announcement in September 2011 about neutrinos travelling faster than light? My email inbox filled with media statements from physicists explaining how this could be possible but also a lot more statements on why it probably wasn’t possible. The news headlines that followed were cringeworthy and mostly along the lines of “Einstein was wrong!” as he postulated that nothing can travel faster than light. Of all the commentary I like xkcd’s the most. Yes, a webcomic.

Neutrinos

It has since been determined that the neutrinos were not travelling faster than light. Cue headlines announcing, “Einstein was right!” and commentary on how physicists were fools for not checking for a loose wire. Brilliant stuff. As a scientist I felt for the people involved.

Any announcement made is science isn’t done so for adulation, it’s done to invite skepticism, (the kind where you ask questions wanting evidence, not the kind where it’s a rejection of anything different to one’s point of view), critique and an examination of work done. If this all passes, then the congratulations start to roll in. Somehow science reporting is jumping from announcement to the final step reporting in a binary fashion of Yes! The Scientists Got It! or No, Total FAIL Here Folks!. It’s not how science works and it’s not even good science reporting but we all do love a bit of gossip and speculation.

The#higgsrumors hashtag (note the US spelling) is doing the rounds on Twitter and it briefly made it into the Top 10 Trends. It was heartening to see that there is an interest in theoretical physics, (although it’s actually in the doing phase of science  so do we now call it experimental physics?), but it was a chaos of actual discussion and jokes. CERN has done one definitive thing and that is provide new material for science jokes.

Seriously though, when it comes to the reporting in the lead up to the CERN announcement, I can’t help to compare it to the stuff that gets produced in gossip columns. There’s been numerous unnamed sources and anonymous sources confirming the discovery of a Higgs like particle. Some other outlets will declare that Higgs Boson has been found in the headline only to have a myriad of caveats correcting the headline. There’s also media outlets quoting from other media outlets. Articles generated from a one individual statement from an anonymous source.

Come on people. We question or ignore reports like this for every other topic don’t we? Politics, sports, celebrities, and whatever else. This is not the sort of reporting that does anyone any favours. It’s trashy, it’s cheap and void of any substance. Admittedly it does whip up hysteria and intrigue resulting in a feedback loop while not providing any new information to those interested. I doubt that an audience base is being built. I’m interested in science and anything like this that pops up I’ll have a look but looking in on current Higgs Boson discussion and most of what I see is noise.

I am going to spend today working. I will pop on some music in my lab. I am not going to visit any news sites. I don’t want any more hype. I am so over the Higgsteria. By the time the CERN live webcast begins, I will be making my way to an airport to fly home from a week of working on a minesite. Hopefully by the time my plane lands, I can load up a news site to read up on what CERN has announced because this will be the reliable source of new information, whatever it may be.

It would be fantastic if the announcement is a confirmation of the Higgs Boson being found but I temper my excitement with my much stronger desire for facts. Whatever the announcement is, it will lead to more work and questions to answer for physicists. Announcements are integral to science, they drive it forward to new areas and that is what makes them exciting, no matter how small or large.

Related articles

• Physics fever: your guide to the Higgs boson (cosmosmagazine.com)
• Higgs rumours: fun for you, dangerous for me (guardian.co.uk)
• Leaked Video Appears to Accidentally Announce Higgs Boson Discovery (wired.com)
• Higgs boson: US physicists find strongest evidence yet of ‘god particle’ (guardian.co.uk)
• Ladies and Gentlemen, the Higgs Boson has been found! (3quarksdaily.com)

It is With Great Regret

Dear Sir David Attenborough,

Can I call you David? It sounds overly familiar but you have been part of my life for a very long time. I have welcomed you into my home over the years around dinner time and even let you in when dessert was served. I have followed you to the depths of the Amazon and shivered as you travelled to the polar regions. I had tears in my eyes when you showed the world glimpses of where I grew up and the magnificence of the country. Albeit on cathode ray television sets but I was with you all the way and still am.

I’m a scientist. I didn’t go into Environmental Science and not even Marine Biology. I’m a Chemist and a Metallurgist. I work in mining and broadly speaking the antithesis of what you do. In my spare time, I often can be found planting trees, pulling out invasive weeds and more recently I helped monitor baby turtles, sorry, the hatchlings of Flatback Turtles at Port Hedland while holidaying.

When I was growing up, you made learning things look like a lot of fun. I also learned so much from watching your documentaries. You are one of my heroes. I didn’t have a soft teddy bear as a little girl, instead it was a chimpanzee puppet I called “Monkey“. He went everywhere with me.

You remain a source of inspiration especially when I need to catch a frog or native mouse from within my home to release outside. I thank you sincerely for being part of my life as a child, angst ridden teenager and as a professional scientist. Your involvement has made consider my actions with much more care.

I also share your enthusiasm for telling people about science. Chemistry is my forte but I will give any field a go. I have shown children and adults the abundance of life in pond water – damselfly larvae, bright red and blue water mites, water boatman, arthropods and more. Countless spaghetti bridges have been built and destroyed by budding engineers, and the most fun I’ve had was the study of projectile motion using a trebuchet, water balloons and willing human targets.

News has reached me that you are coming to Australia. Happy day indeed. It would be an honour to meet you but alas, it is not to be. You aren’t coming to Western Australia but that wasn’t going to stop me. Something else did. There are simply no more tickets to be in the audience to listen to you speak so there is no point in booking airline flights to the other side of the country. A bitterly disappointing realisation.

I know you came over to WA in 1979 and visited the Gogo formation in the Kimberleys. This was two years before I was born and a whole generation ago. I do wish you could see the generation of scientists in WA that you’ve influenced. I think it would be hard pressed to find any scientist who would not know of your work or indeed anyone. It is not just scientists that adore you. Your ability to speak about any manner of creature and make it likeable is amazing to witness as long as one is able to stay removed from the process. Everyone I know admires your work.

It is with great regret that I cannot meet you in Sydney or Melbourne. There simply was not enough room. I will have to be content with only welcoming you into my lounge room.

With Greatest Sincerity,

Magdeline Lum

Social Media and Science

It’s pretty obvious that I spend a considerable amount of time on social media. I’ve got a Twitter account, @ScientistMags, and I’ve got a public facebook page as well as this blog. I also work full time as a scientist and as a freelance science writer. Occasionally I do allow myself to sleep.

I do get asked why I do it. I do “it” because the internet is supposed to be a utopia filled with free factual information. It isn’t. There’s websites devoted to nonsense promising cures insulting scientists whilst using smoke and mirrors to present information disguised as science. This is why I do it.

I also do “it” because when I was growing up, I didn’t know of any scientists. They were all on television and were always busy in a lab. Now that I am a scientist, I know this is not true. You won’t be able to pick out a scientist at the local shops. They are well camouflaged wearing every day clothes or even busy wrangling an unruly child or two. We’re regular people. Scientists are people, and sometimes we get angry at the same things you might do like when a computer crashes while saving an important piece of work or are known to get swept up in hysteria and join queues outside Apple stores for the latest iDevice.

I’m part of social media because the most important thing I want to tell people about the science I do that above all, I’m someone with feelings, desires and frustrations.

Last week there was a discussion on Social Media and Science on Twitter hosted by Bridge8. I am so sorry I missed it. My Masters thesis is to do with science discussions on Twitter so I was rather frustrated not being able to take part. I said that would do a blog post on it instead. It’s not quite the same.

The questions are what framed the discussion last week.

1. How do you measure the success your professional efforts in social media?
   I find it difficult to measure the success of my professional efforts in social media. I know things have gone well if I have conversations with people about the science news and topics I’ve posted. If things get passed on then that’s all well and good but I don’t know how well it was understood or whether it was because of the pretty picture.

2. How important are metrics (eg no. of YouTube views, followers, FB Likes?) to you and your org?
   Let’s be honest. Who doesn’t like being liked? I think the importance isn’t just having lots of followers and likes. What should be important are the types of conversations and discussions being had with the people who subscribe to you. Are they ones that reflect who or what you are? Have they achieved a goal or aim?There is merit in awareness raising but this should be followed on with something. Activists and lobbyists follow on with a call to action. As an individual I let people know of events and things that they can be a part of that are happening. I share my visits to science centres, museums and libraries because I want to share my enthusiasm for them with other people. Whether or not this leads to people going to them, I don’t know but I do know that I get to talk to people about what it is I see in front of me. To me, that’s more valuable than collecting 100 more followers who don’t interact.

3. How do know when you are #doingitwrong? (“failing” at social media)
   I know I am #doingitwrong when I respond to trolls.

4. Are there things that turn you off? What should be “don’t do” advice for social media?
   Trolls are the very worst things that I encounter. This is different from someone who has a misconception. They tend to engage with a misconception and after a conversation has been established, begin to go on the offensive and attack. It’s incredibly draining and wastes time.The most important “Don’t do” is to treat social media as a broadcasting medium. It’s a communication medium and there will be a transfer of information between yourself and a lot of different people. In some cases, broadcasting works like for news services and emergency updates but when it comes to individuals and organizations, expect interaction from your audience and have a plan on what to do with it.

5. Socmed > Twitter. Where else do you engage and why? What works?
   Twitter is great for quick updates. I use my blog for discussions longer than 140 characters. I have found that facebook has become an area where photos and visuals reign supreme.  I have different audiences and they interact differently. People use different forms of social media and tend to stay with the one they find most convenient or most interesting to them.

6. What’s the most creative use of scicomms through social media you’ve seen? Or done!
   I love the Google+ hangouts. They’re really innovative. I haven’t taken part actively but have watched from the sidelines where a scientist interacts in real time with people from all over the world. Phil Plait aka @BadAstronomer has a weekly one which he promotes on Twitter. More information here.

7. How much time would you spend on social media? How do you find the time?
   How much time do I spend on social media? A LOT. In numerical terms, probably around 20 hours a week.