Aren’t these the most amazing cupcakes ever? Seton Hurson Rossini from Pixel Whisk has posted a complete tutorial on how to make this incredibly realistic succulent plant cupcakes. I am in complete awe of her baking skills. Looks like the perfect project for a rainy Sunday!
Hello there! Against all rumours, this blog is not dead (yet). I was away on holiday for a couple of weeks, one of which I spent in Iceland. On the flight back I watched the Futurama episode “Reincarnation“. Where would you least expect to see something about microscopy and science? If you guessed “on a small screen in the back of an airplane seat somewhere between Iceland and the UK in a futuristic cartoon series animated in 8-bit pixel style”, you win a prize. This episode is split in three parts, all of which have been drawn in different...
I hadn’t realised that there was research on creating interactive pet plants that are able to display emotions! From the description of “My Green Pet” (Hwang et al. 2010): “The difficulty that children have in perceiving plants as living entities has been verified by several studies. As an initial attempt to address this issue, we propose “My Green Pet”, an interactive plant for children. Through this, children enjoy human-like interactions with the plant and also perceive that this particular plant is living. This is achieved by personifying a regular plant by giving it human feelings and emotions, such as...
Recently I gave a workshop about online engagement and blogging in our Faculty. The result of this was a bunch of new tweeters and new science blogs on the block. To keep the momentum going, we started a “Breakfast Blogging Club”, with a meeting every two weeks. Why the name? Because we meet in the mornings for coffee and pastry and because it abbreviates to BBC – makes it sound more “serious” to say you are joining a BBC discussion than a discussion about blogging! One of the things we decided was to have a monthly theme to which...
“Don’t be afraid of hard work. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Don’t let others discourage you or tell you that you can’t do it. In my day I was told women didn’t go into chemistry. I saw no reason why we couldn’t.” Gertrude B. Elion, Nobel Laureate 1988. A few days ago, Prof Alice Roberts, the first Professor of Public Engagement, tweeted about the still shockingly low number of female professors in science. In my opinion, there are two main reasons for the low numbers of female scientists in academia. The first one is linked to inspiring girls and female...
This discovery by Nobel prize winner Dr. Osama Shimomura known as Green Fluorescent has revolutionized molecular biology. Movement of living molecules generally can be seen but the advent of GFP made the invisible visible. The protein, found in jellyfish helps researchers track substances of all kinds, in real time, and show how they mark cells, maintain them and function in concert with other cells.
Yesterday I came across this video that demonstrates how to make Glowing Sushi, using genetically modified zebrafish to produce a fluorescent “kryptonite roll”. When I first watched the video, my main question was: Why would you want to use fluorescent GFP fish in sushi?! You would have to shine a UV light on your sushi roll while you eat it in order to get the glow effect. Surely there are better ways to enjoy your food than lighting a UV torch into each others mouths to see glowing chewed food. I also felt a bit annoyed. Things like this...
What did I do at work today? Shuttled DNA into bacteria. Dipped arabidopsis plants into bacteria. Meeting. Another meeting. Another meeting. Oh, and I made a balloon kebab! Why did I make one? Because I can! Just kidding. Because we will be at the Oxfordshire Science Festival Launch Event on 3rd March, Bonn Square. How does it work? Check out the video and explanation here: http://www.physics.org/interact/physics-to-go/balloon-kebabs/index.html If, like me, you have a slight phobia of popping balloons, this might as well be the most exciting thing you do all day. My hands were sweaty afterwards, and so were my...
Recent Comments