I'm in the middle of thesis writing at the moment so haven't posted on here for a while - apologies! I was recently asked to take part in my university's PhD spotlight series where you share a bit about your research and student experience at the University of Sussex. It was a really useful exercise …
PhD Update: 2019 Q3
Q3 PhD update - Less than 3 months left in the lab! September has been so it’s time to update you on how things are going generally with winding up my PhD project. Unfortunately, my papers still haven’t been submitted, again due to not getting the biology numbers I need but things are starting to …
Six tips to survive a heatwave working in a chemistry lab
With a heatwave well under way in the south of the UK (which includes Brighton where I’m studying), folks are preparing for some serious heat! As a Scot, I do struggle with the southern climate compared to my baltic homeland. Towards the end of today we clocked on our thermometers it was 29 °C inside …
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PhD Update: 2019 Q2
It is now the end of June, so its time to reflect on the second quarter of the last year of my PhD. Did I achieve everything I set out to do? Read on to find out… I did manage to send away the set of compounds I was talking about last quarter – the …
What’s In My Fume Hood?
This is the 2nd post in a series of showing how I work. Today I’ll show you around my fume hood. A fume hood is a ventilated cabinet with a retractable hood where I carry out most of my chemistry to reduce my exposure to chemical fumes. Sometimes you have a to share a fume …
PhD Update: 2019 Q1
This is the last year I’ll be spending in the lab before writing up my PhD next year. I thought it would be useful for me to blog where I am now and what I still need to do in terms of my research about once a quarter. Now that we’re at the end of …
What’s on my lab bench?
Most people have a desk as a place of work. I’m lucky enough to have three workspaces as a chemist: my desk, my lab bench, and my fume hood, all for different aspects of chemistry research. Today I’m going to give you a tour around my lab bench! My lab bench is used to carry …
#postitperiodictable Group 2
The second column elements of the periodic table are known as the alkali earth metals. They are like group 1 in that they are relatively soft metals that react with water to produce hydrogen gas however they don’t react as vigorously. This is due to the group 2 elements having 2 outer electrons instead of …
#postitperiodictable Group 1
Every day last week I posted about each element in the first column of the periodic table to mark the International Year of the Periodic Table on my instagram account. Elements are grouped in columns based on their properties and in this post I'll talk about how the group 1 elements are chemically similar. On …
Science Conferences I went to in 2018
Over the course of a PhD, students are encouraged to leave the lab from time to time to go to conferences to learn about other kinds of research going on in their field. Science conferences gather researchers from academia and industry. In this post I will talk about the different conferences I went to in …
