Crystals And Catalysts

This week, I have another guest on my blog, my friend Abdul who also studied BSc Medicinal Chemistry with me. Abdul graduated from University College London in 2018 with a PhD in Chemistry, before deciding to pursue his artistic passions and turning towards photography and broadcasting. In this blog post, he will be telling us about his experience in presenting Virtually Reality - a showcase by DoDo Lemons.  Enjoy! ~~~~~~ When we try to communicate complex scientific material to the world, we often get fixated on trying to insert every key term or attempt to be fun and engaging, which can make us lose our vision or the scientific message. So today, I’d like to talk about science communication through a different medium. I was lucky enough to be part of an interesting, quirky show exploring concepts of perception and its relation to mental health, such as psychosis. As part of the DoDo Lemons group , an artistic collective, I was asked to host the “ Virtually Reality ”

I have come to notice one thing, scientists can be rather condescending and mean to anyone who seems to have any arguments against scientific theories and facts. Especially when you’re not a scientist. In fact, some can be downright awful and make fun of you. This defensiveness appears when we scientists think you’ve made some outlandish remark about a fact that we’ve known for centuries…fact being the key word here. It’s amazing to me how little time scientists spend explaining what the difference between fact and theory actually is. What qualifies a fact to be considered the fact, is it simply the complete truth? And if so, why do some individuals attempt to discredit science at every given opportunity?

The debate around vaccines has seen a surge in recent years, with many choosing not to vaccinate their children as a result. While anti-vaxxers might not be breaking any laws, those for vaccination have pointed out that they’re putting their own kids at risk and those around them. Why wouldn’t you vaccinate your kids? There’s always been a resistance to vaccines, with numerous studies being done to find a link between inoculation and debilitating conditions such as autism. Anti-vaxxers have used research such as one published in the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry to link vaccinations to hepatitis B, among others. As a result, a growing number of parents have taken a stance against immunization in fear of the supposed dangers the treatment presents to their children. Although the findings of such research has been inconclusive, it hasn’t deterred anti-vaxxers from their staunch opposition to the treatment. In fact, many influential people such as Jenny McCarthy,

(( I am very proud to announce my very first guest post on GradJobs UK!! Be sure to check it out and tell me what you think!  You can find it here: GradJobs UK Blog: Looking after your health after graduation )) [UPDATE: The Gradjobs blog has since been removed and some posts moved to GradsCorner on Gradjobs UK website. So I have posted my guest post here for everyone to read.] Looking after your health after graduation. Stress. The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about stress is a person tearing their hair out and screaming in despair.  After the graduation ceremony graduates start to face the “real world”, independence and the dreaded question: “what are you going to do next?” Since this is the biggest transition in your life it’s definitely going to be the most stressful one. It’s really easy to get caught up in the moment and give in to stress, particularly in today’s tumultuous economy with hardly any job opportunities. Anxiety can overwhelm you