Crystals And Catalysts

For the second day, discussing a controversial topic in science I will be reviewing the efficiency of Alternative medicine . But to what extent can we trust alternative medicine? First of all, what is alternative medicine ? Alternative method contains the practice of: acupuncture, chiropractic and homeopathy. All of these techniques had not been proven by scientific methods.   The reason why it’s so popular is due to the power of anecdotal evidence. For example, you can hear from a friend that alternative treatment helped improve their back pain. At first, this may seem as the treatment works and you’ll want to try it. But you have to remember that the experience of a single person doesn’t prove that a treatment works the same for everyone. Sometimes the body gets better on its own or via a placebo effect, giving rise to the “it worked for me” response and encouraging more people to follow in their footsteps.   ................. Contrary to what th...

Is it possible, that after years of controversy, between the public, that GMO’s are safe? There are many people for or against GMOs, but mainly against. Even though the public are showered with incorrect, and sometimes dishonest, information about GMOs a.k.a genetically modified organisms, s cientists and science writers are working to correct any misconceptions about GMOs to the public and eliminate misleading data. What are GMOs? GMO’s are plants or animals that have gone under genetic modification: where scientists alter their genes with DNA from different species of living organisms, bacteria or viruses to get desired traits such as resistance to disease or tolerance of pesticides. Such as: apples that have been genetically modified to be resistant to browning. Studies about GMOs... The results from a meta analysis (conducted by Wilhelm Klümper, Matin Qaim , Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Georg-August-University of Goettingen, ...

If you love both science and art, Twitter was a wonderful place to be last March. #SciArt week, which officially ran from March 1st through the 7th, was initiated by  Symbiartic bloggers Glendon Mellow, Kalliopi Monoyios and Katie McKissick, who  encouraged  science artists of all types of backgrounds to come together and tweet their work to the world.  The product was a storm of  scientific illustrations, paintings, sculptures and animations, that  the Internet had never seen before.  Their original goal was to get a total of 1600 #SciArt tweets a day but within the first 24 hours they managed to reach 4000 tweets of scientific illustrations and paintings and other artworks. SciArt is a great way of representing science using art and photography. It also shows how beautiful science can be and encourage the love of science through art. Although  #SciArt is overloaded with biology related artworks it needs more chemistry artworks. This cou...

Personally, I love instagram. Its great for sharing images be it in the lab or personal interests. Here's a list of my favourite science Instragram accounts, hope you like them and if there's someone I've missed out, comment below and tell me about them. 1- From the Lab Bench The account of Paige Brown Jarreau - She's recently completed a PhD in science communication and she blogs about science communication & her research. But Paige's instagram is filled with her beautiful photography such as this blue bird here. 2- PopSci This is the account of the popular science website: Popular Science, who post about the "latest science, tech and futuristic nerdery" 3- WIRED This is the account of the popular science blog: WIRED, who post about the science, technology and everything in between. 4- CellPress This account goes by the saying "Science is Art" and their instagrm is full of colourful images, such as this one of ne...

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." - Marie Curie  I personally love this quote because it encourages everyone to learn. Just because you've stopped studying doesn't mean you should stop learning. You can learn new things in different ways, and the more you learn the more you understand the world around you.  I see science communication as a means of getting people who may not know a lot about science to understand it more.  Science communication is a great way to communicate science with everyone with the latest advances of science and also a way of diminishing any myths or misunderstandings people may have about science and health.  << Click here to find out more about Marie Curie >>

Crystals and Catalysts was launched in August 2014 which makes it almost 1 years old!  I think everyone who starts a blog thinks that they'll be lucky if they even get 10 readers in a day. And that's what I thought when I first started writing and creating this blog.  My future goals for my blog: I hope to make more infographics for my posts    Find a more effective blog theme which is  more user friendly Complete the 30 day challenge   without missing a day Aim to reach 1 million page views by the end of this year Aim to post more in a week

When someone asks me where do you see yourself in 10 years, I have to take a minute to actually think about the future.  I prefer to focus on the present and planning the present and leaving the future to fall into place. However with that being said, I aspire to pursue a career in science writing.    Science writing is away of communicating science in ways to everyone no matter what their educational background is. Even though I love lab research and conducting my own research project , I love science communication & journalism even more and I hope that one day I'll be writing for a large and respectable science magazine such as Chemistry World / Nature / New Scientist.  What are your plans for the future? Comment below...

This post is different because I wont be discussing someone else's research, I am discussing my own research. My final year project at university.  What was my project about? The Synthesis of a derivative of Montiporyne E. The aim of the project was to find a simple, fast and effective method of reactions to produce a derivative of Montiporyne E potential anti-cancer drug. Cancer is caused when cells  replicate abnormally  and rapidly to form tumours.  This is because the cell does not undergo apoptosis (the normal programmed cell death) and therefore these affected cells continue to multiply uncontrollably.  Montiporyne E is d erived from a hard coral , named Montipora Sp .  Hard corals have been found to produ ce cytotoxic, acetylenic compounds.  — It is used in the treatments of solid tumour cells.  The extraction from hard coral is expensive, laborious and also hard coral is on the verge o...

There are so many challenges similar to this for other niches of blogs, but not for science blogs. So I have decided to make one for science bloggers. The aim of the 30-day challenge is to post every day for the next 30 days with the topics given in the infographic below. They are light, fun topics where you'll be able to get to know me more and more about my blog and other thoughts too. So I am starting the 30-day science blogging challenge as of 1st June 2015 till 30th June 2015! I will be posting 30 days & on each day there will be a different topic.   If you're a science blogger or thinking of becoming one then join the challenge! Click to enlarge!

***********UPDATED*********** 29/05/2015 The 30 Day Science Blog Challenge will commence on the 1st of June 2015. 30 Days. 30 Topics. A challenge in a month. ______________________________________________________________________________ As many of you have seen, I was starting the 30 Day Science Blogging Challenge and I had hoped I would be able to post for 30 consecutive days during May 2015. However due to unforeseen circumstances and technical difficulties I am not able to keep up with the daily posting so I have postponed the challenge till June 2015. Sorry if this disappoints anyone. I am also thinking of trying to find a better theme/template for my blog with a better user interface. Your thoughts about the current theme would be appreciated!