A thing of beauty – the Schlenk line

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

I am now the proud owner of a Schlenk line – actually it is not a mere Schlenk line but a hybrid – 1/2 high vacuum line, 1/2 Schlenk. And it is a thing of beauty….

Just look at it

Schlenk-Hi-Vacline

Perhaps I am just super excited because it is my first significant piece of equipment in my new lab but it is also a work of art. It was hand blown by a real human glass blower – who bought some taps and some tubing and made this amazing thing.

The red taps are the high vacuum bit. Once its hooked up to a turbo vacuum pump it is capable of pumping to 10-6 millibar ! Which is a pretty healthy vacuum. Just to put this in perspective…. Atmospheric pressure at sea level (like much of the UK) is about 1 bar, or 1000 millibar (or if you are really picky 1.013 bar or 1013 millibar). So when you evacuate this lovely line with a super pump then there is only 10-6 or 0.000001 millibar (or 0.000000001 bar) of pressure left at the highest vacuum (highest vacuum=lowest pressure) – which is a pretty impressive feat for a bunch of glass and taps if you ask me.

Schlenk-bit

The bit on the right is the Schlenk line bit – its generic name is a gas/vacuum manifold. The amazing thing about this piece of kit is that you can hook up one flask to the line and alternately evacuate it or put it under an inert gas atmosphere (like Argon or Nitrogen (N2)) miraculously being able to handle air and water sensitive compounds in a flask on a bench – how cool is that?

This technique was invented by the German chemist Wilhelm Schlenk . His techniques are still used widely today – largely by inorganic and some organic chemists. Schlenk lines, Schlenk flasks, Schlenk techniques, the Schlenk equilibrium.

I think many people, myself included when I was a graduate student, who use these techniques actually don’t know much about Schlenk’s chemistry but rather about his equipment development. In fact this even inspired Thomas T. Tidwell to write an article about Schlenk in Angewandte Chemie entitled Wilhelm Schlenk: The Man Behind the Flask. Schlenk did some amazing chemistry – he was a synthetic chemist, theoretician and has a pretty wobbly personal story – a meteoric rise in and then subsequent exclusion from science – he’s a man worth reading about.

And lastly but equally important, for this lovely line to work you need a pump and a cylinder of inert gas…

the pump

Posted in high vacuum equipment, Schlenk, science equipment | Tagged , | 15 Comments

When do you ‘make it’ ?

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

When I was young I had dreams of being an astronaut or a famous athlete. I figured I could go to the Moon or win Wimbledon and then I would have ‘made it’ and could spend the rest of my life on my laurels. Of course I was seven and had a penchant for laziness. I still secretly do, the problem is I am too restless to ever rest on a laurel even if I had one – or really understand where that phrase comes from.

Resting on your Laurels

But the problem is I have chosen science research as a career, after several other career attempts, and science research never ends. It never really comes to a nice absolute conclusion where there are no questions left to be answered. That is not how science works. There is always: Yes, but what about this? I know some folks think they can solve everything with science, or rather scientific thinking, but I firmly believe the nature of science and critical thinking never allow us do do that. Quite simply its the way science works.

So in a science career, when do you ‘make it’? Is it when you get your A-levels? High school diploma? Masters? your PhD? Is it when you get your first big paper in Nature? Journal of the American Chemical Society? Angewandte Chemie? Is it when you get your first big grant? Is it when you get elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society? elected a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science? when you get the Nobel?

I don’t know. At each stage of my career (so far), I keep thinking if I could just get to the next step – then I will have made it. But then at each next step I don’t feel anything close to having made it, its more like: Oh my! do I have alot to learn. For me the process of settling into a new position, which I am presently doing, makes me think about all of the things I don’t know and don’t understand, not what I already do know.

There is inherent insecurity associated with this feeling, the good news is I have the (maybe naive) belief that I can figure it out, I can learn or I can at least attempt to figure it out, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily will.

So I don’t mean to shock anyone but there are a few scientists out there with really big egos. Egos are often, in essence, the ugly front face of insecurity. And some of these folks, in my estimation, have come as close to having ‘made it’ as I can imagine. But why so insecure? Perhaps it is because they don’t really feel like they have made it either.

Posted in science careers | Tagged | 17 Comments

Help, Industry save the UK science funding

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Sylvia McLain

(oh and yes I still blog)

I was going to write about Willetts and his speech – but really I missed the boat. I was going to write about a paper I published a few years back to let folk know about all of the wonderful research I do.

I was going to write about how the UK government seems to be turning into a purely rhetorical government. They are supportive of everything in principle, or really they are supportive of industry bailing them out of expensive commitments.

Industry is going to save save academic research income – with not many clear incentives for industry; or academics for that matter well except maybe a somewhat vain hope of money.

It sort of looks like:

Scared academic: How do we save academic research in the UK?
Government: Easy, Go out there and find a cure for cancer!

Industry is going to save British small businesses too!
Remember Start-up Britain; Richard Branson thinks its cool
(but he isn’t giving up much cash, it doesn’t look like )

And there is the Big Society but a blog is not long enough to even get me started on the Big Society…

But I haven’t blogged about it, in fact I have blogged about hardly anything. Why? Well in part my job, I am setting up a new research group, at a new institution and am generating much stuff from scratch, which is oodles of new work (but good work, not complaining). I am, presently, obsessed by my new job. Don’t have a drink with me any time soon, its about all I talk about *yawn*.

I am also obsessed with what is going on with our UK government, particularly the bit of what is happening with science funding? Why does Willetts just SAY he likes Industry sharing the load (what if Industry doesn’t want to do that) instead of having a plan? I am not obsessed with fact the man said it, but rather

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

Being largely obsessed with my job – which at this stage for me is focused around building a research group – I am writing lots of grants. Grants, grants and more grants; for equipment, for students, for computers, lab kit. You name it I am writing for it. And who am I writing to – anywhere I can and that is available to me. I am by no means unique, this is what all academic scientists do, its part of the job.

What Willetts hasn’t provided is any kind of mechanism for academics interaction with industry, or really vice versa. Its a ships passing in the nights approach – so unless my research is the Titanic, well …. Maybe the Coalition government will come up with a plan for this soon, but for once I would like to see an actual plan, or even just a meagre semblance of a plan instead of just rhetoric.

Posted in David Willetts, science funding | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

New Occam’s year resolutions (happy birthday to us…)

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Sylvia McLain

Not only is it birthday 1 for Occam’s Typewriter but last week was my literal birthday. So maybe a good time to reflect about what I can do differently in the New Year.

I have a new job since I started blogging at Occam’s T; a new academic job and as we know the UK Research Excellence Framework (RAE) is on the horizon. In case you don’t know, its an assessment of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) by HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) academic department by academic department to see how excellent each is (relatively) which also decides how much money we get in 2015 ! While 2015 seems like a long time away, it isn’t. Especially not from an assessment point of view; good researchers today will be good researchers tomorrow and will be the best HEIs – so the logic goes. There are some fundamental flaws in the logic. The most obvious is, great researchers aren’t necessarily great teachers. Which many of you who have ever been taught in an HEI will also realize is the great understatement of the decade.

But I, as usual, digress.

How can I make my blog better?

Pictures perhaps, Athene Donald mentioned adding more pictures (if she were adept with a camera). Maybe I should have some more pictures, real pictures not one’s stolen from elsewhere? Maybe I can invent creative cocktails in the lab like Jenny Rohn? I definitely don’t want to work for another PhD like Erika Cule (who just upgraded this year, well done). I do use elastic scattering as a technique but this has already been described by Richard and I need to read more books like Henry.

So what to do? I do think I need to write more about the research I actually do, which involves reading books, taking pictures, interacting with PhD students and drinking (for a variety of reasons) as well as diffraction – so this is my new Occam’s year resolution.

Happy belated birthday Occam’s Typewriter!

Posted in Occam's typewriter | Tagged | 7 Comments

C’mon kids play nice

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Sylvia McLain

or how to politely (if strongly) disagree

so I read the Womanspace article that has raised a furror on the blogosphere lately…

I didn’t like it, it does seem to rely on the standard gender stereotypes that have been going on since the 1950’s. I can understand why people are up in arms. I can understand the annoyance at the message that seems to be the same old same old stereotype of women and perhaps it shouldn’t be in Nature. There is an excellent critique as to why here by Charlie Jane Anders and here by Chistie Wilcox. There is disagreement and there are reasons and they are rational in their critiques.

However some of the blogosphere reactions to Womanspace are a bit over the top and resort to name calling.

some of the commentary is what I would call personal attacks:

like this:

And, for every post you write, one or more people are going to write a post in response. That’s how the blogosphere rolls. And with each post someone new is going to walk away from this thinking you are a huge goatfucker. Because, for fuck’s sake, at this point that’s the only way I can see this going down. Your friends think you’re funny, but the rest of us are offended. Take some time, reflect, drink some more wine, and then, if you feel the need, comment later. Much later. Much, much later. Comment to your friends who think you’re hilarious, because the rest of us really, really don’t.

and this in a post entitled ‘Let’s keep it civil’

You know, I didn’t think he was a bastard when this all began, but I could certainly be convinced…

Its fair enough to disagree, and to write a blog about why you disagree, I have read several (as I said above) that set out the case to why the offense, why this shouldn’t be published in Nature and other reasons.

But name calling is bad, it not only is just offensive and over the line, but also makes you loose your point. If you want make a rational point, do exactly that; it might just be me but I don’t understand how ‘goatfucker’ of whatever dimensional size, is a rational construct that adds to any critique.

Posted in Womanspace | Tagged | 12 Comments

All about shes (and hes)

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Sylvia McLain

I recently watched the wonderful classic All About Eve – Best Picture at the Oscars in 1951. Its a great film if you like the classics, the language is spectacular ( I am always amazed at the language in good films before CGI where the script was the only thing to really keep your attention), Bette Davis a triumph. I am a not a film critic so will stop there…

And by today’s standards its amazingly outstandingly sexist (but not entirely). For one thing big powerful actress (Bette Davis) gives up her career to be a ‘woman’ in fact Ms Davis has a whole monologue on how you have to devote yourself to being a woman if you want to get married. Its beautifully delivered and even the more ironic as Bette Davis in her real life did no such thing. She did marry but didn’t by any means give up her career.

Bette Davis

The movie contains all, and I do mean all, of the female stereotypes from the 50s. The mendacious, manipulative career girl who simpers sychophantically and sleeps with the right people to ruthlessley claw her way to the top of the pile. The aged actress who is 42 (42 was aging in 1951!). The gentle, pretty well-meaning (but thick) housewife. The battle axe servant lady who tells it like it is. The film is also complete with a manly slap or a wrestle or two to calm the hysterical women. Stuff you wouldn’t really get away with making a movie today; it’d be too obvious and cause a furor. I am not saying Hollywood ain’t sexist; just that its not so obvious.

Stereotypes still definitely exist today and not just in the movies.
Think about how female scientists, female acadmics or indeed females in any profession, are viewed by the media at large and folks that aren’t (or are) in those professions.

We all know what they are, the dragon lady (ruthless), she slept her way to the top (too thick to suceed on own), and so on. Many of them are age old tropes from back as far as Shakespere (if not further thiking about the female gods in Greek culture), but are still used today. But like more modern Hollywood movies, they usually aren’t quite as obvious as they were in 1951.

Male scientists have stereotypes as well. The one that particularly comes to mind is the absent minded professor. Which is good in some ways, at least they get to be smart, but its not so nice either in fact its quite condescending this idea that if scientists can solve some equation of everything in the universe, they probably can’t tie their shoes. Which is all a bit silly.

I optimistically think these old tired stereotypes must be fading, at least I don’t hear people say such things as often as I used to. Except for the absent-minded thing, but that seems to be applied to women too (what was I saying, sorry I just had a particularly erudite thought). On the other hand, I doubt we have broken out of the stereotype mold, we humans like to type people and catagorize things into patterns and boxes and these stereotypes have been around for a long time.

I don’t have a conclusion to this post, but a question or two.

How pervasive are these stereotypes still in scientists? And are there any new stereotypes for scientists? If so what are they? Do tell!

Posted in stereotypes in science | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Its the right idea….almost

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Sylvia McLain

Peter Thiel who invented PayPal and presciently invested in Facebook has announced that he is giving money though a scheme called ‘Breakout Labs’ where independent researchers and start-up companies will be funded philanthropically through a grant-proposal process and that any royalties recovered from these successful folk will be reinvested in new sci-ventures.

I like the model, I especially like the part where royalties pay for more research. This is good, its self contained, non-for-profit (sort of) and gives back to the hand that feeds it, generating more capital for future investment. Breakout Labs also seem to realize (I hope) that they will loose some of that money. I wrote a blog about how science needs a Saatchi a while back which I think is applicable. What is not to love? It should be possible, perhaps to fund scientific research with philanthropic funds. Why not? Philanthropy pays for all sorts of good things. Look at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation specifically and more generally about this topic, Michael Green and Matthew Bishop at their blog (and book) Philanthrocapitalism.

The Breakout Lab start-up funding for early-stage tech companies is also a good idea. They are accepting applications for grant funds between $50,000 and $350,000, so an early tech company might really forge ahead with this level of funding, it just might be the break they need to get off the ground. Great!

But their plan for independent scientific research? Not so great. Why, because Breakout labs stipulates they cannot be based at any big institution, have corporate funding or be at a University. So where else are ‘independent researchers’? In their garage. Working on perpetual motion machines. Despite their claim that they don’t want to support ‘hobbyist hackers’ but rather independent scientists with ideas that will change the world; I don’t think that is going to happen.

First off the funding available is $50,000 to $350,000. That is not enough to build a lab from scratch. Part of what a University offers is infrastructure, someone that pays the bills, gives you access to journals (OK don’t start on the open access thing that is another issue), makes sure the coolant for say a glove box works properly, and keeps the lights on. A particular University (or company) may not do this well, but they do do it.

They also say these grants will be for ‘bootstrap data’ fill the gap funding before these independent researchers can apply for an NIH grant or something similar. So are you going to do drug research in your basement? On $350K to build that lab, keep the electricity paid to use those incubators, buy your chemicals – if you are ‘independent’ you have to be certified to handle and dispose of chemicals, for instance, who is going to pay for that? Good luck.

While I will admit that for some things this might work, say engineering something or developing a new business – its sort of dumb for basic science research. It would be smarter to work a deal with Universities for support of new and early stage researchers, where maybe companies like Thiel’s can claim the IP or some such. Its smarter to work with what you got.

Posted in Funding, Philanthroscience | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

On Science careers for post-docs….

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Sylvia McLain

and some PIs are good guys (really)

I have been reading about David Willetts round table discussion from both Athene Donald and Jenny Rohn. These two fellow Occam T bloggers have been writing about science careers (particularly with respect to post-docs and early career researchers) pretty prolifically in the last few months as have been lots of other folk (see Lewis Dartnell’s blog for instance (apologies to Lewis, I can’t find the actual blog )). All of these posts make not only for an interesting read, but are excellent food for thought about science careers beyond the post-doc and early career level.

One recurring theme that I keep noticing, largely in the comments on these blogs (sorry to not link here but there are such a multitude), is the feeling that the current academic research structure in the UK is ‘all for the glory of the PI’ and there is a huge amount of waste in the system – in terms of helping post-docs move into permanent (academic) posts.

Dealing with the second point first, I think I am safe in re-stating there is a dearth of jobs for post-docs making the transition to a more permanent PI post. With fellowships only funding to the 3-5% level there are not many available. Even if the criteria were opened more widely this is not a lot of people. Not to mention being awarded a fellowship traditionally was a near-as-dammit guarantee of a permanent post- word on the street is no longer! Many people with permanent academic research jobs are having trouble finding money in this current economic climate, it simply ain’t there. Fellowships have always funded to this level, the alternative (if you want to stay in academic research) is to apply for a lecturer position at a university and do research from there, where this was usually the more obvious option. But, again, no longer! There are scant few new faculty positions available in the UK (but there are some) and even when there are, having enough money to do your research is far from guaranteed.

But how much is this a product of the economic crisis? How much of this is a product of a financial structure where there are just simply less jobs? Its something I think we all need to think about. It may not just be the structure of academic science itself, it may just be that the structure is rapidly changing and that less money is forcing this change.

And now to the first point, I think its important to remember that PI’s (for the most part) can’t create positions that are not technician, post-doc or PhD studentship positions. To be a PI in the strictest sense you have to hold a grant, most grants are temporary. If a PI has long-term post-doc grant funding has been strung together to keep said post-doc.

The reason why I am saying this is is there seems to be an undercurrent of blaming PI’s for the suppression of post-docs. I am NOT saying is that this doesn’t happen, it does, you see it in many research departments, there are some PI’s with huge (and not so huge) research groups with post-docs who have been there for ages and seem to not be able to get out. And, as in any career, there are also nasty supervisors who keep people (by writing them bad references and whatnot) for ages. But it is worth remembering that many of them don’t. I have had some excellent supervisors in academia who helped promote me, push me intellectually and build my confidence. When I was a lab technician my boss encouraged me to go back to graduate school, even though he thought I was a good tech (he said); my PhD supervisor sent me to give research talks on my own. One of my senior colleagues told me just last week how proud she was of the fact her first two post-docs were now running their own research groups. This does really happen. It just doesn’t seem to get registered as often. It may just be that PI’s need to be educated to teach people about their further opportunities, maybe the PIs themselves don’t know, especially if they have been successful in the current system, they have never had to tackle the same problems.

PIs and post-docs alike are in a new world, the academic structure seems to be to be changing and while the boat is rocking its not always easy to clearly. I was glad to see that David Willetts had a round table discussion and that the likes of Athene Donald and Jenny Rohn were participating and giving us their impressions. This is a good thing, the more we can open up this discussion the better. But I think all sides of the debate have to keep an open mind (I am not saying this didn’t happen at the round table, it in fact seems like it did!), listen and be careful about not blaming each other but put our heads down together to fix the science career problems.

Posted in science careers | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Bad review, good review, peer review, Parliamentary review

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Sylvia McLain

Are neutrinos faster than light?

This is a big question at the moment since they have been ‘observed to be’ by a group of researchers recently. I myself am sceptical, Jon Butterworth wrote an excellent blogpost about this which points out some of the problems. However if it were to be true, its a REALLY BIG DEAL.

In Twitterland the press announcement of super-fast neutrinos PRE peer review was somewhat derided by some; where they thought this announcement should have gone through a peer review process before the news was ever released.

On balance, I don’t think so, this is an example of a potential REALLY BIG RESULT (see here for a good physics lite description ) or a potential REALLY BIG MISTAKE – which is what happened with cold fusion, if you remember that story. If you don’t the story is basically, scientists see really big result, scientists don’t double test the result, scientists claim they see cold fusion, other scientists can’t reproduce their results, original scientists refuse to believe they were wrong (pathological); but (at least to date) they still can’t produce enough energy to even warm a cup of coffee – there is a nice review about cold fusion and its subsequent debunking here.

The cold fusion folk in Utah also didn’t go to peer review before the press release, but if their result had been correct, well, we would think differently about it now. A result like this would be SO big that you want other people to know about it as soon as you can. Most day-to-day, even big scientific breakthroughs don’t produce a really big result like this, not in the sense of overturning the last 100 years of physics, quantum chemistry and the like. I can see the need to release the news quickly, not to gloat about your success but rather to tell the rest of the scientific community so they can verify or not verify, and peer review can take a long long time.

And we also know the peer review process has room for improvement, how? UK Parliament says so. If you recall, a few months back a UK Parliamentary committee sat to review and discuss the peer review process in journals and they concluded (according to the BBC ) that, wait for it,

there is room for improvement, data should be publicly available and that there should be formal training for reviewers. Even though the UK parliament has no authority over international science journals, none. Is the American Chemical Society really going to care what UK Parliament says about their peer-review practices? No.

I am a big defender of peer review, but anyone is always free to publish their data on the web if they want, in fact some people only ever do that. However, at least in my field, if you want to maintain any kind of reasonable reputation among your colleagues and peers as a research scientist, you have to have peer reviewed publications.

If super speedy neutrinos are real – its such a potentially big result that a press release allows for verification (or nullification) to happen faster. THEN comes peer review, for everyone who works on these systems. In order to be ‘vetted’ scientifically this science will almost certainly go through a peer review process. Being a big fan of peer review, and sarcasm aside there is always room for improvement with this process, especially as it effects the publication of new ideas and where fraudulent science ekes through, but your work should be evaluated by your peers.

To close on a slightly tangential note, peer review seems to get a lot of crap in the blogosphere (and by Parliament) however it does often work quite nicely. I just had a paper accepted (barring minor revisions); it was reviewed by four referees; over 2 rounds of review. One of the referees, there is always one, was very negative, however I think negative reviews are sometimes better than good reviews even, as they make you have to THINK about what you are doing. Maybe the referee didn’t understand the paper? Which means you need to rewrite it to be more clear. Maybe the referee hates your technique? Which means that you have to justify the use of your technique. Maybe the referee thinks your result is wrong? Then you have to provide further evidence. These are all good things.

Posted in fast neutrinos, Peer review, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Waste not, want not

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Sylvia McLain

Discussion of ‘waste’ in both higher education and scientific research seems to keep popping up in my life. Both in Science Question Time (from August 24th) and in some comments here on Occam’s Typewriter posts by both Jenny Rohn and Athene Donald (make sure to read the comments !) I also keep hearing people say things about ‘waste’ it seems in context of paying for higher education such as in the statements:

Is a university degree I have to pay for a waste if I can’t get a job in that field ?

Is going through lots of science training (PhD; 3 post-doc positions) when I don’t get an academic job in the end a ‘waste’ of time?

From a personal point of view, on balance, I don’t think higher education is ever a waste. The more educated the work force, no matter where that work force works is a good thing. University (and I would like to stress here I didn’t go to a particularly fantastic University) changed the way that I thought and exposed me to people/ideas/things I would have never heard of or thought about otherwise. Even if that was through disagreement or boredom.

Moreover, a University education is not something that you can really easily put a price-tag on so directly. Just like life, doing a full cost analysis of the choices you make and where you go in your life is really hard to do. I am not even sure how to begin to do this.

I spent some time working before I ever even went to University. With no contacts, the only place I could get a job was Wendy’s – the fast-food restaurant. Which was a fine education in itself, but the pay was crap and to try to move out of that was damn nigh impossible. I didn’t walk, I ran back to University – but then I could do that. Many of the people I worked with there at the naive age of 19 didn’t have much of any opportunity to ever leave that life, the poverty trap and poor education didn’t help much. I at least had the advantage that I attend a high school that provided me enough education I was able to get into a University. But this is a whole other issue (which is equally important !)

I don’t want to slide down that ‘people have it worse’ slippery slope too far; some people always have it worse or better and in some senses that is meaningless, its like when my mother wanted me to finish my dinner because other people in the world were starving; it was meaningless in the context of my 8-year-old life.

But this is all about personal waste, how someone feels about their time. People will often say ‘I’ve wasted my life’ when they decide to leave a career, get divorced, maybe at the end of our lives. But hind-sight is 20/20. I am not saying this feeling isn’t real or valid, I have wasted more time that I care to think about, but its all very hard to assess before your life is complete; before all of the data is in as it were.

Maybe the question is ‘are we training too many PhD’s’ and giving them ‘false hope’?

I think no. Perhaps, the people that are frustrated now are the ones that will REALLY help change the system for the better, reinvent the system, shake things up. I think that, perhaps you are in a better position to do this if you are educated and have been a part of the system you are trying to change.

This is also a changing world – its just recently the austerity budget in Britain (and in the US) started limiting circumstances for many people. There has never been a guarantee that if you get a PhD you get an academic job and you never know how the world will change in the future. But with a better education, you are (usually) in a better place to change things.

I do realize this is all a bit wide-eyed, and I don’t intend to undermine anyone’s personal feelings about all of this (I have some similar ones myself) but what else are we to do?

Posted in higher education | Tagged , , | 10 Comments