Lab work, or what I did with my summer (2013)

This summer proved to be an interesting experience. For the first time, I was permitted to work in a research laboratory, doing experimental science. Not the stifled, predictable, has a correct answer work done in undergraduate laboratories but the open ended field of research science. I had agreed with Professor Andy Ellis of the University of Leicester to work in his laboratory over the summer, and the experiment was much more chemical physics, than physical chemistry. We were synthesising nanoparticles in helium nanodroplets. The first time I'd ever been able to do any such work and certainly an interesting experience. 

The door to the "office"

The helium nanodroplet experiment is an interesting area of research. The droplets themselves are cooled to a temperature of 0.37K, and hence the helium is superfluid. This means two things, the first being that molecules are free to move about inside of the droplets and also that due to the low reactivity of helium they don't form interactions with the helium nanodroplet and thus provides a fantastic way of capturing and holding particles to perform tasks like spectroscopy. This is aided by helium's transparency to most forms of radiation. An off shoot of this is the fact that the size of the droplets can be controlled and thus the size of particles within these meaning that the helium nanodroplet systems provide a novel and interesting method of synthesising nanoparticles with very tight size control.

One of the first tasks we had to do was test the oven we were using to introduce metal into the helium beam. This was done on an ultra high vacuum rig to simulate the conditions that the oven would be operating under. This also ensured that most of the water that had built up on the metal surface would be dissipated by evaporation. 

The oven in operation

The rig it was operating inside of

Eventually this was moved to the main rig. Normally, at this point I would show a picture of the main rig that was being worked on but unfortunately I couldn't find a good enough picture to show it off. It's a big piece of kit - kind of 2.5-3m long apparatus.

We produced nanoparticles fairly quickly containing aluminium. It was especially interesting to see these under a TEM however I cannot post them here as they are publication pending. Eventually we turned our attention to what we were seeing in our mass spectrum.

Now, a few years ago, some German scientists published a paper saying that aluminium atoms trapped in helium nanodroplets were separated by layers of helium and hence would not cluster together. Now, I know of work done that shows that excited electronic states of aluminium tend to the surface of the droplet and I also know of work done that shows that ground state aluminium does not. They had very limited evidence for their claim that these layers of helium existed. But one thing is certain, clusters would not be seen in the mass spectrum.

Yet, this is exactly what we saw!!!  Imagine our surprise. Even more interestingly was that these followed a near magic number progression! Even more interesting. The findings were published then in the Int. J. Mass Spectr. in 2014 and my name was on the paper!! Hopefully the first of many scientific papers in my name!!

It was a great summer and I was keen to repeat the experience again! Even if there were some ups and downs.

The secret life of students... Urgh.

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/programme-information/the-secret-life-of-students

"The three main components of university life at Leicester are partying, action and friends"

Thanks channel 4. Thanks for throwing the academic reputation of the University of Leicester into disrepute. Thanks for making university look like a drunken play pen for imbeciles. Thanks for perpetuating the misnomer that university is just three years of partying with studying being an annoyance on the side.

In my opinion, the three main components of university life at Leicester are studying hard, socialising with nice, decent people and teaching from world renowned academics. A notion of students just being into partying and fun and friends and blah blah blah raises the expectation of thousands to something truly unrealistic that will be shattered when they arrive.

I am particularly disturbed by the character by the name of "Aiden" who from his bio on this website is a lad, reinforcing a villainous stereotype that, from personal experience, makes university life not just horrible, but plain terrifying and can ruin the experience.

The sooner this can be over and done with, the better.

Oh and my biggest thanks goes to the management at the University of Leicester for allowing this to happen. Because TV shows always portray things in a positive light.

I'm hoping now that this will be surprisingly good, but I have a feeling that it won't be. Mostly because of the inherent mistrust of the media on youth culture. Any programme that shows "intelligent" young people as being morons will help aid this message that all young people are stupid and we shouldn't take them seriously.

The hypocrisy of it all.

I recently watched this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfGMYdalClU

Poignant. Non?

Yes, I hear you chorus back. Taking the moral high ground; how dare those humans make their way to the top of the food chain using their brains and technology. Fuck technology I feel you type. From a keyboard. On a computer. On the internet. Using electricity. Whilst drinking a cup of tea. That came from India. That was imported here using technology.

No. No one human can profess any degree of superiority over others these days with respect to the environment. We all live in a developed world. Any human who professes to be above any others; who takes an air of superiority based on nought but their own perceptions of how wonderful they are, does a great injustice to what has come before. To what has made them what they are today.

All of us. And I mean, all of us, owe our lives to technology. Destructive that it may be, but industrialisation has created a modern world that is safe, free from epidemic diseases, from mass slaughter of humans, from famine (let us face it, there is so much food in the world that the whole world could be fed. Greed means people in the developing world go hungry. Not lack of food. Greed of the west).

So if you must take exception. Please, attack the big businesses. The ones who proceed with this destruction. It is never too late to take action. But the wording is key here. Big businesses; multinational conglomerates MUST learn that what they do is not right. As long as people are squabbling over who personally has the best carbon footprint, they win. Unify against them for they count on injustice to drive their mills and feed their children.

Science ruins everyone's fun

On browsing facebook this morning (something I question my rationale for doing every time I log in, I guess it speaks to my inner egotist) I noted that one of the "trending" posts was a girl blabbing on about "Ancient crystal pyramids under the bermuda triangle."

I am sceptical, instantly of any such claim, especially when such a claim makes a point like these crystal structures must influence ocean currents (which, oceanographic studies show there isn't any "interesting" current features around the area), that we don't know how they got there and hence why science must be wrong and the nuts must be right; and finally that there is absolutely no evidence of these structures even existing.

My inner rationalist leaps to attention, and I am struck with an overwhelming urge to post every tiny bit of logic at this person and their ridiculous followers (who I am certain only approve of this, not because they agree but because they like the person posting). I could cite tons of studies done and work on the subject. But my hands are halted. Previous experience has taught me that people don't like their opinions to be challenged. They tend to see it not as an attack on their opinion but on them personally. As a scientist, I am used to people attacking my ideas but we come to accept that most other people in the world don't.

And this raises my main point. Science is forever seen as "ruining everyone's fun" with it's logic, and rigorous testing. I mean, how dare it sit there with any authority over unfounded and potentially harmful opinions that are often spouted out of the mouths of people with absolutely no credentials (a mail order PhD is not equivalent to a real PhD which takes 3 or 4 years of solid work to complete).

I read recently that a boy in Calgary died due to his mother's belief in homeopathic medicines. The cause of death more worryingly was a strep infection. A mild, curable infection that certainly hasn't been a death sentence in the western world since the days of the 1800s. And for what, so that this innocent child's mother could have a level of moral superiority over her friends who support "big pharma" and don't understand nature or the holistic methods that pre-date logical and rational chemistry by nearly 200 years.

The whole "natural" notion, (or Organic to the uninitiated) makes me sick. Science merely harnesses nature to do our bidding. If it couldn't happen in nature then it can't happen in the lab. It's merely a probability of likelihood. How many animals for example have evolved transition metal based touch screens. None, because it's not feasible. But it could still potentially happen. The notion that if it doesn't happen in nature then it's not good for us is likely founded in the unethical practices of the past (which to a lesser extent continue to this day) but I raise the point that selling you a drug with side effects for a large sum of money is far better than selling you some "magic powder" that is in reality sugar for a large of sum of money when it comes down to treating diseases.

But people don't like to be questioned on their decisions. Especially when their decisions are not logical or rational. They like people to blindly accept them. A friend of mine once made a claim that alcohol could help treat liver disease. I asked for a source. He told me he didn't need one, and then linked me to a dubious website on holistic medicine which cited various "new age" magazines as it's references. What I found more concerning is that this is man who studies a science course alongside myself, who views pharmaceutical companies as little more than pill pushers but is not afraid to take unknown substances sold to him as class A drugs which are synthetic chemicals, and are still made in even more unethical ways.

Science isn't fun. I will accept this. There was once an age of discovery where the discoveries made were understandable to the general populace. But this day has passed. The recent discovery of the Higg's boson is a prime example. The Higg's Boson was big news. The "God particle" it was dubbed, but if you asked the general public, on the street, what on earth was the "Higg's boson" most wouldn't be able to tell you, or they would be able to make a comment along the lines of it being a particle in physics. Science is now very esoteric. Great discoveries like the Higg's Boson are important, but most people aren't going to understand it. Now, if you don't understand it, that's fine. But don't try and drag unsubstantiated claims about medicine and pseudosience into the argument. Science is complicated enough if it isn't having to fight off people who make ludicrous claims.

Euro Truck Simulator 2, or how I learned how to stop worrying and love trucks.

I should be a busy student. With many deadlines and a lot of work to do. I wish my brain would somehow cotton on to this. It can't.

Instead, I have been mostly doing this!!!

 

  

This happened on my first outing. I haven't quite got this truck malarkey. 

Don't you just hate it when you go out for a drive and this happens.

 

Why did I think that driving at night was a good idea?

 

 The wheels, oh god, the wheels!

Still not got it. But that package will get there on time!

I don't even know what happened here.

 I bought my own truck. It's pink and I did this with it the first time I took it out.

 

Sod other trucks! I rule the road!!

 

Well, I did rule the road. Not really on it atm.

And thus concludes a dramatically short piece about how crap I am at truck driving.

Next month: FLIGHT SIMULATOR X

A return to First West Coast and HS2

So, it's been a few months and First have lost the west coast franchise, though not in the circumstances I might've predicted. But it's nice to see a re-evaluation of the bidding process and a continuation of Virgin Trains services on the West Coast route.

But this is a minor point; a mere reference to something that was before.

My main rant today is about HS2, this government's farce of a high speed rail plan.

So I think we ought to go over the plans to begin with. The first stage of High Speed 2 is the construction of a new rail route through the midlands serving just outside of Birmingham. Coming later is the construction of a new terminus (at the former LNWR station at Curzon Street), and if the money doesn't run out then the route will be extended to serve Manchester, the East Mids and Leeds.

I have a few minor problems with this. My major concern is with the initial route. It doesn't go anywhere, and I do not believe that passengers will pay extra to save a very small amount of time. I am not opposed to the idea of a high speed line in Britain, as we are one of a very small minority of European nations who do not have an intercity high speed line. I just fear that this will be a prime example of what I can only refer to as "British Engineering" that is, something that was hurried out to appease a lot of people but fails at a key level and will be used mostly as an excuse for future governments to criticise the decisions of the current government.

Now, I would propose a few changes to this high speed proposal. I believe that the current route from London to Birmingham is fine, but that it ought to be routed out of a different terminal to Euston, as Euston is extremely busy. Say, Marylebone for example. This route should travel along the chiltern until outside of London, where it can branch away and become a high speed line proper. This could then pass over the west coast mainline near to Birmingham, and an interchange from the high speed line could be provided. That is to say, the high speed train could leave the high speed line and travel to Birmingham New Street, where it could say, continue onwards to Manchester or Liverpool or even Glasgow.

I like this as it helps relieve pressure on the overly busy West Coast line between London and Birmingham, freeing up spaces for more commuter services between the two cities and creating more freight opportunities also. I also like that this would mean that in theory the high speed line could be extended when ready to be as opposed to all being done at once. People will always be able to travel from Euston to Manchester, just the journey time would be reduced when the extended high speed line would be opened.

Now this is not without some problems, and I think the main is engineering a train that is compatible with both the limited loading gauge of British urban railways and the European loading gauge usually used on high speed lines, but hey, this train already exists in the form of Eurostar. We would merely have to update this to a new spec.

But, y'know, what do I know?

A stegosaurus a day.

My friend Stuart has a blog. You should check it out if you like stegosauruses and origami.

Linky linky.

A Stegosaurus a Day