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Why do women's magazines not promote critical thinking when it comes to beauty and health?

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 Women's fashion and lifestyle magazines have a bad habit of spouting pseudoscientific guff to their readers in in order to raise revenue through product placement, and advertising. I like clothes, handbags and shoes but that doesn't make me stupid air-head or any less of a scientist. I want to know what the latest and best in beauty is, but I do not want to read rubbish science and products that claim to provide more than they will ever be able to offer. I have seen very detailed and thought out articles on important issues like rape, women in the workplace and motherhood. But, when it comes to beauty and health, critical thinking seems to go out of the window and pseudoscience is used to disguise product placement.  Image From:   http://www.mamamia.com.au/relationships/life-iq-how-smart-are-you-really/attachment/woman-thinking/ Commercial magazines rely on and exist because of the advertising revenue they get. Beauty product manufacturers must p

Blog Review! Ed Yong's 'It's Not Exactly Rocket Science' in Au Science Mag

I wrote this 'Blog Review' for the latest edition of Au Science Magazine published in June 2012 (more info below)   Move over books, it’s the Age of the Internet, and blogs are the literature of choice.  These aren’t the blogs of the Myspace era that shared too much information about teen troubles, break-ups and parent problems. The new wave of blogs are well written, informative, can help keep you up-to-date with the latest and greatest, or quite simply exist to provide entertainment. And as we are Au Science Magazine , I have taken a look at some of the science blogs out there in the crazy land of the Internet.  Science blogs are often hosted by expert science writers and/or scientists. They debunk the latest news stories, explain the latest research as it is published and, best of all; they are easily readable on a quick lunch break.  Quite possibly the biggest science blog cheerleader is Ed Yong. An award-winning British science writer who has written for

What Does a Biologist Do All Day?

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I'm a molecular pharmacologist, but what on earth does that mean I do at 10am on a Monday? The vast majority of my PhD in Medical Sciences has been spent in a dark room, counting. Counting breast cancer cells that have moved. YES, moved. Let's start at the beginning. I work with breast cancer cells that have been taken from a donor who had breast cancer. Cancer cells can be grown in a laboratory environment if you give them the correct nutrients and keep them at the correct temperature, a cosy 37 degrees, just like in the body. The cells I use were collected back in the 1970s and have been kept growing in the lab ever since. Cancer cells can be grown on a flat surface (or in a solution), in plastic dishes, like this: The cells grow in 'media', a solution that contains all the nutrients they need to grow. The media is usually pink as it contains phenol-red, an indicator that changes colour if the pH of the media changes (pH needs to be around 7.2-7.4 for op

Negative Calorie Food: Science Myths and Legends

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Celery Cupcakes: A dieters dream? A popular diet belief is that there are some amazing diet wonderfoods that contain negative calories, like celery . So if you eat lots of them, you will burn extra calories; without even lifting a finger. The theory goes, negative calorie foods contain fewer calories than they take to digest. Celery is a reported 'negative calorie food'. If one lump (this is a hypothetical example) contains 6 calories, but it takes 10 calories to digest then the body uses 4 calories and does not gain any. I had some faith in the principal of this idea, it seemed to make sense in my head. Maybe I had just turned my skeptical inquisitive brain off, or maybe, a part of me just wanted to accept that it might be a possibility.. A quick google search revealed a host of information, news articles and blog posts on this subject. Dr Stu posted a blog post summarising some of the literature about negative calorie foods  very recently. Sadly, but pred

Happy Scientists

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It's Friday and although I will be working over the weekend, I am feeling pretty cheerful. Lab life can get you down sometimes, a never ending stream of failed experiments, things to do, late nights, early mornings and a lack of appreciation. Personality clashes, politics and unwanted work are themes from any work life. But, sometimes, labs can be the most fun place to be, a source of comedy, fun and practical jokes.  Here are some things that have made me SMILE and kept me HAPPY over the past 2.5 years. The people you work with can keep you going.  Please share your sad times and good times (practical joke tales encouraged) and keep laughing. When it all goes horribly wrong (does it get any worse than boiling western blots with students?!).......   Someone might give you a special gift   Look away!   You might win a prize   Supervisors can make or break you....   Someone always has cake   You never know when

Making Lab Life Easier With Technology

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Working in a laboratory can be stressful, and cause tension (see my post about lab post-it notes and the radio ). Can new technologies help make life easier, by saving time and enabling easy sharing of work? Or is sticking with old-fashioned paper methods better? ( I have already posted about how I like the idea of e-lab books) I get really annoyed that labs are at the forefront of new discoveries, new science and THE FUTURE, but often work in an old-fashioned way with paper notes and old equipment (my computer is currently on its last legs, I am pretty sure it isn't going to survive 'the thesis'). In the lab I work in, we are pretty old-school. Order numbers and prices are found on a computer, written down on paper and then put back in a computer. Excel files and written lists are used to keep track of what comes in and where it is kept in the lab, but these are not available to update on a computer. But saying all this, in general, it seems to work well.. so why c

Experimental Biology 2012

Last week I was in sunny (actually, it rained) California for the Experimental Biology 2012 conference.  I was blogging on behalf of the  American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB ). I saw lots of interesting science, met a Nobel Laureate, had a good chat with other science communicators and shared a few copies of Au Science Magazine too. Here’s a summary of what I got up to and some links, if you would like to read more! All the posts were on the Au Science Magazine website EB2012 Has arrived ! The Art of Science Communication Storify: The Anatomy of Communication – Interacting with different audiences hosted by the American Anatomy Association Storify: APS Science Blogging Session with Jason Goldman, Dr Isis, Pascale Lane and Danielle Lee Visualising Complex Biology: From the Creating Networks session Monkeys, Beach Balls and Twinkies: Teaching enzyme kinetics using analogies Fighting Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Effectively Communicating Your Scien