Odd things scientists do

Over the last two weeks I have cut up 5 plastic carrier bags into teeny tiny pieces. I've done this in Cafes whilst waiting for children's birthday parties to finish or during swimming lessons as well as at work and in the evenings. It is very dull. There is a good reason for cutting up the plastic but what is possibly more interesting is the reaction of the public when I do this in front of people.

A bag in the process of being cut up

Several bags now cut up. I am pleased to say that one of my sons spotted the colour differences and suggested that if I was going to use the material in an experiment I'd need to mix it all up so that it was the same and therefore could be used in "a fair test". Excellent observation.

I spent an hour in a Costa and only one person, a tourist from Norway, asked what I was doing. In contrast, whilst at the swimming pool I was surrounded by four or five young(ish) children, probably aged 6 or 7, asking me what I was doing. As soon as I said that it was for a science project I was regaled for about 20 minutes about how they had enjoyed science week a few weeks ago at school and the fun things that they had done. It was possibly my most interactive bit of outreach for some time and did leave me wondering why science often becomes perceived as dull and boring at some point in a child's school career.

We also hosted the Earthworm Society of Britain last weekend for one of their periodic earthworm collection and identification sessions.

My ex-PhD student Dan Carpenter, now Biodiversity Officer with Bracknell Forest council and a leading light in the Earthworm Society of Britain, looks on as people identify the earthworms that they collected earlier in the day.

The building, semi-unwrapped

Not sure about that orange paint colour

Finally, our new building continues to progress. I looked around the inside about two weeks ago and things are coming on. Gas lines are in the labs and some walls have been painted. Not sure about the orange colour some people have chosen but each to their own. Up to now the building has been wrapped in polythene, rather like one of those modern art installations but now the plastic is slowly coming of as the building gradually and seductively unveils itself.

Next up is another trip to Diamond. This could be a trying visit. I have to get across London during todays tube strike and then take a Great Western train to Didcot which is also subject to industrial action. Then, rather than staying on site I have to stay two nights in Didcot travel lodge before moving to the onsite accommodation on Saturday whilst a massive open day (c. 10000 people expected) is happening all across site - mind you they are promising dinosaurs and volcanoes so it could be good!

June is the busiest month - exams and more exams (and a few earthworms)

I'm just back from Durham, external examining. This is a key role in the life of an academic, ensuring that academic standards are maintained across Universities. This was my second year as external examiner at Durham for their Environmental Geoscience degree. It remains a good degree and, I think, is better than the previous year thanks to the introduction of some new modules. The only disappointment is that by the time we got back to the Seven Stars in Shincliffe after dinner on the Wednesday night the bar was shut - perhaps this was just as well after last year though apparently THAT photo caused the Durham earth science department much amusement.

We've also finished our exams and exam marking here in York, external examiners will be here next week to tell us what we think.

Kirsty (Whispers in the dark) has been spreading the news about earthworms. Here she is with a budding earthworm-ologist at "Science out of the lab" part of the York Festival of Ideas.

Kirsty selecting some earthworms for a budding Charles Darwin to identify

We've also recently heard that Joseph Olimah's paper on his PhD work looking at ochre amendments to As contaminated soils has been accepted for publication in Environmental Pollution as has Alice Johnston's third PhD paper on earthworm population models in Journal of Applied Ecology - this one links them into ecosystem services.

Finally for now we've also just heard that we've got some Diamond beamtime on beamline i08 to use STXM to look for organic molecules stuck between subgrains of amorphous calcium carbonate in our earthworm calcite balls - so more restaurant reviews of biege food coming soon. The idea is that the areas of ACC we've previously identified on B22 with FTIR could be isolated from the surrounding calcite (and prevented from crystallising) by thin envelopes of organic molecules. This first bit of beamtime will tell us whether we can use STXM to test this hypothesis.

Must stop now to cut up some plastic bags in preparation for our latest set of experiments!

NERC in Nanjing 2: 46 hours travelling, 48 hours in Nanjing

I'm now happily home so here is the second part of the Chinese odyssey.

14th April: train arrived on time in London and I got to Heathrow via Paddington and the Heathrow Express. I'm travelling Air France to Paris and then on to Nanjing, changing in Beijing with Air China. There was a grumpy man at the Air France check in who told me he couldn't check my bag through to Nanjing as Air France didn't "have a relationship" with Air China. He then weighed my hand baggage and told me it was 1 kg too heavy and that I should pack less next time. I'm a bit stressed about not being checked all the way through as I only have 2 hours in Paris which to me feels like cutting it fine to check in for an international flight. At least I only have hand baggage so I won't have to waste time waiting for my hold baggage to be unloaded before trying to get my next flight. I spent a little time trying to persuade Air China to check me in but the people at the desk couldn't and you can't do internet check in for Air China flights from Paris. Hey ho. I hung around in a relatively quiet Terminal 4, had a nice lunch at Carluccio's and then flew to Paris.

I arrived into Paris on time and tried to find out whether I had to exit the air port then come back in to check-in on the Air China flight or whether I could just follow the  "International Transfer" signs. No one seemed to know so I opted for "International Transfers". This got me to a bus which took me to another terminal - it took about an hour which was quite stressful. Eventually I got to a gate, about 40 minutes before my Beijing flight, but still with no boarding card, which again was rather stressful. However the people at the gate, though rather surprised that I had no boarding card, helpfully got me one and checked me through to Nanjing. We were boarding within 10 minutes of me getting my boarding card - too close for comfort!

I arrived in Beijing on time and it was very efficient getting into the country, only took about 30 minutes of queuing at immigration.

My wife had a friend who used to take photographs of MacDonalds in different countries she visited making sure that the MacDonalds sign was only just visible, tucked away in a corner or poking out behind someones head. I think an equivalent these days would be adverts featuring David Beckham - here is one from Beijing airport.

Global phenomenon David Beckham - would you buy a car from this man?

Typical "Chinese" shop in Beijing airport

But here's the flight board to show it really was China

There were Chinese shops as well

But also Western food outlets

I was met in Nanjing by some students who took me to the hotel, the Purple Palace. There was a very impressive inflatable balloon arch in the hotel. It would be lovely to say that this was something to do with our workshop but actually it was to do with a party celebrating the first 100 days of a baby being born, apparently a big thing in China. It was a very racous party. I saw various people staggering out later in the evening.

100 day celebrations for the birth of a baby.

The hotel is comfortable and the workshop was useful - I spent time getting to know UK colleagues and also discussed our proposal with the Chinese partners who were very welcoming and hospitable. I think the visit also helped NERC and NSFC sort out how the call would work - it seemed to evolve almost by the minute at times! The food was good, I'm very fond of pork dumplings for breakfast. I was also able to confirm that I still don't like the taste of jellyfish!.

Unlike the last time I was at a meeting in Nanjing, about 3 years ago, I did see a bit of the city - we had a boat tour on the evening of the 16th. As the recorded commentary was in Chinese it was less informative than it could have been but it was nice to see bits of the city. The highlight were undoubtedly the illuminated sheep (alas I didn't have a camera with me), a classic bit of Chinese incongruity. 

After one and a half days of talks it was time to travel home again!

The travelling was very smooth on the way back. The only unnerving event was arriving in Beijing airport. I knew that my flight to Munich was at 0110 in the morning. However the departure boards showed that the 0110 flight was going to Athens!

Why isn't the 0110 going to Munich like it says on my ticket?

I wondered whether this was due to the French Air port strike - it was scheduled to be happening and I hadn't checked the news whilst in Beijing. I know now that the strike was cancelled. Anyhow thinking that Athens was a lot closer to home than Beijing I tried not to worry and kept going. It transpired that the 0110 was going to Munich but then on to Athens so all was well.

It's OK it is, it just then goes on to Athens

The transfer from Munich to Heathrow was fine and I got into Heathrow at 0830. I was on the 1000 train from Kings Cross to York and in York for 1249. Pretty efficient.

Total time travelling for the trip (there and back) was about 47 hours. Length of time at meeting 48 hours including two nights sleep which accounted for about 16 of the 48 hours. Cost for travel (excluding 2 nights accommodation but including visa fees) about £1600. How do you assess the worth of these things?

NERC in Nanjing 1

I’m writing this in two parts, the latter retrospectively as I don’t think I have access to my Blog whilst in China. It shows the helter skelter rush for a Chinese visit relating to a NERC-NSFC (National Natural Science Foundation, China) funding call. All very glamorous sounding I’m sure but rather stressful and by my reckoning at least 3 days travel for a day and a half of meetings. Skype anybody?

28^th Jan: NERC-NSFC-Newton fund announce an opportunity for funding soil science for joint UK-Chinese collaborative projects. 4 projects to be funding, withh UK teams each getting on average up to c. £750k over three years = 2 postdocs time.

26^th Feb: Contacted by Ganlin Zhang, (Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciencs) via Stephen Nortcliff (thanks Stephen) to see if I’m interested in collaborating, of course I am!

6^th March: Proposal submitted to deadline - UK lead is Paul Hallett from Aberdeen. Jo Smith and Josie Geris from Aberdeen also on board.

19^th March: We hear we’re through the first round and that there will be a workshop in China on 15 – 18 April (it clashes with Chinese soil sessions at EGU where Paul Hallett is involved in various sessions - didn’t anyone at NERC check for clashes?). So I'll have to go to China to represent the UK branch of our group. I'll need a visa but need official invitation letters before I can apply for one. I book my plane tickets on the assumption that I'll get a visa in time.

27^th March: I go on holiday to Austria for a week - no news on the invite letter and I need my passport in Austria so I can't apply for a visa yet.

30^th March: Official invite letter needed for Chinese visa application arrives – can’t do anything until I get back from holiday and the turn around time for visas is four or five days minimum. It will be tight.

7^th April: Back from holiday, passport sent off to agents to get Visa. French air space strikes start – I’m flying out via Paris!

13^th April: Passport arrives back from agents. Check status of strike – it looks like another strike starts 16^th April, ends 18^th April so I should be fine flying out, getting back may be more problematic but I’m flying back via Munich not Paris so I might be OK.

14^th April: Taxi is late to pick me up for the train station (why does that always happen?). The carriage I have a reserved seat in (D) isn’t there – there’s a gap between C and E! I eventually find D at the end of the train, must be a new version of the alphabet. Train is now on its way to London. All being well I'll get to Heathrow in good time. I can then catch up on some films on the way to Nanjing, enjoy the food and the company and talk science. More when I get back.....

Models and field work

Bookending the Easter break I spent a good day at the Natural History Museum with Paul Eggleton and Ron Corstanje working on the data from our NERC BESS project.

A draft structural equation model for controls on earthworm distributions in pastures

Then after a week skiing it was straight into the field to start earthworm sampling for Soil Bio Hedge. Here we all are lapping up the sunshine at Spens farm.

Sampling earthworms in the sun at Spens farm

Soil Bio Hedge

Exciting news that Jonathan Leake (Sheffield) and colleagues have been awarded a NERC Soils Consortium grant. These things read a bit like football team line ups in terms of numbers. This grant involves:
Mike Burrell, Rob Freckleton, Steve Banwart, Duncan Cameron, Dylan Childs, Jill Edmonson (Sheffield); myself and Thorunn Helgason (York) and Les Firbanks, Joe Holden, Richard Grayson and Pippa Chapman (Leeds). 

The project (called Soil Bio Hedge) aims to:

"Deliver an integrated and predictive understanding of the mechanisms by which soil biota and soil functions resist, and recover, from impacts of conventional arable farming - compounded by extreme climatic events.  

Determine the spatial and temporal scales over which recovery occurs with particular focus on the role of dispersal of the ecosystem bio-engineers - earthworms and mycorrhizal fungi - from hedgerow and field margin reservoirs to leys that promote soil restoration.

Establish an integrative and predictive spatial-temporal model of soil quality change at field-to-landscape-scale integrating the role of dispersal of hedgerow and field margin biodiversity into arable land resulting from land use and management change involving grass-clover leys.  "

Can't wait to get started with the earthworm surveys in early April. Here are a bunch of us scoping out where to put in soil transects establishing ley strips in arable fields and arable strips in grasslands last week on a day when we had sleet, rain and sun, all within an hour or two of each other.

Pondering soil transects at Spens farm

Robots and worms - worm scans rather than CAT scans?

Just at the end of the year I visited Prof. Sacha Mooney at Nottingham University to look at the Hounsfield X-ray tomography facility. In brief X-ray tomography allows you to take images of stuff that isn't see through to visible light. I was interested in whether we could use it to see earthworms in soil.

The facility itself is funded primarily to take photos of the root structure of different genotypes of wheat as part of a project designed to optimise wheat varieties for food production. The whole thing is very impressive.

There is a big greenhouse full of drainpipes in which the wheat is growing. A robot trundles round this greenhouse picking up the drainpipes and taking them to the tomography unit.

You can see the robot behind the plants in drainpipes here.

The robot picks up a drainpipe and brings it towards the tomography unit. You can see the door to the tomography unit beginning to open.

The robot deposits the drainpipe and retreats.

On the other side of the door another robot picks up the drainpipe and puts it in the scanner.

 We also had drainpipes (with soil and earthworms) but we used a smaller scanner to look at them.

A smaller scanner unit that we used to scan our 30 cm high 12 cm diameter drainpipes

It took about 30 minutes scan time then some processing time by senior research fellow and X-ray tomography whizz Craig Sturrock to produce the following film in which you can see the earthworms in pink and the burrows in yellow. So now we can actually see where earthworms are in the soil. Incredible.

The other nice thing about visiting Nottingham is East Midlands Parkway - you get an excellent view of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar cooling towers!

Cooling towers at East Midlands Parkway train station