Life Beyond the Beaker

In the news, people are finally talking about microplastics. Talking about it and having knowledge about what needs to change is a start and scientists need to gather and share data about what they find. This usually takes the form of a research paper, published through online journals such as Marine Pollution Bulletin, they all have a very strict format. Especially on et al. layouts... The other thing is, *shock* its not just principal investigators or people with PhDs that publish papers as a second author or as a primary author! If you want to you can find a way...the science world is very restrictive, especially for technicians but you just need to find a way to make those barricades work for you and your institute, which at the time was BAS and it didn't even cross their mind to question whether I should be publishing! I was stuck on a ship for 2 months with the transport aquarium so I did have lots of time to pull this all together. Here it is! When I first started at BAS, I...

Over the summer of this year RowAroundScotland , a project run by the Scottish Coastal Rowing Association and being support by 2020 Coasts & Waters was meant to be happening as rowing clubs prepare their boats across Scotland to get ready to row around Scotland, each doing their own leg of the route. "RowAround Scotland 2020 is a relay in open rowing boats around the coast of Scotland. It is organised by Scottish Coastal Rowing Association whose 70 member clubs will all take part, joining up their communities and promoting Scotland’s wonderful coastline and waters along the way." "In 2020, Scotland celebrates its coasts and waters with a year-long programme of events and activities which will shine a spotlight on these vital elements of our landscape." This is the route that the boats were going to take around Scotland! Each leg was going to be completed by the local rowing groups. Yep if you haven't already thought what I...

October, 2015...the first time I met Ben! We were doing our pre-deployment training at Plymouth University with BAS and this was the first day we had met but also the first day that he tested out his remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Deep-sea trekker off the Uni pontoon.  An  ROV   is an unoccupied underwater robot that is connected to a ship by a series of cables. These cables transmit command and control signals between the operator and the  ROV , allowing remote navigation of the vehicle. Ben, myself and Emily Davey made up the 2016 wintering team at Rothera. We had such a great time and the times when we were helping Ben drive the ROV either by being his tender (watching where the line was going and if there was too much slack/tension), driving the boat or generally helping him faff! As you can see sometimes the faffing and the cold was too much for anyone to handle haha. Then 2 years after we had finished...