Why do we communicate science?

At the weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in a science communication master class as part of the Famelab competition. During it, the question of "why do we communicate science" was raised and the same sort of answers I had heard before were given: science is important to society, people need to be educated, science is entertaining and fun, people need to know what tax payers money goes on, PhD students need to tell people why they're being paid by the tax payer without ever having contributed a penny in income tax. I had heard these before, but this weekend, I decided that the last two weren't a good enough reason on their own.

First the PhD student and their non-tax paying ways. The PhD student might not be paying income tax or PRSI, but they do pay plenty of VAT in their day to day lives. While they might enjoy their research and are considered a student, they are still performing a job (even if it's not defined as such). They provide teaching and demonstrating hours for undergraduate students, and by the very nature of carrying out research are doing a job for their supervisor and the greater research community. PhD students work long hours for low "pay" (it's a stipend, not a wage, this definition matters to HR and Revenue), so it's not as if they're taking this tax-money and spending it on all the luxury while never seeing the inside of a lab. Is there some sort of underlying guilt for getting to study and research and be paid for it?

Rasberry Drizzle Cake

I always like to have a box of frozen raspberries in the freezer. They keep pretty well and sure, when they're going into cake they'll be mushed up a bit anyway.

For the rasberry drizzle cake, I gave the rasberries a quick stewing, to both defrost and collapse them, and to collect a tasty syrup for drizzling on top. To be honest, I hadn't quite decided what sort of cake I would make before I began stewing them, but when I couldn't find the recipe I wanted in my email archive, I went with adapting the lemon drizzle cake.

Phospholipid bilayers made easy

Some scientists are artists, I am not one of these. Sadly, that doesn't get me out of making diagrams to explain my work.

Rashery appley pancakes

The cooking apples havent been great this season. It seems most fruits haven't been faring too well with the wet cool summer. I managed to find three small decent cooking apples a few weeks ago, and I turned them into stewed apple deliciousness. Add some rashers and pancakes and I had a particularly delicious breakfast.

Beans on Toast or “Sorry I’ve been up the walls”

I have been quiet of late haven't I. We just moved house (gone is the gas hob and fan oven, and it's back to conventional oven and electric hob) and we're still unpacking two weeks later. On top of which I caught that marvellous virus that's doing the rounds. I also got a new camera not so long ago (you may have noticed the browniecheesecake picture was better than the ones I took with my phone camera). So to try out the new kitchen and my camera, I have documented my beans on toast method.