Peers, papers and ponds

One of the nice things associated with being ‘retired’ is that one can take advantage of a great deal more flexibility within one’s week. However, that only really works in the presence of a variety of opportunities. Thankfully, I continue to benefit from the positive effects of the sort of serendipity I have mentioned often in earlier posts when reflecting on aspects of my life as a scientist. In the last couple of weeks, for example, the more usual spread of activities has been augmented by the need to review the results of some still-novel research from my former research team, an invitation to present certificates-of-achievement to more the 70 amazing students and the chance to engage with a fascinating conservation project.

I have written before about teaching undergraduate physics students and some of the fun I’ve had exploring innovative ways to improve my effectiveness and their learning (see here and here). What I didn’t write about at the time were the ways in which one could successfully support and amplify all this using suitable, trained volunteers from the students themselves. I had the opportunity of helping to test-run and then to develop an academic peer mentoring scheme at my university which was introduced and championed by a particularly committed leader in student support, Allia Wilson, and her team. In essence, certainly as I implemented it within my department, the scheme provides a framework for small groups of those in the first stages of their degree programme to learn directly from capable students in the latter half of their programme. It’s a tremendous scheme, not only for those early-stage students who take advantage of it but also for the volunteer mentors themselves who benefit by digging deeper into their own studies and by learning more about themselves as people, teachers and leaders. Given the tenor of this introduction it will not surprise you to hear that I was, and remain, a huge fan of the scheme. Being invited to present awards to about 70 of this year’s approximately 300 trained volunteers was therefore an opportunity not to be missed. It was of course good to catch up with former colleagues and to be able to say a few words to those gathered, but the highlight was hearing from the mentors themselves – informally during the preceding buffet lunch or after the formalities were over, and in the handful of case-study presentations some of them were able to make. It’s good to see that the project is in safe hands and continues to make a positive contribution.

The obligatory group shot at the end of the ceremonies;
I’m in there somewhere, but I’ll leave the location as a minor mystery for you to resolve.

Although I am no longer actively initiating research projects, there are a few things that couldn’t be brought to completion before ‘retirement’. Slowly, this work is emerging into the light. This week, a former PhD student, now a lecturer in Chemistry at a UK university, sent me her draft manuscript for a paper on silver-doped bioactive glass. Together with our collaborators/partners, we had synthesised a series of sol-gel silicate glasses (see the second half of this post for some generic background and links to further information, or here - again, second half) with various levels of silver added, collected the data but not had sufficient time to analyse or interpret it. Why this particular set of materials? The host bioactive silicate glass bonds to bone and promotes bone regeneration, and the silver imbues it with antibacterial properties. This data was only a few years old, in contrast with the second set of results which came my way – this time from a former research associate in my team, now a senior academic in both the UK and in Canada. She and I collected the data, on a rare-earth doped phosphate glass of great interest within the field of optoelectronics, more than a decade ago during an extended and very demanding experiment in the USA. The ‘delay’ in getting to this final stage arose from the extraordinary complexity of the data and the need to develop analysis routines almost from scratch. In both cases, I’m now looking forward to completing these outstanding projects. I wonder what else is yet to emerge from my former working life …

Schematic representations of the atomic-scale structural features within a rare earth phosphate glass are shown here. On the left is depicted the nearest neighbour environment of oxygen (O) and phosphorus (P) atoms around a rare earth (R); on the right, a slightly larger-scale representation of the interrelationship between the rare earth (yellow) and neighbouring phosphate groups (pink). 

Having now covered ‘peers’ and ‘papers’ we are left only with the ‘ponds’ mentioned in the title. I have been pondering writing a post on vaguely science-related aspects of gardening for some time. However, I’m not a gardener in the classic sense of knowing a lot about flowers and shrubs and so on – I only really enjoy growing edible plants, and we don’t have a garden nearly large enough to allow much of that. I value what I might call the therapy of practical work in the garden, and thankfully my wife – who does know about flowers and shrubs – takes care of the ‘proper’ gardening: our complementary skills make for a good team. What does interest me is being able to make the place a little more attractive to birds, insects and other small creatures. In their turn they give me the chance to sit and stare, and to read and reflect in their midst. So, rather than write a post on the biology and chemistry of making good quality compost or the importance of pH and oxygen levels in a garden pond etc. I’ll share with you a naïve and extremely amateur five-minute video tour of the place.

The video was shot in a single take using my ’phone, so you’ll not be too surprised by the quality either of the picture or of the audio/commentary: I make no claims for it whatsoever, it is ‘a bit of fun’, partially inspired by snippets from BBC's Gardeners World and elsewhere. (Yes, I do realise that at one point I use the word ‘pond’ when I mean ‘garden’. I also omitted all sorts of things I might have mentioned; never mind.)

Postscript: As a very significant bonus to what I’ve written about above, I spent over five hours at Canterbury Cathedral a few days ago in the company of some exceptionally talented scientists, conservators and creative artists. We were focused on conservation issues associated with their stained glass. I have been thinking about writing something on the interaction of light with glass – my favourite material – and this additional opportunity to learn more about the subject of stained glass turns the idea into a high priority. However, rather than expand this short post into an exceptionally long one I’ll devote a separate piece to the topic. Watch this space …