Phew, so much for multitasking!

Yikes, I have completely neglected my resolution to keep this blog up to date and interesting.

Well, my excuse? Its been a busy few months! Getting a job is great - because I can now confidently pay the bills (and an upcoming mortgage - oh god!). But its also 3 days a week when I cannot really work on my research. SO, for the first couple of months, I definitely admit to putting my research on the back-burner. Which, in hindsight, was stupid and unnessessary. The thing about academia is that you do it because you're passionate about the research, and I forgot this for a while. But Im back on track now, making sure I keep my masters first and foremost in my mind - I don't know how anyone could do a difficult job AND do research part-time. I've even taken to hauling my laptop into work on the days my boss is absent, and its surprisingly productive to get the bits and pieces kept up to date. I also have myself a bike now so I can commute and keep healthy while I spend most of my time at desks staring at computers or books.


So, the conference - it was pretty damn good! The biggest thing to say about it was the huge opportunity it gave me to meet the people who are the movers and shakers for research in my field - past,present and future. Peter Ungar, Richard Scott, Mark Teaford and Joel Irish were amazing people to meet and showed a genuine interest in my investigations and academic future. I got myself involved with the Dental Anthropology Association and so have made aquaintances with many people involved with that organisation - so I am very pleased.

There was also some great research being presented, there are some genetic studies regarding dentition which I wouldn't even have thought possible, and I was very impressed. For example, one group are currently looking into molar cusp ontogenetics and have tinkered with rodent genes to both increase and decrease molar cusp number. Obviously it wasnt all dental anthropology, and I was 'almost' as fascinated by so much of the other material being shown (but obviously nothing will ever compare to my chosen area of enquiry!)

Finally, though, the conference was also a helluva lot of fun. I met loads of great, fun people (students, postdocs and professors - the whole shebang) and had a very entertaining last night on Route 66 in Albuquerque! A rogue erupting volcano also meant I not only had the chance to immerse myself in Old Town Albuquerque - but the search for a place to stay while we waited to get home led my supervisor and myself on a road trip up to Colorado to stay with his in-laws. I had the most AMAZING time, though this is not the forum to describe it all, suffice to say that I am now a bit of an honorary Native American these days.


As for my masters, its going pretty well. My micrographs are all done and dusted, and my first few sets of stats are done. The results so far are encouraging, challenging and exciting all at the same time. I can say more about it once I have dissected them a little for my results chapter. Hopefully when my partner and I move into our new flat I can set up my own little study area - the dining table doesnt quite cut it.

So maybe thats my big conclusion for this post - the research comes first. I've found it nigh on impossible to keep it going if my mind is full of money worries, work tasks and other personal nicnacs. I'm not trying to say we should all become one track robots totally unable to tune ourselves into anything but our own work. But the key is that I must keep my mind plugged into the main train of thought for my masters, and map everything else out as offshoots.

I'll sign off by saying that my AAPA Minneapolis meeting 2011 abstract is already written and waiting to be submitted (no way in hell I'm missing out on a meeting from now on!).
And if you like microwear, check this blog out http://dentalecology.blogspot.com/ .

Facing my first academic conference

Feeling rather restless here at work waiting until I set off for New Mexico tomorrow. I'll be attending the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists - a pretty big deal for someone in this field.

Needless to say, I'm pretty nervous - aggrivated somewhat by the fact I've been asked to chair my session of dental anthropology. I'm a bit apprehensive what will happen if I tell a big shot academic to get a move on with their poster set up or something.

I'm also, more so, excited. Being a British academic doesn't give you much chance to get a feel for the current atmosphere elsewhere in the world. And this is especially noticable with Biological Anthropology, which is massively biased towards being an American discipline more so than anywhere else. Its going to be great to be able to meet all of those people who I've read about in countless articles, and also make myself known to them. Its a chance to network, learn, and actually enjoy myself.

I have noticed that, in this country at least, there is a considerable lack of reference points for those new to academic or scientific conferences. I've never seen photos of an AAPA conference, and little things like how to hang my poster seem impossible to discover. So I'll be taking some photos while I'm at the conference, and I'll also write a diary on the event, because its not very nice to go into these things blind. I mean, I'm not even sure which buffets it is acceptable to crash!!

A floresiensis for the new decade

I doubt there is anyone who doesn't know about this news yet, but before I can write a longer post tomorrow I just thought I'd link to the actual article so you can decide for yourselves upon the classification of these specimens. I'm not entirely convinced that the degree of morphological variation warrants a new species distinction - but then no one asked me!

Lots of distractions, but remember to network!

So it has been quite a while since my last blog. Partly due to a slight slowing of my research pace, which I shall explain below, and partly because I am waiting on personal websites to be made available for research students in my department. In fact, our IT administrator has been doing a lot recently for its research students. They have now added pages which include photos of all the current postgraduates and descriptions (albeit brief) of their research aims. Luckily enough, my surname has meant I am at the very top of the list, visible as soon as the page is opened - way to go for my thoughtful ancestors! Hopefully I'll soon be able to link my blog to the same page.

If you'd like to take a quick look, the link is here :

As far as research is concerned, there has been a slowing of the pace, but this has been fairly par the course and is nothing to worry about! My SEM work is almost done, collecting micrographs of all my specimens - which is a welcome deadline. After a catastrophic loss of my laptop harddrive I have had to install a new one (a bigger, better one) and rescue anything I could from the old one!

Mostly, I have been concentrating on getting ready for the AAPA annual meeting in Albuquerque this April. I submitted two essays for student prizes, and was very pleased to hear that the one for the William S Pollitzer prize was successful. This gave me $500 much needed for my travel expenses - it isnt cheap being a Biological Anthropologist in the UK!
Also, I have been adding the finishing touches to my poster for presentation. It is really important to me that this is a good piece of work, as this will be the first time all the 'big names' in my field will have any knowledge of me - so I want it to stick! I hope to take photos and write about the event, mostly because I have found there is actually very little information out there for the novice conference attendee.

I think this kind of event is really important for a research student - whats the point of all that work just for no one to hear about any of it? Its a chance to meet the important people in your field, and this could get you access to intellectual help, technology, and even grants or awards. Don't be scared of them! I have never met an important academic who is rude or appears superior. This is not name dropping, but for example Chris Stringer, Richard Wrangham, Bill McGrew, Peter Ungar, Robert Foley and Steve Jones have all been absolutely lovely and very generous with their time and advice for me. I doubt any anthropologist reading this will be ignorant of any of these people.


And finally, the other reason that I have slowed a bit is that I have gone and gotten myself a part time job. At the moment there is little demand for my work as an osteologist and I desperately needed some income - living in London will do that to you!
And, luckily, I have found work as a receptionist/dental nurse at a private dentist!! I'm ever so lucky, because its actually given me a chance to see how the medical practitioners approach the study of teeth. And also I have access to extracted teeth for histology and am being shown dental xrays, for example.
Its three days a week, which gives me the majority of time for my masters, and the staff are all exceptionally lovely. In fact, the dermatologist who is also based here (a very good cosmetic scientist) has actually taken a look at my problem prone skin (the result of too much stress and not enough TLC). I know that bad skin is actually something a lot of female research students get annoyed about (think late nights staring at a screen and no time for yourself, combined with a bad diet), so I have linked to Stefanie's blog and website, because she really is THAT good and has given me some amazing advice.

Anyway, more updates to follow shortly

Fighting snow and ice for that all important DATA

After battling the snow and freezing cold today, I managed to get a nice chunk of new data for my research. So I suppose it would be now be prudent to actually explain what it is I am doing!

My working title for the study I am carrying out is ‘Masticatory Mechanics and Dental Microwear’. And its only when having to communicate the topic of your research so frequently that you realise it’s a good idea to have a whole-volume-in-a-nutshell type response at hand! For anyone with a working knowledge of dental anthropology, I aim to investigate whether it is possible to make conclusions about jaw movement, morphology, and mechanics based solely on analysis of the microscopic wear patterns found on the occlusal surfaces of the molars.

For most people, this tends to sound like a huge yawn. Even BioAnth students who have taken osteology modules tend to dislike teeth with a passion. BUT, when you really dig in deep and push yourself past the bewildering (and often conflicting) terminology, the field of dental anthropology is immensely interesting and is capable of yielding vast amounts of information. Enamel is the strongest material found in the human body, and can survive for geological periods of time with little taphonomic (post-moterm) change. The fossils of some of our oldest proposed ancestors are known only by dental finds. This is why people have been trying to unlock the secrets of teeth for many decades now, because they in turn can use these discoveries to solve the riddles left with us by the odd tooth found in the middle of nowhere. Most are concerned with using teeth to investigate diet, which is a pretty sensible line of enquiry considering the main function of the dentition! Using tried and tested techniques, we can now come to conclusions about the diet of many extinct species and past populations. If this does not seem fascinating in itself, imagine how easily you can then branch out when you have an approximate knowledge of the diet or crown morphology of a species. You can use it to support hypotheses about niche occupancy, habitat, environment of evolutionary adaptedness, migration, phylogeny… and the list goes on. If you are unfamiliar with the particular use of microwear to determine diet, now would be a good time to refer you to Ungar’s brilliant website for a detailed explanation.

Unfortunately for a microwear researcher like me, this specific area of study is currently undergoing a change in methodology. The long used scanning electron microscope relied upon for so many years is now being overlooked in favour of the newer confocal microscopes. Using these, researchers can now produce three dimensional maps of the tooth surface to study. This is definitely the way forward, as the additional advantage of depth measurements adds a new element in the use of microwear for determining diet.

However, luckily for me, I am not so much interested in diet as I am in morphology and mechanics. So I can use an SEM in order for me to carry out this preliminary investigation to determine whether my hunch is right. If it turns out that we really can use microwear in this way, the next step would be to image some occlusal surfaces in a confocal microscope for extra measurements. So that’s pretty much everything I’m doing right now, short of writing up an actual abstract for you!

Thought I might make a few notes on data collection. If you do have to go out and get data from external sources, don’t rely on your supervisor or expect them to sort it out for you. They are not babysitting you, this is YOUR research and it is up to you to find the material that best suits your needs. Look at other papers to see where they have acknowledged others – they will mention where the data was collected from if they do not do so in the main text. Contact as many people as possible and try to be flexible with your dates and times, as museums and other educational institutions are rarely open on weekends or out of normal working hours. These places also get booked up by researchers weeks or months in advance, so contact them as soon as you know when and how you will be collecting your data. Don’t let bench fees put you off, if for some reason your institution will not pay them for you, you can very often bargain with the place concerned by offering them your measurements/images/services/etc after submission or publication in exchange for use of their material.

Fingers crossed for a new venture

I'm going to keep this short and somewhat sweet, seeing as this is my first post and I consequently have not decided on what to write about first!

It is my hope that I can use my experiences as a research student to help others, as I feel there is often very little information out there for postgraduates - especially in the UK. Additionally, the little information that is out there is often confusing and aimed at postdoctorate researchers.

My experience so far has taught me nothing if not to look for every resource possible, and persue all avenues for enquiry. Research seems daunting to beginners - but it need not be so. It is not the black hole of time and sanity it is so often made out to be - rather, if done properly, research is a tool for furthering your own knowledge and (hopefully) that of others. I am very lucky to have a brilliant supervisor with lots of research experience who does everything he can to help and advise me.

And so follows my first tip be picky about your supervisor! It may seem like you're stuck with the most availble option - but you're not. Correspond with academics in your field who have great research careers behind them, they will be invaluable when it comes to grant applications and relevant contacts. If you feel confident in what you plan to study, write to people even if their specific area of study isnt directly related to yours. During the course of your research both you AND your supervisor will be learning new things and that means you dont have to work with someone who has the best credentials in the field - it is quite possible they could be horrendous to work with, fail to correspond well with you, or have a career based on review rather than research.

I'll also be posting blogs relevant to my discipline - namely Biological Anthropology. Usually, when asked what it is I study, my response heralds a puzzled reaction. In my opinion this is a huge shame, as BioAnth has given so much over the last century. Most people know something about BioAnth without actualy being aware that they do. People interested in human evolution, primatology, egyptology, archaeology and population surveys (among many other things) should invest in a basic working knowledge of BioAnth principles. All these fields owe much of their foundations to BioAnth, and would be poorer without input from Biological Anthropologists.

That'll do me for today, I'll plan my blog posts much more thoroughly in the future!