Lakshini Mendis (@BLHSMendis), researcher at the Centre for Brain Research in Auckland, joined RealScientists in late July. Lakshini dived straight in,and began chewing the fat about brain lipids. There are quite a lot of lipids did you know.
That makes it more diverse than the proteome or genome!!
(Sparvero et al., 2012).— realscientists (@realscientists) July 25, 2016
And how exactly does one characterise all of these lipids? Well first you smash…
Back in the 90s though, Karas found that irradiating non‐absorbing
molecules just #HulkSmashes it to smithereens pic.twitter.com/rbvL1L8vBw— realscientists (@realscientists) July 25, 2016
… and then you GIANT SCIENTS MACHINE
I use a @bruker UltrafleXtreme MALDI-TOF/TOF #MassSpectrometer – take a look at this beast with its hood up! pic.twitter.com/pKVmSGMXpq
— realscientists (@realscientists) July 26, 2016
And, uh, where can I buy one of these bespoke brain hats pls?
We also get to make cool #BrainHats like these from time to time pic.twitter.com/prCcAfof2Y
— realscientists (@realscientists) July 27, 2016
Lakshini kindly agreed to answer our post-curation survey, and her reflections on the week follow.
In general terms, how did you find your week as a curator?
Curating the RS account was such a great experience! I really enjoyed the chance to share my science with a diverse range of people and interacting with people from diverse backgrounds were very rewarding. It also gave me the chance to learn, and to expand my network of researchers that I interact with on Twitter.
It can be a shock talking to so many. Did you find the sudden rush of interactions (good and bad) daunting?
The sudden rush of interaction was a bit daunting at the start. However, I soon got used to it and found it exhilarating since it led to some great discussion.
What were the highlights? Were there any lowlights?
The highlight was being able to share the work I do with a wider audience, rather than other researchers in my specific field.
Is there anything you wanted to get out of / do on the RS account that you didn’t manage to fit in?
I managed to discuss most of the topics that I want to. However, I feel like I didn’t cover some topics in enough depth. A more structured format around discussion will help in the future!
Did you have a plan? If so, did you stick to it?
Yes, I had planned the topics I wanted to discuss through the course of the week. However, because I did not have a very set structure I was able to discuss other points as they came up!
Do you have any tips or advice for future RS curators?
Make sure you plan enough material for the whole week and weave in humour where possible.
What other people or accounts should people follow if they enjoyed your tweets this week?
The @BrainResearchNZ account is a great way to keep up with all brain research happening in New Zealand. These people also tweet about neuroscience and life as a grad student: @culture_sh0cked, @SamanthaMurray1, @myscienceylife, and @HereBeNabila Finally, I think @Interstellate_ is a great account that showcases some beautiful SciArt.
Thanks once again Lakshini from all of us here at RealScientists HQ. If you missed anything from her week, the tweets are all collated at the following link.
