Your Stories

Liz’s Story

Model Aircraft! Photo credit: Buccaneer finished! by Kris Davies (license)

Model Aircraft! Photo credit: Buccaneer finished! by Kris Davies (license)

Name: Liz

Occupation: Historian

From: Ireland

Object: Airfix aircraft

Story: I was fascinated by aircraft and model aircraft from an early age.  My dad gave me his copy of “Biggles Learns to Fly” when I was seven and I developed a fascination with historic aircraft, especially those from World War One, which continues to this day.  I regularly dragged my parents and siblings to air shows and aviation museums and would meet them in the café afterwards as I liked to read and look at everything in the various museums and also question the gallery assistants too.

When I was 10, I was brought to Eason’s, a book shop and department shop in Dublin city centre, where I discovered their model aircraft section and never looked back!  It may have been the paint and glue fumes or maybe just my passion for aircraft, their technology and history, but I got a real high from carefully building and painting model aircraft and hanging them from the ceiling of my bedroom with thin wire and blu-tack.  I would buy an Airfix aircraft set and then read up on the history of the aeroplane and the people who flew them.

Joanna’s Story

Crystal Garden in a Jam-Jar by Joanna (3)

One of Joanna’s great photographs of the crystal garden in a jam-jar she made last week.

Name: Joanna

From: Oxford

Object: Crystal Garden

Story: As a child, in the 1950s, encouraged by my father I set about making a crystal garden in a jam-jar. The brilliance of the colours and feathery forms of the crystals was probably one of my first experiences of chemistry and the sense of wonder has stayed with me through the years.

Who was to know that much later, in my twenties, I would find myself in a laboratory at the University of Oxford, growing crystals as part of my job. My aim was to grow a crystal of rabbit troponin C, a key protein vital in muscle contraction. With a crystal, chemists can work out the structure of very complex molecules such as proteins and find out much about how they operate in the body.

Amazingly after only a few months of working on this project, one morning, on examining my tubes of solution, I discovered the first ever recorded crystal of rabbit troponin C glistening in the bright morning light. It was a spectacular crystal and you can see a photograph of it published in Nature (Mercola, D., Bullard, B., and Priest, J., Nature Vol. 254 p 634-635 April 17 1975).

Dorothy Hodgkin, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1964) for her work on the use of crystals to discover the structure of biological molecules using X-ray diffraction, just happened to be in the department that morning. To my intense pride, she came and looked down my microscope at the precious crystal!

Close up of the crystal garden.

Close up of Joanna’s crystal garden.

For fun last week I made a crystal garden once again and have included some photographs with this recollection for any reader who has never made one!

Mallainee’s Story

Compound Monocular Microscope (Inv. 35972)

Compound Monocular Microscope (Inv. 35972)

Name: Mallainee

Little daphnia under a microscope. Photo credit: Daphnies by Thomas Bresson (license)

Little daphnia under a microscope. Photo credit: Daphnies by Thomas Bresson (license)

Age: 22

From: Toowoomba, Australia

Occupation: Teacher

Object: Microscope

Story: I was using a microscope to examine the heart rate of daphnia when the daphnia released its eggs and gave birth in front of 20 year 12 students. Needless to say they were very excited to reuse the daphnia for their population unit.

Victor’s Story

Autochrome of Madeira by Sarah Angelina Acland, c.1910 (Inv. 27910)

Autochrome of Madeira by Sarah Angelina Acland, c.1910 (Inv. 27910). Imagine flying Victor’s quadcoper over a view like this.

Name: Victor

Age: 58

From: Nova Scotia, Canada

Occupation: Retired

Object: Quadcopter

Story: In the past 5 years I’ve been able to identify and perfect the components of a quadcopter which has allowed me to better appreciate the landscape around me. It has a camera that in real time broadcasts what it flies over, which I’m able to see with a set of head mounted goggles. During a recent trip I spotted a quadcopter for sale from a dispensing machine, showing just how quickly they have become integrated into our society.

Ben’s Story

Boom! Mmmmm, tasty. Photo credit: DSCF1311s by deradrian (license)

Boom! Photo credit: DSCF1311s by deradrian (license)

Name: Ben

Test Tube Stand with Test Tubes, Mid-19th Century (Inv. 34639)

Test Tube Stand with Test Tubes, Mid-19th Century (Inv. 34639)

Age: 15

From: Newcastle, UK

Occupation: Student

Object: Chemistry Kit

Story: When I was five my grandparents bought me a large chemistry set. Doing the proper experiments was boring, so I just mixed everything together in a flask and pushed a cork into the top. After a minute or so the cork blew off the flask and sprayed the contents all over the ceiling of my bedroom.

Steve’s Story

photo credit: smoress via photopin (license)

Perfect for dessert. Photo credit: smoress by llinddsayy (license)

Name: Steven

Age: 23

Occupation: Student

From: Oxford

Object: Camp Stove

Story: It’s a childhood right of passage to make s’mores at a campfire. Your stick, laden with marshmallows, is dangling over the snapping fire.  Do you have the patience to wait for the marshmallow to get perfectly golden brown?  Or will you stick it in the fire, set it ablaze, and blow it out, leaving a robe of black over the gooey interior?  Regardless of your choice, you’ll place the marshmallow on a chunk of chocolate, and sandwich it between two graham crackers – the American cousin of the digestive biscuit.

Bunsen Burner (Inv. 40900). We wonder if you could make s'mores with the flame from this?

Bunsen Burner (Inv. 40900). We wonder if you could make s’mores with the flame from this?

We don’t always have the luxury of being in the wilderness to make a fire when the desire for s’mores hits.  Sometimes, you have to improvise, and it’s certainly better living with technology.  For just such occasions, you can save a tree and instead reach for a camp stove.  One night at university, my friends and I had the urge to cook up some marshmallows.  We grabbed our camp stove and headed out to the patio.  As designated chef/pyrotechnician, I set up the burner.  I lifted the metal apparatus, and filled the reservoir with lamp oil.  I wiggled the lever, in order to send oil through the burner.  And then I lit it.  Apparently, I’m a better fire-starter than I anticipated, because I managed to singe the hair off of my forearm.  But for sitting on our patio, eating marshmallows, and thinking about our childhoods, having hairless arms for a while was a small price to pay.

Priyam’s Story

Gauze Top Bunsen Burner, c.1874, (Inv. 45602)

Gauze Top Bunsen Burner, c.1874, (Inv. 45602). Who else used Bunsen Burners similar to this when heating things at school?

Name: Priyam

Age: 12

From: London, UK

Object: Jelly babies

Story: We did screaming jelly babies at school – we added potassium chlorate, a heated substance, to the jelly babies and they turned a lilac colour and screamed and then blew up.

Mmmmm, tasty. Photo credit: jelly babies by Sam Greenhalgh (license)

Mmmmm, tasty. Photo credit: jelly babies by Sam Greenhalgh (license)

 

Ted’s Story

Ted and his wife.

Name: Ted

Age: 56

From: Sevenoaks, Kent, UK

Object: Locusts

Story: To illustrate the reproductive system and cycle our science teacher showed us how locusts bred. There was a transparent case in which you could observe the various stages of the reproductive cycle from the locust laying the eggs right up to the emergence of the baby locusts. We dissected them as well to understand how the bodies of an insect was constructed into the 3 parts and also watched them mating before laying the eggs. It was no wonder that biology was my favourite science subject, as an unusual was of teaching it has left an impression on me that I have not forgotten.

Émile’s Story

Émile and his microscope

Émile and his microscope.

Name: Émile

Age: 6

From: Oxford, UK

Object: Microscope

Story: When I was at school doing P.E. I felt something crawling on my chin, I smacked it because I thought it was a spider, then I felt a shot of pain. It was a wasp! Then the sting was so painful I screamed. My teacher took me to the staff room, she got some ice that I put on the sting. My teacher pulled the sting out and we put it in a cup and I took it home. Then we put the sting under the microscope at home. It was black and it had red sticky stuff coming out of it. I think it might have been blood.

Stephanie’s Story

Miniature Terrestrial Globe, c.1825 (Inv. 33596)

Miniature Terrestrial Globe, c.1825 (Inv. 33596)

Name: Stephanie

Age: 25

From: Australia

Occupation: Teacher

Object: Globe

Story: Every time in my house when one of us would ask a question about a place of country, my dad’s immediate response would be “Do you know . . .” closely followed by “GET THE GLOBE”. A collective groan would right through the house as we had to spot a country on the globe. Now, however, I still do it to my students.

There is still a collective groan!