Well 12^th April is a special day for me, because I’m helping to promote the World Wide Day in Science and today is the big day! I woke up and checked my e-mails. There, sure enough, Will Rifkin, the WWDS project founder in Australia, had sent out a rallying cry to his army of diary writers - students and scientists - proclaiming that the day had begun. 

 Well, actually I realised after a while that the day was already coming to an end in Australia, but in Europe and America this was just the begining. I too sent out my own reminder to friends and colleagues in science (on this side of the planet) and spent a moment thinking about scientists around the world beavering away, blissfully aware/unaware that this day is the World Wide Day in Science. 

 As a mother of two small children, living in Prague, I feel very lucky to be able to work flexibly from home. Aside from spending a few hours a month helping out with the WWDS I also work two days a week for Oakland Innovation www.oakland.co.uk a science and technology information consultancy based in Cambridge, UK. 

 The best thing about my work for Oakland is that I’m working on science themes and with every project I get to learn about new developments going on in an area new to me. I love it!  It could be anything from finding out expert opinion on allergy to novel uses for xeolites, from mapping centres of excellence in food research to documenting health claims for garlic.

 The highlight of my day was talking to Professor George Stefano at the Neurosciences Research Institute, New York State University http://www.sunynri.org/. This guy has recently discovered that all of the cells in the human body produce morphine endogenously, the levels of which are affected by our state of wellbeing.

 The fact that morphine is produced in our own bodies is something which was not known before, and is still controversial. Prof Stefano was very excited by his research and is currently taking out various patents to cover his discovery; it made a fascinating interview. 

 Originally I am a chemistry graduate. I chose to study chemistry for two reasons.

 The first was my Dad, a passionate chemist, who worked for Shell (now retired). When he was at school he had the key to the chemistry lab. He had many stories about the weird and wonderful things that he concocted in the lab out of hours. Some of the stories were gruesome and some sounded like they were down right dangerous! Every so often he used to give me and my sister chemistry demonstrations in the garage such as throwing lumps of sodium into a bucket of water, playing with mercury (not allowed these days) and making weird foam which would grow and grow out of a beer mug. 

 The second reason was that I had an excellent chemistry teacher at high school.

 Looking back, perhaps studying medicine would have been a smarter move, career and health-wise (chemistry labs are smelly and dangerous).  However, with these two strong influences, intriguing chemistry had to be my number one choice.

Below: Juggling kids and work!