Curiosity In Focus

This post is a follow up to my pharmacy work experience diary which you can read here if you'd like to know more about what I actually did during the week. During my pharmacy work experience, I found myself asking so many questions!! I wanted answers, and I managed to find quite a few through my own research and help from my chemistry teacher. These are some of the questions that stuck with me most, and what I learned from asking them or looking them up: Why do some medicines need to be stored in the fridge? I noticed that certain medicines were kept in a fridge, often things like insulin, antibiotics and vaccines. This is because they need cold temperatures to stay effective and if they get too warm they can break down and stop working properly/as effectively. Thats why pharmacies are so careful with how these are stroed and why they are often kept in the fridge right until a patient arrives to collect it. Why do some medicines come with warnings about food, driving or alcohol? S...

During my May half-term I spent a week doing work experience at a pharmacy. I chose this placement because I’m interested in science and healthcare, and I wanted to see what the day-to-day work in a pharmacy actually involves. I had always thought of pharmacists as the people who hand over medicines at the counter, but I quickly discovered that there’s far more happening behind the scenes. During my time there, I was given a variety of tasks that helped me understand how a pharmacy is run. One of the first things I learned to do was date checking. This involved going through the shelves and checking the expiry dates on medicines to make sure nothing out of date stayed in circulation. It might seem like a small job, but it’s essential for safety and efficiency, and it gave me a good sense of how carefully stock needs to be managed. I also spent time preparing dosette boxes, which are trays organised by day and time to help elderly patients or those with memory difficulties take the ri...

Memory is one of the most amazing abilities that our brains have - it allows us to learn, adapt, and make sense of the world around us. Whether you are remembering a friend's birthday, revising for an exam, or simply trying to remember where you left your book, memory plays a central role in everyday life. But how exactly does memory work? Why do we sometimes forget things we thought we knew while other memories stay with us forever? And more importantly, can we actively improve our memory? In this post I'll explore how memory works, what affects it, and how we might strengthen it using tools backed by psychology and neuroscience. How does memory work? Memory is the term given to the structures and processes involved in the storage and retrieval of information. According to 'Simply Psychology' there are 3 stages of memory - encoding, storage, and retrieval. The first stage is encoding, in which information comes into our memory system and is changed into a form that the...

What if you could erase a deadly disease - before a baby is even born? What if we could cure cancer, prevent suffering, and rewrite life itself? Would you do it? Should you? Gene editing isn’t science fiction anymore - it’s real, and it’s happening. With tools like CRISPR, scientists can now cut and rewrite DNA. That means we could potentially cure deadly diseases like cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anaemia, and maybe even cancer. The benefits Let’s start with the obvious: gene editing offers life-changing possibilities. Instead of managing symptoms, we could treat the root cause of many diseases by removing or repairing the faulty gene. In 2019, Victoria Gray became the first person in the U.S. to be treated for sickle cell disease using CRISPR—and the results were transformational. The results were life-changing. She went from constant pain to living a normal life. And it doesn’t stop there. Imagine a world where no child is born with Huntington’s disease. Where parents no longer hav...

One of the topics I’m most passionate about - and one that I’d like to share with you today - is Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (h-EDS) and how AI tools might be able to revolutionise the research being done to understand it. What is h-EDS? Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is a chronic, often invisible condition that weakens the body’s connective tissue -the biological "glue" that holds everything together. This means it can cause widespread pain, fatigue, and joint instability. But it can also affect organ tissue, skin, digestion, and even brain function. Despite its wideranging impact, there is no known genetic marker for h-EDS , and many people go years - sometimes decades - without a proper diagnosis. Because it’s invisible both to the eye and often to current scientific tools, h-EDS remains misunderstood and frequently misdiagnosed, even though it may affect as many as 1 in 500 people. There are 13 recognised types of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and h-EDS is the o...

My name is Eyva and I'm 15 years old. As a secondary school student with a strong interest in science, I’ve created this blog as a space to explore the world of science beyond the classroom. I’m particularly fascinated by genetics, medical research, and conditions like hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (h-EDS), which I hope to study more deeply in the future. Most of the posts here will focus on research, breaking down complex science, explaining what I’m learning, and exploring topics I’m passionate about. But this blog will also follow my journey on experiences such as work placements. I hope this will help me develop as a future scientist by deepening my understanding, improving how I communicate scientific ideas, and keeping track of what I learn. Whether or not others read it, this blog will be a place where my curiosity and love for science can grow.