Curiosity In Focus

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a work experience insight day at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Saffron Walden. The day focused on genomics and the incredible work that is being done at the institute. We started with a hands-on microscopy activity in which we looked at human blood cells, spinal cord cells, muscle tissue, and bacteria and had to identify each one. It was really interesting to see such different cell types up close and think about how much information is contained in something so small. We then learnt about what genomics is and how it is applied. One thing that really stuck with me from the morning was learning that humans are actually incredibly genetically similar - only 0.5% of our DNA is different. It's strange to think that all the variation between people comes from such a tiny proportion of our genome. We also heard a surprising fact that some plants, like mistletoe, can have larger genomes than humans, which really challenged my assumptions about ...

It’s been a while since I last posted here - life has been a bit busy with school, exams, and a few other projects I’ve been giving more time to. I do have a couple of posts in the works that I’m hoping to publish soon, so this blog definitely hasn’t been forgotten! This post is slightly different from what I usually write. I wrote this for an article competition for the Penrose Magazine (for which I am now a Biology ambassador!) and it's my first piece of more formal academic writing. The idea actually came from one of my earlier blog posts, where I first explored the intersection of AI and hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS). This version is more detailed and goes much deeper into the science - I've focused more on research and analysis, and less on personal reflection. Writing this taught me a lot - from how to structure a scientific argument more clearly, to using IEEE style citations and engaging with sources in a more rigorous way. It was definitely a challenge, but...