[MUSIC PLAYING]
So Sally is going to teach us how to make hot chocolate,
while I grill her Julia about science communication things.
Julia, what are you doing?
I'm going to attempt to help.
OK.
I will supervise.
OK.
First thing, open the milk.
You.
You're blocking me.
Yeah, stand.
There we go.
Sometimes it's just like this.
It's just like, this is going so well.
I opened the milk.
So now we want to pour three mugs into here.
With movie magic we just chopped up a bunch of chocolate.
Bring a cat into frame because the internet loves cats.
The internet does love cats.
Uh, cat or dog?
Dog.
[GASP]
Even though that cat wants to--
I like that cat because it wants to be a dog.
Oxford or London?
Oxford.
Chocolate or coffee?
Chocolate.
I hate coffee.
UK or EU?
Too soon?
At the moment the UK is still in the EU,
because we haven't invoked article 50.
So therefore EU includes the UK.
So EU.
Haha.
Favorite scientist of all time?
Oh, shit.
Hamilton.
Bill Hamilton.
Bill Hamilton?
Yeah.
I don't know Bill Hamilton.
You don't know Bill Hamilton?
Who?
Bill Hamilton did Hamilton's Rule,
and that is the conditions under which any behavior will evolve.
Oh.
Any behavior at all.
So it's basically saying that the benefits of action
must outweigh the costs of an action,
and that relatedness is also involved.
In fact, I made a video about Hamilton's Rule.
Favorite model organism?
Drosophila.
Least favorite model organism?
Drosophila.
Just from exposure?
Yeah, it's--
Are you drosophila'd out?
I'm very drosophila'd out.
There's only so much you can do on one organism.
I miss my drosophila.
They were fantastic.
What did you do on drosophila?
So I did a big RNAi screen looking
for genes involved in chemo reception,
specifically nociception.
So I did a lot of feeding fruit flies wasabi.
Make their fly mouths burn.
We did.
It was so sad.
We hid it in sugar water, and they'd put their legs on it
and think it was sweet and then extend their proboscis.
And then they'd touch the wasabi and freak out.
Wow.
It was a lot of flies.
I'm kind of impressed with you right now.
Chocolate versus vanilla?
Chocolate.
Tropical vacation or Icelandic vacation?
I've done tropical.
I've not done Icelandic, so Icelandic.
OK.
Twitter or Instagram?
Twitter.
Oh.
If you could only re-gram on Instagram.
That's Tumblr.
Yeah, I don't tumble.
I tumble a lot.
All right, our milk is kind of--
Go on and give it a stir so it doesn't burn on the bottom.
Gave a stir.
If you could make one video that you have yet
to have the resources to make, what would it be?
Oh, that's such a good question.
Um, if by the resources you meant a good singing voice,
I would make another singing video.
OK.
I have so many ideas for parodies.
I already have, I think, two parodies written,
but I just can't sing well enough
or edit music stuff enough.
We have bubbles.
Bubbles.
That's a good smell.
Bubbles.
Look at me helping so much.
You're can helping so well.
Thank you.
In your time as a scientist so far, in grad school,
biggest lab disaster?
Ooh.
So before, when I was wearing leapers,
but I didn't know how to rear them.
I put them in Petri dishes, then it turned out
that they could escape the Petri dishes.
Oh, no.
So I lost a good half of them.
Oops.
Yeah, because they're little black
larvae, and it was the larvae I was working with,
not the adult beetle.
So they could escape that.
What was your biggest mistake?
I think my most expensive lab mistake--
I was using a robot that had a head that
came down into a plate.
And it had 96 little pins that went into the plate.
And I did not put the plate in correctly
that one round and it snapped off one of the pins.
And the pin itself on the robot was $16.
The tech who came out to put on the $16 pin was $2,000.
Yeah.
And so during one of my rotations
I cost my lab $2,000 for breaking the robot.
We're going to add some.
Let's play it by ear.
That's quite a lot.
Let's hope it's the right amount.
It's how science is done, right?
Yeah, just bang it in.
So as a final question--
OK.
--if you could take the credit for and rediscover
any discovery in science, what would it be?
So would the person who originally discovered it,
would they still have?
No, you would be--
So they'd be wiped out from history?
They'd be wiped out.
OK.
Oh, well that makes it really interesting then.
So, yeah, my initial reaction was
I'd replace Watson and Crick because they
were a bit of jerks.
And obviously you all know the story of DNA anyway.
But then Franklin also wouldn't get the discovery.
It'd still just be me.
So I'd just be replacing one woman with another.
So there's Newton and calculus.
Oh, that's a good one.
Because Leibniz also discovered calculus at the time,
so I'd also be scooping him.
But Newton was a bit of an arse, so-- an ass.
So, yeah, maybe that.
Because everyone uses calculus, right?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Calculus underlies so much.
And Newton had so many other discoveries as well.
He can get rid of that one.
I wouldn't be completely getting rid of Newton.
No.
He would have other things.
Right.
But he has gravity.
He can keep gravity.
Yeah, that's fine.
But I would keep calculus.
I think I might still steal DNA.
Would you, though?
I might.
Do you not want to take Mendel?
Oh.
You know, I always kind of liked that story
because I kind of want to just go off into a monastery
somewhere and just--
Just watch peas.
--watch peas.
Yeah, actually, I think I'd be Mendel.
OK.
All right.
As long as you'll be Mendel, I'll be Newton.
That sounds good.
We'll have hot chocolate.
All right.
And if you want to watch us--
if you want to watch me interviewing Alex
whilst drinking said hot chocolate--
Yes.
--and--
Me getting in the way.
--Julia also getting in the way, you
can come over to this video, which will be in that corner.
Yes.
We'll put it.
One of these days I'll learn which corner.
We'll put it somewhere.
You'll be able to click it.
Yes.
So you should go watch that video.
Thank you for making us hot chocolate.
That's all right.
I'm excited to drink it.
Cool.
See you later.
Go forth and do science.
That's not right is it?
Is that right?
Oh, no.
It was that.
I don't even do that anymore, but I
like that you went with the Vulcan sign.
I didn't know.
It's fine.
It's "I love you" in sign language.
Is it?
It is.
American Sign Language?
Yes, American Sign Language.
Yeah, everybody comments on it, that it's like devil horns.
And I'm like, no.
I mean, I think that is also devil horns.
It's "I love you."
I know that this is bull in British Sign Language,
so you can imagine what this is in British Sign Language.
Oh.
Yeah, so I think that is devil--