"Science is not 'that's interesting', but 'that's odd'.".

Nils Bohr

Actually on this subject: do you find it easier or harder if you are presenting to people you know?

I have always found it much easier to talk to strangers: I can blag them and act much more confident than I really am. As soon as I see someone I know, I lose it. They know I'm faking, you see...

Just wondering cos I'm presenting a poster next week, at a one-day event, and my co-worker has decided to come along for moral support. I've said, "of course", cos I know she means well, but I'm worried now that I'll fluff my lines with someone from my own group watching me.

I think it does: my friend who is due to have her viva next month has just begun a postdoc position in the same lab, pretty much doing the same stuff that she did during her PhD. She's on 35 grand now!

Hi Spacey,

From a practical point of view, PowerPoint has a "Speaker's Notes" function: you can add descriptions of each slide, and you will be able to see them but your audience will not. This helps in case of your mind going blank (which is unlikely).

As for nerves: they will subside within a minute of getting up there. I try to have a brief chat while I'm sending handouts round; that breaks the ice. And include the audience by inviting questions as you go through. That always helps for me, anyway.

There's a great health shop in Leicester ("Currant Affairs") that sells vegetarian cakes and savouries. I don't think they're too healthy, though, considering the amount of fat that seems to seep out onto the paper wrapping

It sounds like child benefit, etc, would not come near to covering the costs. It's more difficult that I realised.
Maybe even employing a nanny/au pair would be cheaper!

Now I understand why our new student will give the child to her mother.

That sounds like bloody extortion to me. If there are 20 children in a group, then the group earns nearly 1000 pounds a day? Surely that's unjustifiable.

Does this refer to a private creche? Are employer creches any cheaper?

Just wondering; there's loads of Midlands PhDs going to be there. Including me, trying to look as if I know what I'm talking about.

"My daughter's nursery cost 49 pounds/day"

*&£%"! Is that normal? 250 quid a week?

That's more than my rent.

The idea of soya bacon intrigues me. Isn't soya sloppy white stuff? How do you make that look like bacon?

Me too: I think the evidence leans towards the health benefits overall.

I had this a couple of years ago, when I lost my job and my home in short order - one cold after another.

The only thing that worked was less bloody worry: easier said than done, but it will settle down eventually.

Well, not necessarily. Correlation is not causation. It may be that the rate of hormonal cancer is lower in South East Asia becuase of genetic factors, not dietary. They have an increased rate of oesophagal and stomach cancers compared to the West.

This is from one review article:

"...the often quoted “Japanese Phenomenon”, the fact that breast cancer occurs to a lesser extent in Japanese women. When administered to isoflavone “inexperienced” (i.e those who have never eaten much soy before - Juno) women at the time of menopause, the phytoestrogens appear to share the same effects as estrogen used in classical preparations for hormone replacement therapy, i.e. they may stimulate the proliferation of endometrial and mammary gland tissue with at present unknown and unpredictable risk to these organs."

I'm convinced that stress (or whatever you want to call it) can knacker the body more than a lot of illnesses. In "Love in the Time of Cholera", the lovesick, unhappy protagonist is constantly suffering "the illnesses of old age", even though he's young and healthy.

I've got half a molar at the minute while I wait fo my cap to be fitted (thanks for the advice, Shani
. Top tips from my dentist:

a) If you need a lot of things done (eg fillings and caps), get them all done at one sitting. Then you only pay for the most expensive thing. If you have them done separately, you pay separately for each thing.
b) if you have s small, proto-cavity (like me), using high-strength flouride mouthwash from the pharmacist may heal it, so you don't need another filling.