#thank you biologists and scientists of other fields i am grateful for your work but i cannot relate

[army-of-bee-assassins]

i know everyone finds different things more or less interesting to study and that's a good thing ultimately but also sometimes when i'm reading about linguistics i have a hard time understanding how not everyone thinks it's the coolest fucking shit ever

[ahiddenpath]

hey hidden. I hope this question isn't weird but your job is very cool to me, so I was wondering: what exactly did you need for education to get into it, and what's it like for you?

Are-  Are you-  Are you asking me to nerd out?

THE NERDING WILL COMMENCE BELOW THE CUT!

EDIT:  Trigger warning for discussion of cancer treatments/research.

SO I am a molecular biologist.  I am currently researching immunotherapies for a biotech company.  

One thing I should emphasize is that this stuff takes an enormous team working together for years.  I don’t want anyone to think that I’m, like...  Personally producing cancer medicines.  I’m part of a team of about 400 people, working together with 20 ish years of data produced by our company and the companies we partner with.  And my boss tells me what I’m going to work on!  I design the experiment, run the experiment, and consider the data from there, but I’m not the “mastermind” for anything.  It’s usually the upper level career scientists with pHDs doing that.

Another disclaimer is that, sadly, we as humans aren’t at the “defeat cancer forever” stage.  Like, it’s not... near.  The best defense continues to be frequent screening so it can be caught and treated early (which is bad news in the states, where people can’t afford the screening because we don’t have universal health care, or they can afford it but don’t go because they have three part time jobs, none of which give benefits-  But I digress).

Oh!  And one more thing I want to tell all future science dorks, something I was super lucky to learn at age 19: follow the money.

When I was 19, I was culturing and chemically processing algae, then assessing the data.  My company at the time wanted to create biodiesel from algae, and my whole world was rocked when they told me: WE ALREADY CAN MAKE VIABLE FUEL FROM ALGAE.  The problem is that it costs about $4.50 per gallon, so it can’t compete with normal diesel (at the time, this was like 12 years ago).  

So what they wanted was algae that had the correct chemical profile for use in biodiesel, that could also be grown at tropical temperatures.  Why?  Because the algae was to be grown in sugar cane processing centers, where it’s tropical, and most of the production costs came from cooling the incubators and instruments that would grow the algae.  So they needed algae that could make diesel, but also grow in hot weather, which apparently isn’t common.

ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY!  It’s often not even about “can we do it,” but “can we do it at x cost, considering conditions hundreds of miles away.”  Crazy!

Ah, but you asked how to get into biotech!  It’s not that hard, thankfully!  I have a BS in biology.  I made sure to get good grades and all of that, and if you’re serious about biotech, you want to take classes in things like immunology, virology, any science class that can return to human health and biotech.  I will say that, while I’ve always naturally excelled at biology, I had to take more chemistry than bio!  Plus, you need math and physics...  

But here’s my best advice for biotech-interested young people:

-If you’re looking at universities while in high school, PLEASE check out what AP classes will get you out of undergrad labs.  The WORST PART about being a science kid is the labs.  For example, every bio and chem class has a lab.  The class itself usually consists of three 50 minute lectures (150 min/week), and you get 3 credits.  The lab is 170 min per week, and you only get 1 credit.  If you don’t place out of some classes with labs attached with AP credit, YOUR ASS WILL BE SITTING IN LABS FOR AT LEAST 340 MINUTES A WEEK!  AND YOU ONLY GET 2 CREDITS FOR THAT!!!!  It’s utter bullshit.

So, if you’re in high school and really serious about pursuing a science degree, check out which AP scores get you out of labs at your favorite universities, and really commit to getting 5s in those.

I was able to place out of 3 labs this way, and it played an enormous role in maintaining my sanity.

-Everyone in biotech knows EVERYONE in biotech.  It’s absolutely astounding.  But it’s a small field, centered around a few hot spots, and lots of these people have been at it for 40+ years.

Here are some of the hot spots in America (you might have to live in one of these areas to find biotech jobs, so be sure you’re down for that).

Anyway, like I said, I worked as an undergrad at a biotech.  I was so fortunate, because they paid me, I was already doing actual-factual research, and I got to know people.  And when I graduated, people went, “Oh you worked for Bob?  Let me give him a call.”  And then they did.  And then Bob said, “Oh yeah, she’s a hard worker, hire her.”

SO you need to make connections ASAP, and strive to show people your hard-working, curious, problem-solving, good-attitude-having self.  Sadly, there’s an element of luck there, for sure.  But you need to be ready to try to work in professional labs in college, which means juggling your difficult courses and school labs with work.  Hooray!

...Did I say this wasn’t hard?  I’m full of shit, aren’t I.  Looking back, all I can see is how lucky I was, and how I “only” needed a 4 year degree, but...  It really takes a lot to get here.

As for what it’s like...

I love it, it’s great, but like any job, it...  Well, it’s rough.

Here’s what I think you need to thrive in biotech, assuming you’re not put off by the stuff I’ve already covered:

-Organization, time management, and focus.  Honestly, being a lab researcher isn’t about being smart, it’s about juggling a lot of things simultaneously.  Lots of folks describe the job as “hurry up and wait,” because you rush to mix the experimental ingredients together so they can incubate for two hours before you do the next step.  And while that��s incubating, you do x, which has a few 15 minute incubations.  In those 15 minutes, you generate graphs with yesterday’s data, make records for you lab notebook, order items for next week’s experiment, print labels, or...  Any number of things.  There are ALWAYS tons of balls in the air, so organization and time management are 90% of the job.

And you need to focus, because most of the time it looks like you’re adding a single droplet of water to other droplets of water.  Almost everything you work with is a clear liquid, so you can’t go spacing out and forgetting what you’ve already added to the mix.

A typical day is to arrive at work, sit down for a while to plan out how to best use the incubation times to do other things, head into the lab, hope for incubation periods for toilet/water/food breaks, and scramble to get data processing in there somewhere.  Deadlines are usually tight, because it’s always a race to patent a medicine before one of the other 5,000 companies trying to do it can.  We all work from the shared published scientific knowledge, so there’s no...  Developing something in secret.

I’d say my job is challenging, but rewarding, especially as we come closer to generating medicines for what we call “patients with unmet needs.”  Remember how I said “follow the money?”  Sadly, often, um...  Okay I’m gonna do a really quick and loose explanation.  People have different versions of the same genes, right?  And sometimes, there are “cancer” genes- this is a really sloppy explanation, sorry.  So medicines get created for the most common mutated cancer gene first.  So say 70% of cancer patients have this mutated gene, 20% have that mutated gene, and 10% have a third mutated gene.  Guess who gets medicine made for them first?

If you guessed the largest group, you’re right!  The trouble is that big companies will then move on to the largest group for another cancer/gene group, leaving people with more rare genetic issues without treatment options beyond chemo, which many elderly or immunocompromised patients simply can’t tolerate.

My company specifically aims to help these people with no help in sight.  On the one hand, follow the money- we are doing it because we will have a market, and we can’t compete with big companies yet.  On the other, we are helping people who have no options.  I’m so grateful to use my gifts (organization, planning, focus, problem solving, and natural curiosity) to play a small, small role in hopefully helping people.  It means something to me.

On the other hand, it can be a grind, no lie.  And any high-pressure job will have colleagues who are also under pressure, and might lash out or try to throw other people under the bus when problems arise.  A certain level of emotional maturity and strength is required, and frankly, I needed therapy to get there.

Also, if you’re a female-presenting human, some people will give you shit in biotech.  Luckily, I’ve only ever had one coworker be blatantly sexist and ask me (multiple times) if I was sure I belonged here.  Unfortunately, you’re more likely to see more discrete sexism, like folks asking you to organize parties for pregnant or engaged coworkers because “you seem like you’d be good at it,” ie “you’re female and I am throwing social tasks at you so I can focus on my science, which you also have to do.”  I’ve had a lot of coworkers try so hard to corner me into doing emotional work for them.  But...  Honestly, most of this is just existing as a woman, and isn’t specific to biotech.

So yeah!  You’re gonna have to work hard, but if you have an interest in science, great organization skills, and want to play a little role in helping people who are suffering in a way that doesn’t involve direct social interaction with the hurting people...  It’s great!

Sorry for the absolute wall of text, I hope this helps!  I’m always happy to talk about this, so please ask away if you’d like.  Thanks for the ask!

[scienceblogtumbler]

Science Book Roundup, Social Distancing Edition

When I posted my last science book roundup, few of us knew what was about to come. We had heard about a novel coronavirus and an outbreak of a new disease called COVID-19 in China, but only those well-versed in epidemiology or the history of previous pandemics expected to see so much of the economy shut down as we practice a previously unknown form of interaction called social distancing. Perhaps as a result, I have only heard from a handful of publicists with requests for reviews, and I offer four of them for my readers’ consideration. They have a common thread, namely that they deal with organisms, human, terrestrial, and otherwise.

We will get to those books shortly, but first “a word from our sponsor.” My usual caveat: For my Roundups, I don’t read all of the books in detail, but they are published by reputable publishers and written by credible authors. I browse them enough to recommend who might want to pick them up from a library or bookstore shelf.

My usual request: Because freelance book review opportunities have almost disappeared, I now rely on Amazon referral fees to cover the cost of maintaining my online presence. If you are inclined to buy any of these books from Amazon, please use the links here so I can get a small referral fee. Another way to thank me is to click my portal to Amazon for whatever shopping you plan to do. I get reports of what people buy but not who is buying, so I will not be able to say thanks. But please know that I am grateful.

Did you catch that “otherwise” in the opening paragraph? If you know my science books for young readers, then you probably are aware of my strong interest in planetary science, including Astrobiology, the science of life on other worlds. Astrobiology takes many forms, but probably the one that generates most interest among general readers is SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. In a galaxy as vast as our Milky Way, it seems highly unlikely that Earth is the only planet on which intelligent beings, capable of sending signals outside of their world, have evolved. And if that is the case, why have we never detected a signal from any one of them?

The short answer seems to be that with hundreds of billions of stars to choose from, we simply have not sampled enough to find any of a handful of needle-in-a-haystack worlds. Perhaps, some SETI researchers suggest, we should deliberately send out a message and see if anyone answers. That is the starting point for British author Keith Cooper in

The Contact Paradox: Challenging Our Assumptions in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The back cover describes the book this way: “(T)he act of transmitting raises troubling questions about the process of contact…. Cooper looks at how far SETI has come since its modest beginnings by speaking to the leading names in the field and beyond. SETI forces us to confront our nature in a way that we seldom have before–where did we come from, where are we going, and who are we in the cosmic context of things? The book considers the assumptions that we make in our search for extraterrestrial life, and explains how those assumptions can teach us about ourselves.”

Moving from the far reaches of the galaxy to the innermost element of human life, University of Cambridge and Caltech biology and bioengineering professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz joins noted British science writer Roger Highfield to explore

The Dance of Life: The New Science of How A Single Cell Becomes a Human Being.

The publisher describes the book as “A renowned biologist’s cutting-edge and unconventional examination of human reproduction and embryo research.” It also includes an account of Zernicka-Goetz’s own pregnancy, in which a sample test of placental cells showed a possible genetic abnormality. She continued the pregnancy to term and delivered a perfectly healthy baby boy. The experience led her research in a different direction, including an understanding of the ways embryos can, in some cases, repair their own defects, which could revolutionize our understanding of pregnancy and give new promise to in vitro fertilization.

The publicity copy notes the following: “Scientists have long struggled to make pregnancy easier, safer, and more successful. In The Dance of Life, developmental and stem-cell biologist Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz takes us to the front lines of efforts to understand the creation of a human life. She has spent two decades unraveling the mysteries of development, as a simple fertilized egg becomes a complex human being of forty trillion cells. Zernicka-Goetz’s work is both incredibly practical and astonishingly vast: her groundbreaking experiments with mouse, human, and artificial embryo models give hope to how more women can sustain viable pregnancies. Set at the intersection of science’s greatest powers and humanity’s greatest concern, The Dance of Life is a revelatory account of the future of fertility–and life itself.”

In a different look at human evolution, British science writer and broadcaster Gaia Vince goes beyond biology to other forces that drove our development to become the dominant species on Earth. It is not merely evolution, but

Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time. The dust jacket copy describes what sets this book apart: “Although prevailing theory holds that a recent cognitive revolution transformed humans, Vince argues that we are the product of a unique coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture. Beginning hundreds of thousands of years ago, with four key drivers–fire, language, beauty, and time–it set our species on a new path, unleashing a compounding process that propelled us from the Stone Age to the Space Age and continues to transform us today. Provocative and poetic,… it asks: Now that we have remade our world, what are we doing to ourselves?”

The final book in our roundup is certainly the most unusual. The paperback original

The Gyroscope of Life: Understanding Balances (and Imbalances) in Nature by David Parrish, an Appalachian naturalist and 50-year practitioner. The back cover notes call it “A love song to the field of biology [that] will stretch the minds of readers–scientists and nonscientists alike.”

Its main theme is this: “Culturally, we tend to simplify challenging concepts by thinking of them as binary systems: life/death, female/male. But what if these concepts are more complex than mere opposites…. While sharing his personal experiences with religion, science, battling illness, and more, Parrish explores a series of unconventional topics such as a biologists credo, Mother Nature’s House Rules, the foolishness of conflicts between science and religion, ritualistic funerary cannibalism, a biological critique of ‘The Big Bang Theory’ theme song, pseudo-copulation of insects with flowers, and the Faustian bargain that agriculture and plant domestication represent.”

If you think that describes a bit of a hodge-podge, you are probably right. That doesn’t make it a bad book, but you need to be the right kind of reader to enjoy it. The sections I sampled seemed disjointed with interesting tidbits scattered throughout. Are all those diversions necessary? If you are the type of reader who enjoys discovering information that way, then this is a book for you. Just be prepared to be jolted by “too much information” at times, such as the author’s choice to open the chapter called “Male or Female?” by describing himself as “castrate” (for valid medical readers). For me, it seemed to distract rather than inform or serve as a thread to tie up the chapter. You may respond differently, or as some people say, your mileage may vary.

I’ll close with a wish for your good health as we all face a historic pandemic. I can’t predict when I will have another roundup to offer. If I’m lucky, some publicists will return to their offices, read this blog, and decide to offer me science books to share with you in the next few months.

Blogger and reviewer Fred Bortz is the author of numerous science books for young readers.

A request from the blogger: Please let me know you appreciated this posting by adding a comment or sending an email with your thoughts to drfredb@att.net . Many thanks!

source https://fredbortz.scienceblog.com/35430/science-book-roundup-social-distancing-edition/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=science-book-roundup-social-distancing-edition

[thebrainscoop]

Thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday- whether you were in Chicago, or around the world. Here is the talk I gave in front of this incredibly generous crowd of 40,000+ people: 

-----------

Thank you. I’m Emily Graslie, Chief Curiosity Correspondent for The Field Museum, and host and creator of the educational YouTube science channel, The Brain Scoop. And today, I’m also proud to be your commencement speaker. 

more below the break -- photo c/o John Weinstein, The Field Museum

So to the March for Science graduating class of 2017, congratulations on your tremendous achievements. Wow. Give yourself a round of applause! Unfortunately, none of you will be receiving a physical diploma today because we had to spend $10k on all of those porta-potties. Yeah, pooping is expensive, but let’s all be grateful to the scientific progress that let us understand bacteria and parasites, and that allowed us to improve our infrastructure for excrement. After all, modern sanitation is one of the greatest medical advancements of the last century!… I could have probably started this with a better example. It’s just that my boss and like seven hundred people from The Field Museum are here, also my Mom — hi, Mom — and I’m sort of nervous.

I’ll be brief- it’s cold, and all that’s between you and a brisk walk down Columbus is my babbling, so thanks for your patience, but I’ve waited a long time to give this talk. About.. Seven years.

I never had the grades to be valedictorian of my high school, and I skipped my college graduation to go camping instead. So when the March for Science Chicago organizers asked if I’d want to be the keynote, I thought — here’s my chance to give an inspirational commencement speech, one I never knew before now I wanted to do. After all, in a way this is a graduation ceremony, the preface of a new book. In spite of what I read in the news and online every day — that the world is doomed and our planet is turning into a dumpster fire — I can’t help but be hopeful for the future if we put in the work, energy, and time needed to face the challenges ahead. I long to celebrate the incredible unlikeliness of our very existence, and to marvel at the truly extraordinary circumstances which came together over millions and billions of years, culminating in this very moment now. I mean, it’s difficult not to be hopeful when I think about how our common ancestors survived five mass extinction events on this planet already. Many of you already know that or at least can appreciate the awesomeness of that statement, which perhaps is why you are here. But I’m here because I hope you feel hopeful, too.

The March for Science is an opportunity to reflect on those who have come before us, on the developments we humans have achieved not only in the last few years, but hundreds, and thousands. But this is not merely a party to celebrate and pat ourselves on the back for our characteristics as truth-seekers and fact checkers. This March is a chance to also acknowledge our pitfalls, our historic and persistent challenges, and our shortcomings as scientists and as supporters of scientific endeavours and progress — because we are graduating onto the next phase, the next chapter of our story. This is but a new beginning. Part of what I want you to do after today is take the ideas and messages from this event and share them with the people you know who did not want to be here today. That’s, like, the first step.

Undoubtedly there are a great number of you in the audience wondering, who is this wackadoo, and why didn’t you get a real scientist up there to say something more, I don’t know, academic sounding? To which I’d say — if this talk isn’t your speed, then I look forward to reading your rebuttal. Part of the reason I was asked to talk today is because I showed up. Consistently. And I’m going to tell you a story about the importance of showing up.

My life so far can be divided up into two eras: Before Science, and After Science. I studied art as an undergraduate at the University of Montana because — and I just painfully reread a diary I wrote when I was 17 in order to corroborate this fact, so you’re welcome — because I thought it was the only thing I was good at. Grades and standardized test scores told me I was not exceptional at much else.

In art school everything is about you, your work, your individual mission statement, and I found it to feel pretty isolating at times. But then a friend took me to visit the zoological research museum on campus where she worked in the preparation lab, and I got the chance to prepare a specimen myself — a mouse that had been collected for a research project studying the distribution of rodents in Montana. I’ll save you the gooey details, but the final part of the preparation process involves writing your name on the specimen label as the preparator — mostly for accountability reasons — but that moment was one of the gratifying in my life. It was like signing a piece of art, but more than that, I had made a contribution, even if it was tiny and seemingly inconsequential, to something much larger than myself. I had helped to create a small time capsule of data which would outlive me in that museum collection, along with tens of thousands of others. I made a very tiny dent in an increasing body of knowledge. It felt electrifying.

Since I had extra course credits and some free time that following semester, I continued to show up in that museum and figure out how else I could participate to this thing that was bigger than me — and I felt a sense of ownership of the specimens in the collection I was volunteering to help manage. The more I learned about those specimens the more I felt obligated to speak for them, especially when I saw few others saying anything. I pointed a finger at the University’s administration for not allocating appropriate funds or support for specimens that were spoiling in a basement room across campus — and I pointed that finger again when that collection sustained further damage. I was picking up dehydrated fish specimens from a shattered jar with a label that told me those organisms were collected in Montana in the late 1800s, and in that moment I realized that I was holding the fragile and vulnerable parts of a now-broken time machine. And that, even if I wasn’t the researcher to study them or make new discoveries through their use, maybe my children would, or my grandchildren. And what sort of steward would I be of our planet if I didn’t do everything within my power to ensure I could help manage some small, minute aspect of our collective knowledge?

It wasn’t about just a few fish. It was about the biologist who ventured out west to make some of the first biological collections in Montana. It was about the scientist who trained them, and the wealth of knowledge passed down through generations before. My anger was for the lost potential for that wealth of knowledge to grow because of inaction, or because it seemed too big of a problem to solve, or maybe not even worth the effort. It was about the principle of the matter- that this was a blatant disregard for our collective past, present, and future.

Those specimens and that museum forever altered not only the course of my life, but how I view the world and my role within it. A dead mouse helped me understand what it means to meaningfully and collaboratively participate in community- the scientific community, museum community, and with any number of future individuals or groups that would be curious about the rodents of Montana. I thought about the uses by the agricultural community, or wildlife management groups who will need to use that data to track invasive rodent species that destroy crops. Pest control groups who need data about prey population numbers to show how their pesticides are — or are not — impacting local wildlife. Medical researchers who can make links between some rodent species and the transmission of certain illness and who need to know how far or abundantly distributed those rodents are in order to mitigate outbreaks. Climate scientists using decades of aggregated data of these animals to map and see how rodents are moving to higher elevations as seasonal temperatures rise. Conservation communities wanting to advocate for a rare and unsung mouse found only in that area, or for a threatened or endangered species which relies on those rodents as their primary food source- and those creatures that would be further harmed should the rodent populations suffer. Hardly any of this information can be known without deliberate surveys of our planet’s plants and animals, through which we are discovering new species constantly. Science — curiosity — and the desire to find solutions to the myriad of problems we face as a global society, is at the root of all of these endeavours. This type of work is carried out by scientific organizations all around the world, including The Field Museum, and now I’m lucky enough to get to talk about the work of our great Chicago institution every single day.

But I’ll tell you — man, it was hard to get people to listen to me at first, especially when I’m running around campus screaming my head off about how we need to save a bunch of dead fish and mice. I get how that sounds, well, crazy. I had friends tell me it wasn’t worth the stress and effort. I had others question the appropriateness of my actions, saying it wasn’t my place to care for or worry about those objects, that it was someone else’s responsibility. But I learned that if I am aware of a problem that I can help fix, it is my responsibility, whether I take ownership of the issue or not.

So I kept showing up. I showed up with paints and brushes, I showed up with my art school buddies, I showed up with a digital camera, with a blog, I showed up with every tool in my box. And then one day, someone else showed up with a videographer and a microphone and an audience of a few hundred thousand people on YouTube. And as they say on Broadway — I did not throw away my shot.

And that’s why I’m here today, and part of the reason The Field Museum is here today, too. I’ve been showing up to talk about the importance of science in our daily lives for seven years, and The Field Museum’s got a good track record of showing up, too- for about 125 years, now. But for some of you out there, this might be your first time showing up and speaking out. I hope it is not the last. My greatest hope for the March for Science is we see this as a new beginning, and a commitment to keep showing up in the future.

Marchers — whether you are a professional trained and practicing scientist, or a student, advocate, and supporter of these endeavours — familiarize yourself with the scientific institutions and organizations this great city has to offer. Participate in our local and regional programs — and if those programs don’t exist, commit to creating them. Engage in citizen science projects, curate an art show or a poetry slam about the impact science has had in your life, talk to your children’s classroom about the nature in your neighborhood. Attend the next March for Science. Speak up for science.

We are all members of the scientific community in one way or another. We are educators, artists, communicators and writers, and passionate lifelong learners who have an obligation and a mission to help others understand and empathize with our beautiful and fragile world.

And on that note — beauty — for all of you out there: commit yourself to curiosity. Curiosity is a light that illuminates the beauty of our world, our cherished existence. I’m a firm believer that curiosity is the first step towards empathy. Ask questions of things you don’t understand, and seek answers. Commit yourself to the beauty and diversity of your neighborhood- and commit yourself to learning the name of whom you share your street and city with. Learn your neighbor’s name, whether they are a person, a bird, a beetle or a tree. Value them all. The freedom to pursue that knowledge is no longer an idle luxury — it’s of the utmost import.

To conclude, I’m going to quote a line from a great commencement speech that was delivered by Kermit the Frog — “On behalf of frogs, fish, pigs, bears and all of the other species who are lower than you on the food chain, thank you for dedicating your lives to saving our world and our home.”

Now, we March!

[itsmikaylajade]

Don’t let small minds convince you that your dreams are too big ✨

Last night I had the honour of attending the Aim for the Stars Gala night in Sydney. This foundation was created by seven time World Champion surfer Layne Beachley to help inspire and financially support women from all walks of life achieve their dreams. I spent my evening surrounded by some of the most extraordinarily beautiful and inspirational women in our country. From a women leading the research for a experimental new cure for cancer, a girl who on her on her birthday just past(sweet 16) became he youngest commercial pilot in Australian history, a fourteen year old CEO of a company creating natural alternatives for palm oil products and repairing the damage done in the rainforests. I talked with a marine biologist, a Paralympian, an exceptional dwarf woman who just won 6 gold medals for Australia in the World Dwarf games, a young dancer living with Tourette's syndrome and a young women with the dream of being the worlds first professional Hijab wearing ballerina. From women creating jobs for people living with special needs to a scientist bringing opportunities to indigenous children from the Australian outback. These were just some of the scholarship winners from the 2017 Aim for the Stars foundation and I do not have the words to express how proud I am of all of them and how honoured I am to have shared their night with them. As a past recipient I know first hand the impact a grant and the support offered by both Layne and the foundation can have on a recipients life. In 2012 I was lucky enough to be awarded a grant to help fund a trip for me to fly to Los Angeles to train under the world champion western trick rider, Tad Griffith. The photo at on the start of this post is from that trip. This was a training opportunity of a lifetime and it never would've happened without the support of this incredible foundation. I can say with certainty that without Layne Beachley and the team from Aim for the Stars I would not be where I am today. To me there is nothing more exciting than seeing a woman chasing after her dreams. No matter how big or small. The one thing that excites me even more, is seeing a group of women(and men) supporting each other and helping them achieve their goals. So thank you to the Aim for the Stars foundation for all of your amazing work supporting these exceptional women. To the amazing sponsors who donate their money to help fund these dreams, thank you so much. You're truly changing lives and your support means the world. To Layne. You are an inspiration! You created this foundation so that you could assist women as they aim for the stars in all fields. Your work is sensational. Thank you! I will be eternally grateful for all of your support. Finally, to the girls. Both the ones I met last night and the ones all over the world who might be reading this post. I just want to say, dream big. If there is one thing I've taken away from last night it is that we all have the potential to do amazing things and there is always someone out there who will be there to help you. So dream big and whatever you do don't let small minds convince you that your dreams are too big ✨