The BEST Day

Today was one of the best days ever.

I went to Cadarache, a research center for nuclear energy. They are working with zebrafish there and for a moment (well, actually it was for several moments), I really wanted to work with the zebrafish too! I met some of the most capable and intelligent research scientists in Europe that took time out of their day to share their research with me and invite me into their labs.

I had to wait 1 month to get through the security and upon arrival, I had to have my picture taken and a special badge made before I could be driven through the gates into the facility. They also held my passport during the time that I was within the borders of the facility. It was top security, let me tell you. Before entering the labs, I got to dress up in the special clothes for working with radioactive substances. I also got to wear cool shoes. The labs and work done in them were AWESOME. Upon leaving, I had to get scanned by a special radioactivity detector to make sure that I did not get contaminated. It was all very new to me and very interesting.

Tom Hinton is a very good scientist and a very nice man. He told me today that women are smarter than men although men are not too far behind. (I told you that he was a good scientist; he figured out the most important thing- women are smarter than men.) I like him a lot! He also wears an earing in one of his ears that is really cool. On the drive back from Cadarache we talked about research, research, research and dissected all of the reasons for why we love it. It was an amazing conversation and I realized that I really cannot live without research as a part of my life.

The Scientists:
Tom Hinton, already mentioned above.

Stanislav Geras'kin is a Doctor of Sciences, Professor Head of Laboratory of Plant Ecotoxicology at the Russian Institute of Agricultural Radiology and Agroecology. He is a visiting scientist at Cadarache. One thing (out of the many!) that he is doing is studying the effects that Chernobyl has had on the environment. Listening to this was interesting to me since I was born only 100km (~60mi) south of there 2 years after it happened. Our conversation was spoken in 4 languages!! Russian, Ukrainian, English, and French. I am happy to say that learning all of these languages has finally proven to be of some use.

Karin Beaugelin is a french woman that had a wonderful, extremely colorful and well organized poster from which she presented her current project. She is modeling dose of radionuclides to plants and animals and it sounded extremely complicated. She spoke only french so my brain was overwhelmed with the science vocabulary. I learned that uranium is both chemically toxic and radiologically hazardous. I never knew that but I wrote it down so that I will always remember that from now on.

Arnaud Martin is a soil chemist and I understood his work the most because of the work/projects that I have been involved in recently concerning earthworms behavior in nano-spiked soils. Speaking with Arnaud was more like review and I'm glad it was because after Karin fried my brains with dose response curves and radionuclides, I really needed something more... mellow.  Along with studying soils and nanoparticles, Arnaud studies plants and the atmospheric environment surrounding the plants. He also synthesizes Selenium nanoparticles and makes them radioactive. The labs that he took me into were really innovative and there was one in particular that when I stepped into, I felt like I was stepping into a top-science lab from a movie (or something of equivalence). However, it wasn't in a movie; it was real and it was cool.

The most inspiring scientist that I spoke with was Christelle Adam. She is extremely intelligent and is doing numerous experiments all involving zebrafish. She has looked at how radionucleotides effect reproduction, olfaction, BBB, motility, etc, etc.. Her research focuses mainly on uranium uptake; 3H and gamma effects to zebrafish. She has various and numerous ideas for future studies and experiments and is collaborating with other scientists all across Europe. He work is absolutely fascinating!! I did not want to stop hearing about it and I exchanged contact information with her asking her to send me more info on her work. It was that interesting. At this point, her work is more interesting than rocket science!

I also had an opportunity to speak with a PhD student by the name of Starr-light Augustine.  She was born in the US but her family moved to France when she was young. She's french/american. She is working on a theory called Debit Energy Budget Theory in zebrafish. It has both biology and chemistry in it and even include the laws of thermodynamics. It was so fun to talk to someone who is more into biology talk about how important chemistry is in her work. She tied biology and chemistry together very nicely. She let me look at her recently hatched zebrafish under the microscope and try to determine the stage that they were at. It was so much fun because they glowed like diamonds in the sun under the microscope and reflected the light. It was the coolest thing ever. I could not stop looking at them. Also, I guessed the right stage at which they were at and got so excited over it I almost forgot everything that I had learned that day. It is so fascinating what she and Christelle are doing with the zebrafish...

I know that for some of you this doesn't sound like something to be super excited about. But for me, radioecology is something I have never experienced before and I'm so fortunate to have had the privelege of making the aquaintance of it.


Concluding one of the best days of my life and wishing you all the best,

Oksana.