Posted on by Mbuyi Shadrack · 2 Comments

We need to start…right now.

Earlier this year I was having a conversation with a colleague around the advances and progress that has been made in the scientific world over the years. As the conversation evolved, we became curious about more than the science from textbooks and laboratories that’s never actually applied in the real world where Mr and Mrs Civilian would benefit from it. As we looked into the application of research in the real world, I was in awe at what Asians have been able to accomplish over the years and how much advanced they are already in terms of science and technology. This amazement ended there in that office on that day; until I started to prepare the literature review for my own research a couple of weeks ago.

A snapshot of the research that is being done in AsiaAsian countries – China, Japan, even Korea, Taiwan and India – appear to dominate ecotoxicology. I am on the internet everyday compiling papers and it seems every time I get a relevant published study to my work, it has been done in China or Japan. I am not sure if it is because of a national love for the environment, their technological advancements or if pollution is simply so excessive in Asia that researchers HAVE to try to fix the problem. But the top ten most polluted countries are not only in Asia. Some African countries have made it to the list, yet there is hardly anything in literature about their work. Which begs the question, are we scientifically ignorant, or are we just pretending that we do not care about the environment?

I don’t mean this in a judgmental way – it was just so difficult to find traces of African research in my field. But I kept on looking. There seems to be quite extensive work done raising awareness through conferences and weekly blogs that focus on the environmental work in Africa. Some prominent scientific work has also been done in countries like Nigeria and Kenya as well. Much to my amazement, Eastern Cape universities such as Rhodes University have played a prominent role in the assessment of the aquatic systems and ecotoxicological work through their Unilever Centre for Environmental Science. The CSIR has also had quite a field time especially in the assessment of the wastewater works. And I was excited to read an article on Environmental Science and Pollution Research by a colleague of mine. It really is amazing how far we have come in the past decade.

A recently published article by Winnie-Kate Nyoka - A terrestrial ecotoxicology masters major at our department
A recently published article by Winnie-Kate Nyoka – A terrestrial ecotoxicology masters major at our department

My argument, however, is that we still have a long way to go in establishing our footprint in the field of ecotoxicology. Yes, perhaps Asian countries have better technology, easily accessible funding and resources. However, at the moment there are hefty amounts of money being funnelled into the development of the African research. The few that I am personally aware of include the International Foundation for Science (IFS), REACH, IDRC, BRICS grant and DFG. As South Africans and Africans in general, we can use these opportunities to establish our footprint in the research that will benefit us and future generations. And then, we still have a long way to go in not only doing research but also in communicating our results to the general public and actually implementing the solutions that we find in the lab.

Posted on by mamothena

Tangential thoughts and research detours…

I was thinking about procrastination and how even though I work all the time, I still procrastinate! How? By wandering off on tangential thoughts and research “detours.” You know when you are busy with your “real” focus and then get stuck on an idea that is far from central to your research objectives? Then, at the end of the day you worked but not really… This can leave you feeling like you were just day-dreaming and wasting time by reading that interesting but not-so-relevant set of papers.  But in my experience, there are some benefits to these kinds of research detours…

  1. They are the wayward but worthy branches of your research tree

It is okay to be distracted by tangential thoughts related to your analysis; how else would you come up with fresh new ideas? In fact, these detours can reveal more about your work than you were aware of.  Like the wayward branches of a tree. And you can choose what to keep and what to prune off, but at least they show you the full potential of your research, the different directions it can take.

  1. They can unlock writer’s block

I don’t know how many times I have found the answer to my question, or the proper way to articulate myself from reading “irrelevant” things.  It is usually a serendipitous thing because I wasn’t looking for answers there, I was just curious about something.  But something (an idea, a style of writing) catches my eye, and suddenly I’m inspired; and just like that, I’m unblocked!

  1. There’s a bright side to dead-ends and time lost

Entertaining your tangential thoughts and detours takes time. And as PhD students, we don’t got it. Sometimes a detour may actually be a dead-end and you will mourn the time lost. But I have learned to look at that dead-end as productive day-dreaming.  And then I can’t argue with myself because day-dreaming is actually good for your brain. You can’t lose by gaining more broad knowledge of your field. I wrote about a similar thing on literature review and delving deeper, and with analysis it is the same.

  1. Detours still lead to the destination

Just like when the GPS takes you through the unknown route to your destination, sometimes your brain takes a detour that ends up making sense.  What seems like a distraction may actually end up being the answer to your questions. I was doing research on indices for determinants of health outside of the health system – environmental factors, nutrition etc. And one of the recommendations was the need for intersectoral action to address multidimensional contributors to health and disease. I got stuck on the idea of intersectoral action, and engaged with it for quite some time.  Long story short I am now presenting at two conferences with different aspects of my work on that topic.  My thesis is not on intersectoral action for health.  But the utility of my work in the real world is actually at the meeting of the health sector and non-health sector for more holistic action on health.  And this is the exact idea I was challenged to explore by one of my department heads when I presented my research proposal two years ago. The utility of my work and its contribution to the real world.

  1. If you can’t do it now, put it on your bucket list.

And finally, if you can’t go on a detour or get distracted, how about opening a “Tangental Threads” file as you work? It is especially useful when writing or analysing and all these thoughts are coming at you at once. You open a simultaneous file where you jot them all down – references, ideas, anything relevant but distracting. You can come back to them later on, or not. But jotting them down frees your mind to focus on the task at hand. I wish I found out earlier about this — think how many ideas I have lost! (Many are on post-it notes in some trash can somewhere).

So there you have it folks, when it comes to analyzing and writing, let your brain scatter a bit. But everything in moderation. You are still on a deadline.