Fireworks, Forensics and Food!

I think we've all enjoyed the beautiful coloured stars and heat of the raging fires at various bonfire events up and down the country this week... I attended a family event and then went to the local pub, The Redgate Inn for a spectacular display - here's my attempt at capturing a firework as it explodes using my phone! Fireworks can reach speeds of 150 mph and reach heights of 200m- no surprise that our favourite social media platforms have been filled with blurry images all week then!

I was very fortunate to be invited along to the science department of The Market Bosworth School in Leicestershire this week to talk about my career to date, as well as covering topics about food science and forensics. My forensics portfolio, insects exhibits and chocolate tasting activities went down a treat and certainly sparked some interesting debates and questions from the pupils. Can you ever imagine eating insects as part of your daily routine to get your daily amount of protein? What foods would you design for healthy lifestyles? What about our expanding population? What about making access to food more sustainable and environmentally friendly food production? Is forensic science all about dead bodies? Can you think of  any foods that aren't processed? What subjects do you have to take to do food science or forensic science?

Lots of questions, and I can't wait to go back there for more discussions and activities with such inquisitive minds!

It's Chocolate Week!

What an awesome lecture last night by David Baines, talking all about the chemistry of flavours, the interaction of amino acids to create flavours, the importance of pyrazines in chocolate and the Maillard Reaction, and how evolution plays a huge part in how we detect flavours and aromas. One of the in vogue taste experiments at the moment that David showcased brilliantly is the tasting of high % chocolate whilst holding the nose closed (demonstrated on C4's Sunday Brunch at the weekend)... what do you think happened? Well, the bitter, foul taste of the chocolate whilst holding my nose was lifted as soon as I let go to reveal that famous chocolatey taste we all know too well. Why? It turns out that there are 6 million receptors in both sides of the nose and that pyrazines that come off the chocolate are detected through the retronasal route (one to Google for sure!) without detecting these compounds we don't enjoy the taste! Thankfully I normally eat chocolate without holding my nose, so I can continue enjoying the delicious taste for many years to come...phew!

David also explained how cultural differences alter the way in which we capture, cultivate, prepare and consume food. In addition to our culture, our "eating experience" is influenced by several factors, such as the noise (the crunch of a crisp, for example), our appetite, the taste, the smell and appearance, and even the environment around us affects the way in which we interpret flavours. Who would have thought?! A simple but effective experiment to illustrate this was using 2 different images whilst smelling one aroma (passionfruit) and to see how the audience responded.

The evening ended discussing the popular but controversial MSG, mono-sodium glutamate, and its use in various processed foods. I have tasted MSG on its own before in another lecture, but I couldn't resist having another taste last night either. What foods rely on MSG? What is MSG used for? Where can we find MSG naturally? Definitely worth another Google search.....

It's not just Monday Blues, but a Weekend Full of Colour!

What a weekend it's been! To brighten up this gloomy Monday morning I am reminding myself of the exciting developments that were made over the past few days- firstly, please follow the link to ScienceJennie's Chemistry Kitchen to watch the footage of when a group of home-educated children came to the University of Nottingham and Eminate to learn all about food chemistry! The footage will be showcased at the Food Matters Live exhibition later on this Autumn.

Saturday marked Nottingham ScienceGrrl's first chapter meet up, where more than a dozen men and women from Nottingham met to discuss plans to provide lectures and guest speakers to local schools, as well as other interesting and fun science events in and around the area- watch this space!

To close my weekend, I couldn't resist the lights and sounds of the Goose Fair, Nottingham's annual fair that has been running for more than 700 years!I think you ought to check out this blog Tripping light fantastic to get a sense of the spectacular imagery captured at this year's fair.

The Arrival of Autumn Bringing a New Start for Many...

The summer is nearly over, what with the falling, bronzing leaves and the misty early mornings, but what a great summer it's been. For me, I can't pretend to ignore the holiday on the volcanic island of Tenerife last month; 2 weeks of blue skies and blue seas was just what the doctor ordered (excuse the pun!) but I must admit I was taken aback by the stunning charcoal sands beached against stunning rock formations, a pure echo of the islands volcanic and motile history. Overshadowing the view from most of the towns and villages that I managed to visit was the magnificent Teide, the hole in the earth from where the lava spewed more than 100 years ago, forming some of the landscapes that weren't a million miles away from where I stayed in Santiago del Teide. 

But back to reality, back to the UK, and back to work. I'm lucky enough to have my office located within The University of Nottingham's Sutton Bonington campus. and today is the start of term for hundreds of new students beginning their scientific careers in either plant sciences, nutritional sciences, veterinary sciences or- most excitingly for me- food sciences! Naturally, there are a lot of 'lost' individuals taking the time to explore the corridors and countryside that Sutton Bonington has to offer- the Sutton Bonington campus boundary is shown in red to give some idea of how close to nature we are! How exciting yet nerve-racking it must be for these students, some of whom are from across the seas, embarking a whole new way of life with so many new faces and in a brand new, beautiful environment. 

Let's wish each and every one of them all the best in their new chosen path, after all, they deserve the recognition that they have made such an important life-decision. Who knows where their paths will lead, but what a great place to start the journey! 

The science of ice cream- tried and tasted

Life on Earth needs food to survive- without food, we wouldn't have the energy to go about doing the everyday tasks we take for granted, like moving and thinking. Food manufacturers produce a huge variety of food for us to obtain our energy from, allowing is to have a varied, balanced diet (unless we eat one food group more than any other) allowing us to get all the nutrition our body requires to function (and sometimes more than we need).

The old saying "a little of what you fancy does you good" is one of those phrases that I find myself using when justifying buying my favourite sugary snack, like ice cream (as if we really need an excuse with the weather we've been having lately).

On Saturday myself and fellow ScienceGrrl http://sciencegrrl.co.uk/ Bethan Clifford made ice cream with a group of 12 Brownies from Girl Guiding Beeston  http://www.beestongirlguiding.org.uk/ 

Using simple ingredients from around the home- a tablespoon of sugar, 4 tablespoons of salt, some crushed ice and some semi-skimmed milk (full fat milk works much better)- the girls created tasty ice cream, which were topped off with some sprinkles, off course!

It tasted great, and it enabled the girls to learn about the physical properties of ice cream and how it obtains its famous foam structure. Learn more here http://www.eminate.co.uk/about-eminate/news/brownies-discover-science-ice-cream/

A Future in STEM is for You!

I have to laugh: as a child, my hours would roll into days as I often spent the soggy British summertime building my latest mansions with the world famous building blocks that go by the name of Lego. Admittedly, I don’t need much of an excuse to assist nieces and nephews in their attempts to build the tallest tower or the 3 storey town house these days, but yesterday I found myself walking into the Lego store in Sheffield to enquire about the latest female scientist character. Complete with conical flasks, the female chemist is a much welcome, slightly overdue addition to the Lego family. And I wonder what I would look like as a Lego character. What would you look like?

Creating a character or an avatar gives us the freedom to explore how we would like to appear to other people in an ideal world, and what our perfect career would be (just so we can select the correct accompanying tool to go with our avatar, of course).  Once we have the ideal, perfect vision of ourselves firmly in our own mind, we can start taking steps to make that a living reality. But let’s go one further and consider what we want to be remembered for; discovering life changing cancer therapies; making an impact towards low carbon technology; reducing the need for animals in science research; developing cheaper vaccines for low income economies; etc etc.

I am currently in the process of making a huge, potentially life-changing decision that has reignited a dwindling spark in me about what the future of science looks like for me. A career in science will always evolve to whatever you want it to look like, whether it be teaching the next generation of genius’s, researching your own questions about the wonders of the world or moving out of the lab and into a slightly different territory where lab coats and safety specs are a thing of the past. But the science, and the research and the curiosity remains. For me, the future career I want in science has already started to mould itself into my ideal job, and I’m in control of the next chapter of my life.

I can’t ignore the invaluable lessons I learned in the lab along the way: the hours spent on the spectrophotometer and deciphering my latest set of kinetic data; the care and attention to detail whilst purifying proteins through chromatography and other techniques; tending to my human cells in culture that I cared for for over 3 years. All of these experiences have enabled me to work out where my path is taking me next. A future in STEM is definitely for me. I always want to play for the curious team, the team that asks questions about the world, the team that asks ‘why’ and the team that pulls together to find answers to make our world a better place. Imagine this Earth without the mathematicians working alongside the geologists working alongside the engineers to solve erosion and drought that the tempest brings. Imagine our Earth when all bacteria become resistant to the antibiotics we so heavily rely on now. I love playing for the STEM team. The question is, is a future in STEM for you? 

Your future, your way

It's almost May- where is the year going? The days and weeks seem to be rolling by and what do we have to show for it? April has been a big month for me. In some respects I'm welcoming May with open arms, but I'm also spending some time reflecting on what has been an adventure of a month, too. It seems a while ago since I've had to spend the months of April and May burying myself in books and making copious notes in an attempt to absorb the sea of information from my GCSE and A Level classes, ready for exam hell, but funnily enough, 10 years on I still find myself preparing for even the smallest meeting in almost the same way. Although I sort of know my research area quite well, I constantly ask myself "what if I get asked this, or what if I get asked that, and I don't know the answer!" How embarrassing would that be- the one chance to shine in front of very important people and to not know the answer to their questions. I can almost feel the blood rushing to my face at the thought of everyone looking at me waiting for an answer. But hang on a minute, I'm only human. How on earth am I expected to know everything about my research interest? After all, if we knew everything about a particular subject why would we bother researching it even more?

I remember being a 2nd year PhD student (at which point I would have been 6 years into university education) and having to present my research findings to my whole research group (scary stuff). One of my examiners asked me a question that I didn't know the answer to. So I answered "sorry, I don't know", as you do. It didn't go down very well with my supervisor, who told me that next time I was asked something I didn't know, I must answer as intellectually as possible. Fair enough, perhaps I got scared and didn't try hard enough to answer my examiner's question adequately, and I won't ever forget the words of my supervisor afterwards. But what if I had tried to answer the question, not knowing the answer? I would have fumbled awkwardly for reason, for explanations, hoping that the answer would miraculously jump out and present itself to me. What would have been worse? A moment of honesty, or a few moments of desperately clawing for an answer? Looking back, I'm glad I answered the way I did. To this day, I am always true to myself and if I don't know the answer, I simply say so.

This approach might not always work, however, especially in written exam scenarios where you are expected to answer the question logically (which often gets misinterpreted as "regurgitate everything you have ever learned in this subject and hopefully the answer will be there somewhere"). So what can we do to ensure we enter an exam, or a meeting, as fully armed and prepared as we can possible be? There's no one solution to suit everybody, but my advice would be to prepare as much as you physically can in order to do your absolute best. If you can look yourself in the mirror and know you have done the best you can to prepare for an exam, or presentation, or meeting, then that's all anyone can ever expect of you. And good for you.

Waiting for results is always a fun time, isn't it? That not-knowing, the uncertain, the catalogue of doom and gloomy thoughts playing havoc with your imagination as you picture the worst result imaginable. And then the results are in. The feedback from the meeting wasn't too bad afterall; the grade of the exam was a nice surprise; everyone applauded your presentation. And breathe....you've done it! Big pat on the back for you.

But what if the results weren't as good as you hoped? This has happened to me a time or two (which isn't my favourite thing to admit), but it taught me a few things, and also made me question my future- is it humanly possible to be good at everything? Well, no. Do I enjoy this subject enough to invest my heart and soul into it? Obviously we can't say 'yes' all of the time to this, but if I can give any advice, not doing very well in one or two scenarios makes you appreciate when things do go right, and really helps you focus on what you enjoy doing as opposed to what you are doing because you have been asked to do it. There is always tomorrow to rectify a bad day today. There are always other opportunities round the corner. You just have to want to go get it. Apply yourself in what you really enjoy, in what really matters to you, and the rest will sort itself out.

Chocolatey Happiness

It's Easter Sunday. To some, this is a spiritual, holy day of remembering and celebrating. For many this is also a day of sharing chocolate and sweet gifts with loved ones. I for one have been doing lots of giving, especially to my nieces and nephews who were very pleased to receive chocolate eggs along with their latest toy craze- princesses, pirates, nurses...I also have been at the receiving end too, and have unashamedly been calmly making my way through some of my favourite chocolates all day (diet starts tomorrow, of course!). I feel serene, content, and for some bizarre reason I feel no guilt. Everyone's at it today, aren't they? I have been quietly checking status updates to confirm that it isn't just me partaking in some chocolatey indulgence, and I feel quite confident that most of my friends and family are all up to the same tricks today (phew).

So these feelings of enjoyment that come as soon as one bites into the delicious, crisp chocolate shell of the egg- what's that all about? I definitely don't get the same 'mmmm' or 'aaahhhh' feelings when I bite into the crisp skin of an apple, so why does chocolate seem to make me feel happy? It's all to do with a chemical called serotonin. Apparently, when we eat chocolate, we inadvertently increase the levels of serotonin, the 'molecule of happiness', in our brains, which in turn makes us feel happier. This is because serotonin is made in our brains using an amino acid called tryptophan, which is found in milk and other foods. Milk is of course one of the core ingredients in the milk chocolate recipe, but serotonin and tryptophan are also found in the cocoa solids too. Bonus! As a neurotransmitter, serotonin is responsible for our moods, as well as memory, learning and behaviour. Serotonin is transmitted across the synaptic cleft and binds to specific receptors, where it is then absorbed and brings about certain effects, one effect being the feeling of happiness. Check out the diagram University of Bristol have produced to show serotonin binding to receptors http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/serotonin/serotonin%20as%20a%20neurotransmitter.htm. So voilà - I can eat chocolate forever and ever and be happy. Pffft... I wish. There are a couple of major setbacks to this dream diet scenario....

Firstly, dark chocolate is really the best source of tryptophan and serotonin, as it's the 75-85% cocoa options that have the most benefits. In my opinion, dark chocolate isn't the nicest variety of chocolate as its quite bitter, and I wouldn't fancy eating more than a square or two in one go. Secondly, eating too much chocolate might cause negative health effects such as weight gain and increased blood sugar levels leading to health issues such as type II diabetes, and I certainly don't want to come across as advocating eating high fat, sugary foods on a regular basis. Luckily for us all though we can get our tryptophan fix from other, much healthier foods too, such as bananas, pineapples and plums, which is now going to create an element of confusion the next time we find ourselves at the chocolate fountain.

So where does this leave us? Well, we have to enjoy ourselves don't we? After all, a little of what you fancy does you good, or so the saying goes. In the case of eating chocolate, this saying might not be far from the truth (although other opinions say otherwise). Every once in a while, a chocolate therapy session isn't going to hurt anyone, unless you have intolerances to lactose or cocoa, or have insulin production problems, etc, in which case stay away from chocolate! So long as we don't rely on chocolate as the sole source of our serotonin production, then what's the harm? Happy Easter!

A big week as a budding scientist...

Wow what a rollercoaster of a week it's been. The first half of my week was dominated by one of the projects I'm leading with Eminate (the company I work for) that's looking into measuring probiotic activity in the colon, the middle part was taken up with my thesis (quite a large report that sums up all of my experimental research that I spent 4 years collecting) and then today's been spent explaining the science behind a novel food ingredient to a marketing company. I'm pleased to say that all events this week have gone about as well as I could have hoped for, so I can sigh a breath of relief until tomorrow's challenges arrive. And that's the beauty of working in a small biotech company  - you never know what tomorrow will bring. What I do know is that there will be plenty of conversations about ways in which scientists are trying to make the food supply chain more reliable for future generations, conversations exploring how the food industry can look to address the "waistline" challenge that is upon us. I'm happy to be part of these discussions, offering my view of the world and how I think we can make changes. 

If you'd have asked me over 10 years ago I never thought I would be part of these sorts of discussions, talking about global food strategies and future technologies for delivering food.  From quite a young age I thought I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, but when I received my GCSE results I realised that I had more upstairs than I first thought, which led me to stay in education. In the end it turns out I love learning, so at the grand age of 28 I can finally say "I've left school". But this time I've left with a doctorate, and I'm pleased as punch that today I received word that all the things I'd written in my thesis had been approved by my examiner. What a rollercoaster of a journey that was, too. 

Looking back, I wouldn't change any of my experiences I've been lucky enough to have as a scientist. From a humble undergraduate (the name you get before you graduate) to today, it's taken over 8 years of university, a handful of job placements, and 3 years of college/sixth form to get here. Not without its moments, of course, like falling short of a grade I needed for my placement year, losing all my final year report that I'd spent weeks writing, and the occasional personal challenges thrown in for good measure. But those moments make it real to me; we all have stuff happening in our lives, but so long as you keep your eye on the ball, you'll get to where you're happy in life, even if it's not where you think you'll be right at this moment. 

The perks of being a railway engineer- water jets for landslides and digging up black death skeletons!

What with the thick smog that Britain has suffered from all week its surprising that anyone has been able to work outside without developing asthma or making their existing asthma even worse! But the guys at Network Rail have managed to rebuild the main railway line running through Dawlish that connects Devon with Cornwall. it took a 300-strong team and a whopping £35 million to rebuild the line, and also involved setting off a controlled landslide using water jets- you have to see the pictures-http://bbc.co.uk/newsround/26889145

Now lets move a couple hundred miles over to the east into London... here, excavations are underway putting in the infrastructure for London's Crossrail (a 73 mile rail link connecting more than 30 stations), and what do engineers unearth? Last year, 25 skeletons dating back to the middle ages when the Black Death claimed the lives of almost 60% of the population were discovered, and it has been confirmed through forensic testing that almost half of these skeletons had suffered from the plague. I think most of us have heard of the bubonic plague, or the Black Death http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/middle_ages/black_01.shtml, which is caused by the bacterium Yersinia Pestis, but did you know that this bug is also responsible for the septicemia and pneumonic plagues too? The bubonic plague still remains a serious public health problem in some parts of the world, like in Madagascar, where plague is endemic in the animal population. Fortunately today we don't see pandemic outbreaks like we did in the 14th Century, and thanks to modern science, we also have antibiotics to treat the disease when caught in time.

These plague-victim skeletons also tell forensic archaeologists how people lived their lives in the 14th Century. Just by examining teeth and bones, forensic scientists can tell what types of jobs these people did, what their diets were like and even where they grew up! The oxygen that makes up our teeth and bones comes from the water we drink, which normally comes from the water in our rivers or sea, therefore scientists can use the 3 different oxygen isotopes (an isotope is a different form of the same element) found in our teeth enamel and our bones to discover whereabouts we lived. An isotope of carbon, Carbon-14, is used in the famous radiocarbon dating technique... why don't you try to find out why scientists use Carbon-14 to date bones and other organic material?

Happy researching!

Amazing science in the world around us

National Science and Engineering Week is over, but that doesn't mean emerging, exciting science stories are over too. I've been involved in one or two events this week so I'm just managing to catch up on the science news headlines from the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment/) and its incredible how advanced modern life has become- from 3D printing of human face parts to bionic 'cyborg' limbs, I find it hard to comprehend this kind of technology (even though my school days weren't that long ago)! To think that we live in an age when faces can be reconstructed by simply being printed off before our very own eyes is unbelievable. But it is true, and it's true because of the efforts of scientists and mathematicians and engineers continually trying to develop our world and make it a better place for us. How cool is it to think we are alive NOW when all this is happening? In the late 1980's DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) fingerprinting was used for the very first time to capture a criminal, the murderer Colin Pitchfork. This all happened around the time I was born, and since then DNA fingerprinting has moved leaps and bounds in it's development, meaning the identification of people nowadays can be made much quicker and by using tiny amounts of DNA of between 100 to 1000 base pairs (DNA building blocks). To put this into context, the gene for ginger hair (MC1R gene) has nearly 90 million base pairs! These developments help to make the world around us a safer place to live, knowing that criminals will be caught, but also offer hope to those who may have lost loved ones in past conflicts. In fact only this weekend it emerged that 10 soldiers who died during World War I had been identified using modern day forensic DNA analyses, allowing families to close the chapter on their relatives last moments. What else will scientists and engineers discover or create in this world (or other worlds?) whilst we are alive? What discoveries will you make?

Nottingham's ScienceGrrl first meet and greet

What a fantastic turnout of people at the first ScienceGrrl meeting at Nottingham! Lots of exciting opportunities and events coming up in the Nottingham areas over the coming months. First one for the diary is Science@Sutton Bonington on Saturday 22nd March! See you all there!

It's National Science and Engineering Week!

Wow- this week is busy busy. I had an amazing time at Science in the Park on Saturday, meeting lots of young, aspiring scientists. It never ceases to amaze me how inquisitive the young(er) mind is, especially when I think about how I was as a young person, taking the world in and wondering what lay ahead for me. I should be heading out to East Leake Academy this week too, and also have an appointment with some ScienceGrrl's at Univeristy of Nottingham on Thursday and then giving a talk at Science@Sutton Boningtonon Saturday. Sometimes it's hard fitting the day job in, buts it's all worth it.

So what's everyone else up to this week? I like talking about my job and how I ended up here, so that's what I'm mostly going to be doing. Hopefully it might inspire someone else to consider a career in sciences. I've moved around a bit to be honest, from forensics to pharmaceuticals to food sciences, buts it's been a natural progression and I've followed what's interested me. I love the gut (sounds a bit wierd) but I'm fascinated about how it knows what nutrients we need for our bodies to function. It's an awesome world in the gut, in the intestinal tract! It's why I spent 4 years looking at it and growing it in the lab - a conversation for another time maybe. But it's why I'm currently working for a company in Nottinghamshire that investigates the gut and the food we eat. I like food, so science projects that combine food and the gut are great for me to get involved with. What else do I enjoy? What do you enjoy? What's around the corner for us? Hmmm....

Back in the UK, ready for Science in the Park

I had a really useful time at the 3rd International Conference on Food Digestion in The Netherlands this week. I heard about fantastic research, met great scientists and world experts, and came back with my head full of new ideas and possibilities.

Now, today, I'm preparing for a Saturday event I really love called 'Science in the Park'. It's an annual FREE festival of science for the whole family held at Wollaton Hall in Nottingham (also famous as Batman's house -- it was there that the scenes at Bruce Wayne's home were filmed for The Dark Knight Rises).

In my spare time I'm Secretary of the Nottinghamshire branch of the British Science Association, The BSA, and we've organised the Science in the Park festival for families and science lovers for the past six years. Tomorrow's event runs from 11am to 4pm at Wollaton Hall, across the road from The University of Nottingham's main campus, University Park. If you live nearby, come along! Here's a map: http://goo.gl/bbp0dh

This month I'm celebrating a year at the food and ingredients research company where I work, Eminate Ltd. It's been an incredible year in general. That's part of the reason I'm starting my ScienceJennie blog. I want to share some of the things I'm discovering, about science, my subject, and life!

In the past year I've completed my PhD and passed my viva (the face-to-face exam testing me on my doctoral thesis) and I'm working on some amazing projects. For Science in the Park, I'm taking most of the Eminate team to Wollaton Hall with me.

We'll be giving visitors the chance to try up to several real-life experiments related to food. We're calling it 'Science of the Bake' to show that every time you bake and make food, you're doing science!

 

If you like 'The Great British Bake-Off', you'll enjoy diving a bit deeper into bread for 'The Great British Yeast-Off', another set of experiments looking at what yeast is and how it works. Another experiment looks at the chemistry of cupcakes. It'll investigate all the clever processes that ingredients that go into gorgeous cupcakes.

Also, do you know what milk is? I mean, do you know what it really is, how it works and what the point is of separating curds and whey? That will be one of our experiments, called 'Micellar Milk'. We'll also show how to make rainbows in milk (yes, really!) along the way learning about things called surfactants and emulsifiers.

Come and meet us there and have a go. Find out more at https://www.facebook.com/NottsBSA

In case you can't come, I'll put pictures and more information up here next week. Also follow @sciencejennie on Twitter, here https://twitter.com/sciencejennie

An adventure to The Netherlands

So here I am, about to travel to my 6th conference to a town called Wageningen in Holland. I'm quite excited, travelling alone, just me and my poster. I'm armed and at the ready with business cards and a list of people I want to track down to talk to about perhaps working together in the future, or now. I've never been overseas on my own before so my trip is tinged with a few anxieties, the usual "will I get lost" or "what if I catch the wrong train". But I'm sure I'll manage, I am, after all, 28 years old and big enough to look after myself. Of course, the event should be exciting, 3 days jam-packed with presentations given by the 'celebrities' of the food digestion world. All new to me though; my background is forensics and then pharmaceutics, but since starting my new role in March last year in a food, feed and ingredients company in Nottinghamshire, I've loved every minute of exploring ways to improve the nutrition of an expanding world, an ageing world, a starving world. Discussing ways of how scientists might be able to tackle obesity before it's too late. Discussing how cancers could be diagnosed more quickly to improve survival rates. It's an early start to catch the 7am flight in the morning, but it's going to be worth every minute of it!