2 INTERNATIONAL
UK 20 - 2 FEBRUARY 2012
Bart Groen
■ What the
bleep
is...?
Elfstedenkoorts You may have noticed the cold this week. Just when the first trees were budding and birds had started singing, winter blasted in from Siberia. That’s the way it is in an oceanic climate. Next week it might be spring again or autumn, or winter once more. One thing is for sure: when frost is in the air, the Dutch are struck by a strange affliction called Elfstedenkoorts (11 cities fever). The symptoms are a preoccupation with weather reports, a neurotic maintenance of ice skates and the urge to talk about ‘natural ice’ all the time. We’re an ice-skating nation, but we lack the cold winters to produce lots of ice. But when there is ice, everything is focused on it. Furthermore, people start dreaming (feverishly) of the Elfstedentocht. This is a 200-kilometre race through the province of Friesland. It was first organized in 1906. The last one (the 15th overall) was in 1997. An Elfstedentocht requires at least two weeks of very cold weather without any snow, so that the entire course of canals, lakes and bits of the IJsselmeer have about 20 centimetres of ice. Such a winter happens once every 18 years on average. It may seem premature to speculate on an Elfstedentocht after only a few days of frost, but that’s the way it is. So if your Dutch colleague or teacher is lacking a bit of focus, blame the Elfstedenkoorts. [ RENÉ FRANSEN ]
NEWS
Nano car in Chinese top 10 The smallest four-wheel drive in the world, built by a team of RUG chemists under the super vision of Ben Feringa, has been chosen as one of the top 10 scientific breakthroughs of 2011 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Feringa unveiled his nano car in the 10 November edition of the journal Nature, where it featured on the cover. Feringa built the world’s first molecular motor in 1999. It is made from four such motors and runs on electricity – about 0.7 nanometres with every turn of its wheels. Also included on the Chinese list are the launch of the new Mars rover Curiosity, the world’s largest solar-powered aeroplane and the sequencing of the entire potato genome.
MD/PhD project on complications in pregnant women with Diabetes Mellitus. He is in his second year, but Bart Groen is already on the finishing straight. His stipend as an MD/PhD student ends a year from now. “So I’ll stop collecting clinical data in June, and start focusing on analysis and writing.” By then one study will have finished and the number of patients in the second study will be sufficient for him to draw some conclusions. “We set up two clinical studies because we weren’t sure which one would deliver the most data.” As it turned out, there was more than enough material for a thesis in the first study. “Of course, I’ve put a lot of effort into getting both these studies going. And now someone else will hopefully finish the second one. But that’s how it is. And I will stay involved, albeit at a distance.” Groen has also received the results from his animal studies. “These combine very well with the first clinical study.” But his thesis will therefore contain quite a lot of basic research. “That’s great, but I think like a clinician, not like a biologist. So for me it’s much more of an effort to turn these basic results into an article. That can sometimes be a bit disheartening. But on the other hand I’m learning a lot from it.” He’s already writing a number of papers. By the end of this year he hopes to return part time to clinical work and to put the finishing touches to his manuscript. “I’m looking for a thesis defence in the summer of 2013!”
Shaghayegh Abdolahzadeh PhD project in chemistry, on manganese catalysed oxidation. Shaghayegh Ab dol ahzadeh is busy collecting data. “I started writing a paper on my first results, but it turned out I needed more data.” She hopes to finish the experiments in a month and then write a first draft of her paper. “But there’s a lot of data to process. That is new to me and does take some effort.” The main event so far this year has been a talk she gave to the entire research group in December. “I was very nervous about that. You have to give this talk after one year, to outline what you’ve done so far and what your goals are. Everyone is there in a very big room. My supervisor was happy with the presentation, so that really encouraged me.” She still enjoys her work and life in Groningen. This spring she will visit Iran. It will be her first trip since she started her PhD project. She has settled in all right, but some Dutch customs are not for her – like having only sandwiches for lunch. And she’s not the only one in her office – where there are six junior scientists from six different countries – who doesn’t like that. “We have people from India, China and Thailand, and they all want a hot meal for lunch.” So they bring their own food. “The other day I made shole zard (an Ira-
PhD puppies Part VI: moving on nian dessert made from rice, sugar and saffron) for my colleagues.” She had one scary moment recently: “I couldn’t get a reading from my spectrometer. After a while I feared I had ruined this very expensive piece of equipment. But in the end it turned out two parts were not properly connected.”
It’s the final part of their education and the first step in their academic career. The second year of a PhD project is for data collection. That’s what our puppies are doing: in archives, labs and Mexico. Except for one, who already has his eye on the finishing line. By RENÉ FRANSEN
Wouter Marchand PhD project in history on the effect of student grants on social mobility, 1815-2015. Wouter Marchand has just finished his first-year report. “A bit late since I am in the 17th month of my research, but I was only asked to write it in December.” He enjoyed that. “It looked really interesting. Judging by the report, the first year went very well.” He credits the programme of the Posthumus Institute, the national
research school. Marchand had to write his paper in three stages, outlining his research. The result is the first chapter of his thesis. “And I’m now working on the second chapter, which details the recipients of government study grants between 1815 and 1853.” This will give him a strong foundation for the rest of his thesis. “I’ve even made a provisional weekly plan up to 2014. It’s a bit surreal to see I’ve planned something for week 13 in 2013, but it does help, although sometimes I do feel the pressure.” Over the next period Marchand will visit archives to dig up data on government grant recipients. It’s something he enjoys. “Real hard-
core history research”, he laughs. But he will also visit Statistics Netherlands, which houses tons of official information. There he will find out how to collect data on recipients of later government study grants. “Over the first few years we’re talking about 70 recipients per year. Later on there are thousands.” It means his work will shift from individual stories to averages. “Both can be interesting”, he says. But he will add some individual stories on later grants to his book. “I’ve just found out that Thorbecke, the founding father of Dutch parliamentary democracy, actually studied on a government grant. I have to include that!”