Late Friday and the weekend is here

Evening All

It's been a busy afternoon. A >2 hour meeting and then a quick meeting with Stu who showed me some really great sensing results. If anyone knows any specific applications for detecting butanone or trimethylphosphate, please let me know. If we can find a need for detecting these vapours, then we're in the money!

Also thanks for your emails and comments about my blog. It's been really nice catching up with those of you whom I haven't heard from in a while and also getting some really interesting queries and questions about our work. Frank Davis from Cranfield asked me about we can tell the difference between cod and haddock? Before giving him a serious reply, I couldn't resist saying that we can tell because cod is more expensive than haddock in the fish shop!! If you're really curious, then it's because as fish (and meat) decays, a mixture of organic amines are evolved (as decomposition products) and this mixture is unique to the particular species of fish in question. Our materials respond optically to organic amines (that is, their uv-visible spectrum (or colour) changes subtely when they come into contact with various amines) and the response for each material is slightly different from the next. Therefore, by looking at the response of several sensing materials, we can effectively identify a different combination of amines and therefore a different fish! That's the theory, the practice is more difficult to achieve but we're getting there!

Next, it was great to hear from Colin Dooling, a former PhD student of mine that some of you will know. Colin is doing really well in his job and quite clearly has the money to buy lots of my paintings. I reckon he should spend a bit on artwork for his house, don't you?

In signing out, I hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy the sun if you're in Spain or Turkey and the rain if you're in Britain! Adios amigos.