Save our cats!

Today I have been preparing samples again...hopefully I will be able to show you the next big machine in the sample prep process tomorrow! If the glue on my samples manages to set overnight. I have mostly been trying to stick tiny bits of metal to 3mm copper discs using two pairs of very fine tweezers. Sometimes I am quite glad I spent so much time painting little pictures on my nails as a teenager.

In between bits of sample prep I have also been quite stressed because Estates management are planning to get rid of our campus cats! Here is the bravest cat, Taz, doing some important post-sorting duties:

Estates would like to remove Taz and shy Charlie from our campus because asthmatic people might be allergic to his fur. But there are lots of smokers outside the only entrance to the campus and they just stand there all day making smoke. And anyway if somebody doesn't want to sit next to the cat they just have to shoo him out and he will go somewhere else! So my office reckons they just don't think cats fit with the image of sterile, professional scientists doing Important Business.

But we scientists really like our cats. They are cute and fluffy and when we need to do some thinking or when we are stressed we go outside and give them some cat hugs - and then we come back in and do some really good science. In fact we should probably acknowledge our cats in some of the papers we write.

So we are slightly worried about our little cats today :(