Following a recent trip I took to MIT to deliver a paper with Joshua Harvey, I attended a seminar at Oxford University, hosted by Joshua. It was a chance to hear more about the work of Dr Andreas Merchin, whom we met at the MediaLab at MIT. The seminar focused on the olfactory work that Andreas has been working on and was held at the Experimental Psychology department. Over lunch the conversation was varied, from the peculiar and fascinating biological properties of deep sea snails, to producing drugs in space with NASA, just a few of the side projects Andreas has bubbling away. We were also privy to the much awaited opening of his invitation to see the Queen (for his olfactory work)! After lunch we had a very excitable tour of the labs (sorry no photos, we were sworn to secrecy) and came away bristling with ideas. No doubt there will be much email communication after establishing Andreas' very clear passion for making the impossible possible. You can see why I love my job.

We also spotted a dinosaur on our travels!!