Wannbebio is the next blog written by an undergrad that we’ve chosen to feature.

Its author, James Iremonger, who lives in Edinburgh, started his blog during his first undergrad studentship. He describes Wannbebio as “a place to write about biology in general, as well as anything else (heavy metal, films, cats, abject nonsense).” So far, James has worked on several research projects such as urban parasitic fungi, bacteriology, and shellfish immune response to thraustochytrid pathogens.

Here are some reasons we wanted to share Wannabebio: James takes us out of the lab and introduces us to one type of fieldwork through his photography. As you scroll through Wannabebio, you’ll see what we mean, but the image we used above is one of his photographs.

Oh, and this video of color-changing fungi taken by James in the field is not to be missed. https://youtu.be/UBOT8Nn-m3Y

James’ research has also kept him busy in the lab. Below is the passage from one of his blog posts that initially caught our eye (reproduced here with permission from James). Research in a lab class and research in a professional research lab can be very different. This is James’ experience and perspective on the differences and we think many of our readers will nod along in agreement:

"Labs are busy, interesting places, and I’ve found myself behaving very similarly to the way I am in the kitchen. I like setting things up, timing things, and keeping the place organised.. Furthermore, it turns out I have somewhat of an affinity for certain items of stationary, especially Parafilm and coloured sticky-tape – who knew? Having a lab bench is completely different to working in student teaching labs, which I’ve found to be either tedious and artificial, or rushed and stressful – and I hate working in pairs. It’s far nicer to plan your own experiments, make up your own stock solutions, basically doing everything from scratch."

We hope you’ll spend a few minutes checking out Wannabebio here: https://wannabebio.wordpress.com

And remember, if you’re an undergrad with a blog that has at least two posts and a full biography let us know—we might feature it!