Claire Murray
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drclairemurray.com
Claire Murray
@drclairemurray.com
2.4K followers 470 following 280 posts
Irish scientist living in Berlin. Loves tea, travelling and the science. Occasional #Gaeilgeoir. Opinions mine. She/Her

https://drclairemurray.com/
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drclairemurray.com
Today's protest is an important one. Berliners are out on the streets supporting the classification of the right wing party AFD as extremist by the German spy agency BfV. Here's to democracy and to inclusion that unite us rather than divide us 💚 #AFDVerbot
A large crowd stands in front of the Brandenburg Gate with lots of colourful signs in support of the protest to ban AFD. One small sign in the middle says 'Hey AFD, you dropped this', with an image of a stick figure holding a brain in their hand. A second sign says 'FKD AFD aber kein Sex mit Nazis', which translates to 'Fuck AFD but no sex with Nazis'.
May 11, 2025 at 2:52 PM
drclairemurray.com
This was today's absolute highlight from the #DarkRooms. Called 'Tentacle' by @ausgangstudio.bsky.social, it's a reflection on whether the technology that now drives us brings us further away from being human. The combined light and sound installation was incredible, and I spent ages watching it.
Streams of LED light chains (Lit in white)hang with lots of white ethernet cables from a central hub. There are also faint lines of red lights underneath in the image. Streams of LED light chains (Lit in a light blue-cyan colour)hang with lots of white ethernet cables from a central hub. There are also faint lines of red lights underneath in the image.
May 10, 2025 at 4:33 PM
drclairemurray.com
Can highly recommend your old-fashioned chocolate cake too! It's sturdy enough to withstand all the (peanut butter or raspberry) Italian icing and to stay solid throughout an entire plane ride. It went down a storm with the bride, groom and the wedding party!
Three layers of chocolate cake with half the layers sandwiched together with light brown peanut butter icing and half sandwiched together with light pink raspberry icing. There are also layers of creamy white vanilla icing separating the peanut and raspberry, as well as a crumb coat around the outside of the cake. There is a white layer of fondant around the outside. A square layer of chocolate cake with a creamy white edging of vanilla icing on top. This vanilla icing also bisects the cake in half. The top half is filled with light brown peanut butter icing and the bottom is filled with raspberry icing (with raspberry seeds). The cake sits on top of a silver cake board.
December 11, 2024 at 1:42 PM
drclairemurray.com
The cake arrived! It was very well received. It was a chocolate cake with half peanut butter icing and half raspberry icing. The bride and groom had a fantastic day and so did we as guests!
A cake with a white fondant outer icing. There are three layers of chocolate cake. Half of the cake on the left has a light brown icing in the middle of all the layers which is peanut butter. The right half of the cake has the same but for raspberry icing.
December 10, 2024 at 9:03 AM
drclairemurray.com
Cake in a car and now cake on a plane. Pray to the cake gods that it (and I!) arrive in one piece.

Let's hope I can deliver it to the bride and groom in one piece! 🤞
A cake box with a white cake on the floor of the front seat beside the driver in a car. Cake on the ground in the feet area of the airplane seats.
December 9, 2024 at 11:05 AM
drclairemurray.com
This reminds me of seeing Jules Pottle speak once at a conference. She's a primary school teacher who loves science and pivoted to storytelling science. She created this plot matrix and I love it so much as an entry for science storytelling.
storytellingschools.com/wp-content/u...
This is the plot matrix available at the link, which is a 3x3 grid with lots of illustrations of a dragon and other adventure themed items like a skull, a lock and underpants! The top of the grid from left to right says 'Where?', 'Who?' and 'What?'. The middle row from left to right says 'Obstacle', 'Setback' and 'Helper'. The bottom row from left to right says 'Solution', 'Ending' and 'Learning'.
November 15, 2024 at 2:52 PM
drclairemurray.com
I'm kind of moving away from the other place but I saw this and it made me so happy. Here's to more interactions like this over here!
The image shows a twitter conversation of three tweets. None of the tweets are in English, so all tweets below have been translated by Claire. The first is by the Catalan science journalist Xavier Duran, who shares the nature piece by Claire, with a message in Catalan saying ''School citizen science also helps chemistry' explains Claire Murray'. The second tweet is by Claire replying in Catalan, saying 'Thank you for sharing'. The third tweet is by Xavier replying to Claire in Irish saying 'Thank you and congratulations on this citizen chemistry project'.
November 12, 2024 at 10:09 AM
drclairemurray.com
My evidence for this is this sketch which was drawn in the early hours of the morning. I woke up and immediately sketched out the idea on the first app I could find!
A crowd of stick figures centring towards a magnifying glass focusing on the text 'CaCO3'.
March 10, 2024 at 9:14 PM
drclairemurray.com
I mostly dream of my friends and family in places that I don't expect to see them. B
However, I occasionally have science dreams and one of those genuinely led to the idea for this front cover for this article 🧪⚗️
pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...
The image shows several children stood surrounding a girl. The girl is using a magnifying glass shaped like the Diamond Light Source synchrotron to examine two molecular model sitting on a table. The model are the structures of the calcium carbonate polymorphs calcite and vaterite. Several large cubic and hexagonal crystal al lie on the table, representing the shapes of calcite and vaterite crystal respectively. The children are wearing surprised or excited expressions. This image is a broad representation of the Project M citizen science experiment, where a diverse group of students synthesised and examined crystalline calcite and vaterite powders.
March 10, 2024 at 9:12 PM
drclairemurray.com
This CrystEngComm front cover is for all our Project M Scientists. We appreciate you and your contributions to #CitizenScience and to #Chemistry. Our project would not have been the same without you, and it was an honour to be co-authors together on our paper!
pubs.rsc.org/en/content/art…
The image shows several children stood surrounding a girl. The girl is using a magnifying glass shaped like the Diamond Light Source synchrotron to examine two molecular models sitting on a table. The models are the structures of the calcium carbonate polymorphs calcite and vaterite. Several large cubic and hexagonal crystals also lie on the table, representing the shapes of calcite and vaterite crystals respectively. The children are wearing surprised or excited expressions. This image is a broad representation of the Project M citizen science experiment, where a diverse group of students synthesised and examined crystalline calcite and vaterite powders.
February 5, 2024 at 3:59 PM
drclairemurray.com
Sweets + Cocktail Sticks = very popular tool for #scicomm!

This is condensed summary of our paper just published! We share our experiences (and class plans!) from doing #crystallography outreach with thousands of people around the world. doi.org/10.1107/S160...
A stage by stage construction of a crystal using cocktail sticks and marshmallows. 1. Showing the materials laid out with 14 Cocktail Sticks on the left and eight white and one pink mini marshmallows on the right. 2. The construction of the base square with 4 white marshmallows and 4 cocktail sticks 3. The addition of 4 vertical cocktail sticks to the base square forming the sides of the cube 4. The addition of the top square of 4 marshmallow and 4 cocktail sticks on top of the vertical cocktail sticks to complete the cube. 5. The positioning of the final pink marshmallow in the centre of the cube using two cocktail sticks
January 28, 2024 at 10:52 AM