Category Archives: Brainwaves

Everything about the Brainwaves project

The Science of Cocktails

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What happens when you bring together a thirsty and fun-loving group of the public and a chemist with a deep interest in alcoholic beverages together? Answer: …A night many might not remember, but nevertheless, utterly intriguing and fun! The science of Cocktails event took place last Friday, all punters leaving happy!

75 people who came dressed to impress, packed in to the Common Room in University House, situated in the Students’ Union and learnt about where alcohol comes from, what gives vodka and whiskey their tastes, how to get the most out of your spirits, and how to make your own cocktail combinations… Though I thought it was all going to go downhill when the first slide of the presentation stated: ‘All alcohol is poisonous’. Quite true, we don’t condone binge drinking, but everything in moderation! The night ended, quite appropriately, on a look at what hangovers are, and how to avoid them.

Throughout the night, attendees were invited to taste, smell and mix drinks for themselves, starting the night off with a fizz in the shape of a lovely champagne and brandy-based cocktail, comparing vodkas, whiskey tasting, making a screwdriver, ending the night on a proper Irish coffee. The hangover advice being handy… I’m told…

There’s no doubt that our rather dapper host for the night, Noel Jackson, trained chemist, Head of Education and resident mixologist from the Centre for Life up in Newcastle, knew his stuff! Having come up with the Cocktail Hour after thinking of ways to engage 18-30s with science. The answer seemed to be sex, drugs and rock’n'roll! Aside from the insight in to the chemistry of alcohol production for example (did you know your cheap vodka comes from oil refinery!), there were countless insights in to the history, aetiology, sociology and geography of cocktails and various spirits! An extremely eye-opening and sometimes mind-blowing experience.

Organised by our ever-wonderful secretary Tacita Nye, and supported by the committee and our volunteers, it went fantastically, so I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Tacita and Noel for making it so enjoyable, and all the hard-work that our volunteers did to make it the success it was.

“The evening was a perfect balance of science and everyone’s favourite pastime – drinking!” Tacita said in summary of the night, her favourite part was when attendees mixed up their own screwdrivers, “there really were some interesting combinations!”

One of our past committee members made the trip up from London and broadcast this via twitter: 

BekiHill
Science of cocktails w/ @scibrainwaves was great, but definitely feeling a bit worse for wear now!

Jon Banks, a self-confessed whiskey lover who attended the event, left us this message on our Facebook:

“Thanks Brainwaves for an awesome night of science and cocktails! I learned all about distilling, hangovers, and why you should always drink scotch with water! I even remember some of it!”

We also tested out our budding mixologists’ knowledge by doing the Big Cocktail Quiz – three lucky winners took home some wine and some guides and recipe books on cocktails, to carry on the fun when they got home.

This was our first ever adult-only night. Usually we’re out and about ranting and raving about the awesomeness of science to anyone who will listen! We’re really pleased it was so successful, in fact, watch this space for a botanics of Gin night! Whilst we had to charge entry for this event to cover the costs of alcohol and so on, we were extremely grateful to all the donations that people generously gave us so that we can continue to put on free events, for children, families and, well, everyone!

Thanks to Ron Adams for taking pictures on the night, and some of the attendees; Adam Dobson, Paul Clarkin and Beany Rosic, for sending in their pics!

Darwin’s Cathedral

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Reviewed: ‘Darwin’s Cathedral’ by Dr. David Sloan Wilson

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Darwins-Cathedral-Evolution-Religion-Society/dp/0226901351/

So, when I decided that I would write a book review blog for Science Brainwaves I was a mere three pages through the introduction of ‘Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion and the Nature of Society’. With such a grandiose title I should have been more prepared for the gruelling task I had undertaken by opening the front cover. This book is no light summer read to be enjoyed over a glass of something cold and alcoholic; it demands the attention of your finest neurons.  Nonetheless, if you stick to your guns, it is more than worth the effort.

The idea Dr. David Sloan Wilson is selling to the reader is that a successful religion functions to make its followers work better as a group. In turn, this helps a religious group outcompete a non-religious group and allows the group to dominate and reproduce in just the same way as with the natural selection we know and love. But surely religions can’t ‘evolve’ like trees, or dinosaurs or humans? Well the idea is that religions culturally evolve – the beliefs and practices that constitute a religion change and grow over time. Those beliefs and practices that lead a group to be successful will naturally stick around, while those that put their group at a disadvantage will be lost to the mists of time.

This seemingly simple idea is examined from every which way, from the point of view of evolutionary biology and from the point of view of the social sciences, while a convincing array of examples are presented, from the smallest tribal faiths to the biggest religious behemoths. The length that Wilson goes to in order to defend his thesis may be enough to put off a reader with only a mild interest. However, if like me you find the phenomenon of religion fascinating, then you will find ‘Darwin’s Cathedral’ engaging and thought provoking. I found myself coming out of the book with a new found respect for the incredible complex constructs that religions are, though even more amazed by the power of evolutionary processes.

Wilson is an evolutionary biologist, and you might be forgiven for thinking his book on religion would constitute a full frontal attack of the Richard Dawkins variety. However, Wilson is quietly respectful of religious believers, and spends more time chastising militant atheists than pointing out any foibles of religious belief. This is a refreshing change from the tirades of the atheist brigade, although ultimately Wilson’s thesis is pretty damning for the truth of beliefs in gods and supernatural stuff – religious beliefs don’t need to be true in order to motivate any group-beneficial behaviours.  Whether or not you think Wilson’s got it right, there’s certainly a lot here to make you think.

Wilson does warn the unwary reader that he hasn’t dumbed down. Yet despite some thorny content, his style remains very readable throughout and he resists using more technical terminology than is necessary, leaving only the concepts for you to get your mental teeth into. The result is that by the end you feel a little exhausted, and ready for a Dan Brown or two, but also satisfied that nothing was out of your league. If you have a penchant for talking about religions over a pint, and fancy a challenging new year read to forget the fact that it’s January, I would heartily recommend ‘Darwin’s Cathedral’.

Next to be reviewed: ‘Life Ascending’ by Nick Lane (much easier I’m hoping…)

VIDEO: Christmas Lecture 2010 – Weird Physics

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On the 17th of Dec 2010 we held our second Christmas Lecture on the topic of “Weird Physics” – all those mind-bending things that physicists talk about when describing how our universe works, like parallel universes, black holes, cats that were dead and alive at the same time and time travel. Dr Paul Stevenson lead the lecture that covered some of physics most confusing topics, including relativity and quantum mechanics, in an accessible manner enjoyed by kids and adults alike.

After the lecture there was a festive reception with refreshments, mince pies and some exhibitions of some of the ideas covered in the lecture – as well as a quiz, with the winner walking away with a pretty nifty science kit to take home. Like last year, there was also a bookstall provided by the local children’s bookshop Rhyme and Reason, also featuring some science books for adults, too. To watch the highlights from the Christmas lecture check out this video:

We had a great time organizing it and the feedback from those who attended mirror this as well. We thank the Institute of Physics Yorkshire and North East branch, the university of Sheffield outreach department and alumni foundation for their support, and are very grateful to those individuals who made the lecture possible. We look forward to seeing you this Christmas!

Weird Physics – a quiz

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First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

It’s been a great year for Science Brainwaves, we’ve come a long way, and this year we’ll only be bigger and better, so watch this space on news of events coming your way in 2011.

Just before Christmas we held our annual Christmas Lecture, this year on ‘weird physics’ – the mind-bending ideas that physicists use to explain our reality, that include baffling things such as particles being in two places at once, black holes and a cat that was both dead and alive at the same time.

I’ll write more about the Christmas Lecture in my next post, but for now we thought it would be a good idea to publish the quiz that our head of volunteers, Ben Dornan, wrote as the Quiz Master. We had some prizes for kids to do, which were:

1st: Chemistry set plus a voucher for rhyme&reason and a copy of the Horrible Science Seriously Squishy Science Book,

2nd voucher for rhyme&reason and a copy of the Horrible Science Seriously Squishy Science Book,

and the runners up all got a copy of the book.

Below are the questions and answers, a bit of quizzery to pass some time. Of course if you didn’t attend the lecture the answers mightn’t be obvious, but we’ll cover information from the lecture later on, in the mean time Google is your friend!

Question 1: Before Einstein published the theories that eventually made him famous, he had another job. What was it?
Office Clerk
Engineer
International Man of Mystery
Politician

Question 2: Which of these is one of the important insights of Einstein?
There is No Such Thing as Time
The Earth Orbits the Sun
Speed is Distance Divided by Time
The Speed of Light in a Vacuum is Constant

Question 3: In Einstein’s famous equation E=mc^2, what does E stand for?
Everything
(Energy)
Entropy
Einstein

Question 4: Moving fast changes the way we experience time. If one twin left Earth to go on a fast trip in space, while the other stayed, who would be older when they got back?
They Would Both Be the Same
The One Who Left
(The One Who Stayed)
They Would Both Be Younger

Question 5: The Large Hadron Collider in Geneva is looking for the Higgs Boson. What is this particle meant to explain?
Energy
Relativity
(Mass)
Time

Question 6: What was demonstrated by the double slit experiment?
(Wave-Particle Duality)
The Speed of Light
Quantum Tunnelling
The Existence of Black Holes

Question 7: In Schrodinger’s thought experiment, what is the strange and interesting property of the cat involved?
It Has Two Tails
(It Is Both Dead and Alive at the Same Time)
It Doesn’t Age
It Can Travel Faster Than Light

Question 8: Which of the following is NOT a real interpretation of quantum physics?
(The Berlin Interpretation)
The Copenhagen Interpretation
The Bohmian Interpretation
The Many-Worlds Interpretation

 

If you’ve got any suggestions of events you’d like to see next year, get in touch, or let us know on our forums!

May 2011 be a good one for all!

What Causes a Static Shock?

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Once again I was called upon for the public service of South Yorkshire and to help out Michelle Mustard on Hallam FM find an answer to a question that had been bugging her all week: What causes static shocks and how can you avoid them?

To understand what causes static shocks, those annoying zaps that seem to come from seemingly innocuous objects without warning, we have to look at what the universe and everything in it is made of.

Atoms, which are the building blocks for all matter in the universe, are made up themselves of particles that look this:

The centre, or nucleus, of the atom has electrons zipping around the outside. These electrons have a negative charge (think electricity).  Any time two surfaces come in to contact with each other electrons are exchanged. Some materials are more likely to lose their electrons from their surfaces and others are more likely to gain electrons.

Ultimately this means that the material that has gained the electrons will have more of a negative charge. If these ions (charged particles) cannot move because the material doesn’t conduct electricity (i.e., it’s an insulator) then those electrons hang about (literally they are static, in the sense that they don’t move).

That is until something that DOES conduct electricity comes in to contact with them, this is any conductor that is ‘earthed’, so that the electrons can flow from the insulator through to earth. This usually isn’t a massive energy, but because it happens over such a short amount of time it can sometimes look like a spark of electricity, and more often than not is felt as a little shock.

So I’m painting this as harmless, but these are the babies of the daddies of static shocks: lightning. Static electricity builds up in big storm clouds where ice has formed and the particles rub against each other until the charge has built up to such an extent that it can no longer be contained and draws up positive ion streamers from the ground – when the negative and positive streamers meet the ions are discharged with such power that they super-heat the air creating light (lightning) and the air expands so quickly from the heat that it causes a a loud sound wave to be produced (thunder).

And it doesn’t end there… flour, as you may or may not know, is highly explosive. There have been recorded instances where a spark arising from static charge building up in grain silos where flour dust particles have rubbed against each other have actually caused massive and seemingly spontaneous explosions.

How do you avoid getting static shocks then? Well my advice is to not drag your feet on carpets, especially in those generic flat, sheep-skin boots, and then touch taps, radiators, or any other metallic, earthed object. Secondly, avoid travellators and escalators (those rubber handles brushing against the metal…) and finally avoid synthetic fibres, or at least rubbing around in them too much.

Weird Physics – an Introduction

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Guest post By Robin Bisson

 

With Halloween and Bonfire Night out of the way, mince pies comfortably established on the supermarket shelves and town light displays ready to be switched on by a passing celebrity, Christmas is on the horizon. And so too is Science Brainwaves’ Christmas Lecture, a free event being held on the 17th on December at the University of Sheffield, which promises to be a real cracker *groan*. The lecture, titled ‘Weird Physics’, is being given by Dr Paul Stevenson of the University of Surrey.

That physics is weird might seem to be a given, after all physics fans have a reputation for getting all excited over obscure things that happen millions of light years away, having some outlandish tastes in music, and developing a tendency in later life to wear jackets with leather elbow patches. However, we’re not talking about any normal kind of weirdness here; we’re talking about the seriously bizarre world of quantum mechanics, a world in which even the most basic facts about the world get turned upside down. Now, if all that the word ‘quantum’ makes you think of is daytime repeats of Quantum Leap, you’re probably not alone. So to get swotted up before the lecture, and to give you a taste of some of the strangeness to come, here’s an introduction to the weird world of quantum mechanics…

Perhaps the most well known illustration of why the quantum world is at odds with the rest of the world is that of Erwin Schrödinger’s famous cat. Schrödinger proposed an experiment where a cat is placed in an opaque box, in which there would also be a phial containing poisonous gas, one radioactive atom and a mechanism to smash the phial if the atom decayed. If the atom were to decay then the cat would die, but if the atom does not decay then the cat survives. The weirdness comes in because quantum mechanics tells us that until we look at the atom, it is in the state of being decayed and non-decayed at the same time, and the consequence for our unhappy cat is that it is both alive and dead at the same time. “Ridiculous!” you might well shout, which is exactly what Schrödinger was pointing out, all be it in a slightly morbid way – the quantum world does not appear to fit in with the world of big things that we know, in which cats most definitely don’t wander about in limbo between life and death.

To make it clearer what exactly we’re dealing with here, a little explanation is needed. The quantum world is that of atoms and subatomic particles: the familiar electrons, protons and neutrons that we all learned about at school, as well as other more exotic particles. One of the things that quantum mechanics says about these little bits of matter, is that once you have observed them being in a particular place at a particular time, you cannot say for sure exactly where they will be at any point in the future. Instead you can only give a probability of them being in a particular place until you have another look and make sure. So far so normal. After all, we can’t expect to know everything.

What quantum mechanics sneaks in and confuses us with, however, is the assertion that these particles aren’t actually anywhere until we look to check – while our backs are turned they are in one place, and another place, and even another, and another and another place all at the same time, but when we look at them BANG, they are somewhere definite again. It’s a bit like playing “What’s The Time Mr. Wolf?” with subatomic particles, except that instead of you not knowing where your fellow players are, they don’t know where they are until you turn around to look (and also, subatomic particles don’t run away screaming when you growl at them).

If this all seems a bit stupid and it’s obvious that physicists just haven’t understood some basic stuff, like that things can’t be in two places at once, there are some awkward experimental results that show the quantum world simply can’t be like the world we all know and love. For instance, quantum particles get ‘entangled’ with each other, so that if you do something to one of the particles the other particle notices. It doesn’t matter if the other particle is on the other side of the room, the other side of the world or the other side of the universe, it will ‘respond’ when its partner has something done to it. Weirder still, these particles may not even only be particles – quantum mechanics regards them as having some properties of waves, and some properties of particles, something that Richard Feynman called “the only mystery in physics”.

Don’t worry if your brain is beginning to throb alarmingly, the physicists are confused too. Since quantum mechanics was first formulated there has been a raging debate about how it should be interpreted. One interpretation that has steadily gained support is that quantum mechanics only makes sense if we live in just one of many co-existing parallel universes. Every time we look in the box to see the mortal state of Schrödinger’s cat we set off down one leg of the trousers of time, let’s assume the one where the cat is alive, while in the universe of the other leg, the cat has met a sticky end.

While it may be mind-bending to try and understand what quantum mechanics implies about the universe and to imagine what the quantum world looks like up close, the more we understand about it, the more we can manipulate it to do some pretty nutty things. We all know that as long as watertight bowls are kept steady, any liquid inside them is going to stay there, right? Not if it’s a superfluid – liquids predicted by quantum mechanics that creep slowly out of any container holding them (click the link for a video). Even more amazingly, there is some early evidence that supersolids can exist – solids that literally move through each other like ghosts, without being affected. In any case, I think we can all agree that a world with quantum mechanics is a much weirder world indeed than a world without. To find out more, come to the Christmas Lecture, but don’t say you weren’t warned if you lose grip on reality…

 

 

If you want to investigate Quantum Mechanics further, then check out plus magazine’s website for podcasts, news and reports.

Is there more oxygen in a park than in a city centre?

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So this morning on Hallam FM I called in to answer a question that the presenter had asked, part of a “find-out-friday” sort of feature. It was kinda of like the I’m a Scientist event I took part in back in June, except with an adult.

The question was, “Is there less oxygen in Fargate than in clumber park?” Not being a climate scientist, or with any REAL knowledge in air quality monitoring, I thought I’d ruminate on the question and give it a go trying to answer.

First off, my answer was “No – this wouldn’t be the case in Sheffield, though there have been instances in very densely populated cities that are very busy with people, traffic, and not with many green spaces, where lower than average oxygen levels have been measured”. So what’s the reasoning behind the difference in Sheffield and somewhere like, say, Mexico city?

First off, some background to this question: Michelle Mustard rightly thought that trees produce oxygen and so if there’s lots of them, surely there would be more oxygen in a place where there’s more trees, and less oxygen in a place where there aren’t as many trees. Trees produce oxygen as a waste product of photosynthesis – the way that they make energy to grow and live – and use carbon dioxide, sunlight and water.

So how comes my answer was no? Well, oxygen is a gas, and gases move about so given that there isn’t anything to hold the oxygen where it is, like a big, air-tight bubble, or biodome, it will just dilute away in to the atmosphere – I liken this to the atmosphere being a massive tank of water, and in one place you drop some green food colouring (this is the oxygen from trees) – but the green colour won’t stay in one place, it’ll mix in with the masses of water and get diluted away, so you won’t be able to see any difference in colour at one part to the next.

What has lead to there being less oxygen recorded in the middle of big cities? Well that’s just it – they’re big. There comes a point when the population density is so high, there’s so many people breathing out carbon dioxide and breathing in oxygen, and there being so many cars that use up some oxygen when burning fossil fuels too that it can make a significant impact. Carbon dioxide actually displaces oxygen, it pushes it out of the way, so on hot sunny days where trees are pumping out oxygen, but in a city with tall buildings and when the air is very still and stagnant, there can be a measurable difference. There are almost 9 million people living in Mexico city though, not to mention it sits in a valley surrounded by mountains and volcanoes in addition to generally weak wind patterns, it’s reknownded for it’s pollution, coming from over 50,000 industries and an estimated 4 million cars operating in the area. Whereas within the city limits of Sheffield there are only about 550,000 inhabitants – plus lets face it, Fargate and the surrounding area isn’t exactly the busiest and most congested city centres in the UK by a long-shot (I was just driving in London city yesterday, so I can personally vouch for this, even if I can’t give you exact numbers just now to prove it).

But the levels of oxygen shouldn’t be your biggest concern. The air around us is on average, made up of 21% oxygen (78% nitrogen, 0.1%argon and 0.03% carbon dioxide) – but in the history of our planet, intrepid scientists have been able to show that the levels of the different gases in air have changed. They do this in a sort of Jurrasic Park manner by drilling in to lumps of amber with pockets of air trapped in them and seeing how much of the gases make up that air. From this they’ve worked out that the levels of oxygen in air have varied quite a lot over hundred of millions of years, back to around 100 million years ago when air was made up by about 35% of oxygen.

Where has it gone then??? Well, some believe that it has to do with industrialisation, but others think it has something to do with a massive forest fire that happened about 10 million years ago. They can see in the levels of charcoal that they find that forest fires became more common as the levels of oxygen increased (oxygen is needed for fires to burn).

Given that we only use about a quarter of the oxygen we breath I’m not sure we need to worry too much – people like the Tibetans have adapted to living at high altitudes where there is less oxygen because the air isn’t as dense, so if the levels steadily decrease we may be able to adapt. I’ve seen a figure of 7% being the lowest we could tolerate.

So oxygen crisis? What oxygen crisis! Yes we have to be vigilant to the amounts of pollution we pump out, that is obvious, but when thinking specifically about the levels of oxygen, it shouldn’t be too much of a worry.

Sheffield, depsite a bad rep from the industrial revolution, has actually got really good clean air standards for a city – not to mention is one of the greenest cities is Europe. With 4 trees per person and an award-winning air quality and monitoring team we can feel happy and healthy. If you’re vaguely interested they actually host a website where you can check on the air quality from over a hundred different monitoring sites. We shouldn’t be complacent, if only for the health and comfort of our fellow city-dwellers.

Sheffield smog

p.s. Has anyone seen a bus shelter with a green roof (ie grass and stuff) in Sheffield?

Fun fact: 2 fully grown, mature trees can in one year produce the equivalent amount of oxygen to support a family of 4.

Get involved!

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Well it seems you can’t always get things right where technology is involved! Yesterday evening we held out intro meeting for new recruits to come and find out all about what it is we do and what opportunities there are for everyone. Unfortunately, we had issues getting our mass email sent out so a lot of people got the email after the meeting. SO here you will find all the information you need and how to get involved.

We are going to be holding our AGM on the 2nd of November, at 5.15pm, in F2 lecture theatre of Firth Court. If you are interested in going for any of the positions that will be listed in this blog, then you’ll need to go to that, or email join@sciencebrainwaves.com

So first of all, a little history. In November 2009 a group of Ph.D students came together to organise a public lecture. The idea was to reach out to the public and provide the opportunity for learning that was accessible to everyone. The topic was vaccines presented by Professor Adam Finn, over 300 people attended from all backgrounds and with ages ranging from eight to eighty. From this success the group decided to continue and so Science Brainwaves was formed.Science Brainwaves has two areas of operation: the public domain and the academic. We aim to increase communication amongst scientists and to the wider community through innovative and engaging events, the creating of which pro-vide skills development opportunities to the students of the University of Sheffield. We were snapped up early on by the South Yorkshire branch of the British Science Association, to broaden their programme of public engagement events.

Public egagement is incredibly important – it can help us communicate important new research relevent to the public and can inspire the next generation: the kids. In our remit is everything to do with science, engineering, technology and maths – even social sciences and the history and philosophy of science.

Our involvement has prepared us for life beyond our education and provided numerous career advancing opportunities, we really hope others can benefit from it as much as we have.
Half of our committee is moving on to new jobs (for example, Jenna will be starting her new job as media executive for the society of biology in the next few weeks), jobs that have been secured thanks to their involvement in Science Brainwaves. We would like new members to bring new expertise and enthusiasm, meaning we’ll continue to grow and meet our aims in the future. We are sure Science Brainwaves can become a dominant force in science communication in years to come and that the students of the University of Sheffield will benefit greatly from it’s success.

Just have a look through this blog, the rest of the website and our Facebook group – you’ll see the many other successful events we’ve put on, such as a debate about how science is covered in the media, iTRAK science-art exhibition with a robot that shows it’s “brainwaves” as it’s deciding what to look at, We’ve been science busking at the national Big Bang fair, we’ve taught kids who to extract DNA from strawberries in a cinema and a school, our summer lecture with Brook Magnanti on chance and luck, and most recently, we took along some simple experiments you can do with food to the Green Man festival. We even helped set up the first ever completely student-ran RTP/DDP module (PG cafe forum) for post-graduate students at the university to hone their presentation skills for non-specialists in a comfortable and relaxed environment (a pub!).

In the future we want to carry on doing this and more. We’ve forged strong partnerships with Museum Sheffield and the Thackray Museum in Leeds, so that we can offer varied and exciting experience and opportunities to our members. We have a number of existing and new roles that we need to fill, so whether you’re interested in writing for the website, or getting your teeth in to organising events, read on!


Website

Currently running the website is myself, Michaela, and Paul, or expert web monkey who makes all our crazy ideas a reality. We’re hoping we can put together a “web team” that will come up with great ideas, develop them and implement them, as well as keep on top of the general maintenance of the website.

-2x web assistants – you don’t need to know html. You just need to be vaguely computer literate, enthusiastic and have some fantastic ideas! With me you’ll be helping organise podcasts, coming up with ideas and occasionally setting up blogs and other reports on the site. Theoretically you don’t even need to be based in Sheffield for this.

-A web developer – if the following makes sense to you then we want to hear from you:Experience in ASP.NET C# Web applications, with SQL database knowledge is required. CSS and Javascript are desirable but not essential. Knowledge of setting up Content Management would be useful. Technologies currently used: C#, ASP.NET, HTML, Javascript, JQuery, YUI, SQL, Source control in SVN.

 

And of course, we still want bloggers and reports, especially blogs based in physics, chemistry and engineering, so get in touch. If you’re a budding journalist and interested in joining our news team, please email news@sciencebrainwaves.com.

Events

Organising events is usually done by small, dedicated teams, where each person takes on a specific role. Our next event that needs team members is the Christmas Lecture on Dec 17th on weird physics. You don’t have to have had any previous experience, nor be a physicist. All that is needed is enthusiasm and a thirst to learn. And, it’s something that looks absolutely fantastic on your CV.

Project Manager – oversee project, responsible for overall budget, ensure deadlines are met, responsible for applying for grants. Produce schedules, etc. Contact for Paul Stevenson, responsible for booking everything for him. Act as support for team members. Write event evaluation in consultation with the rest of the team  – Michaela

Media/marketing Liaison – produce press release, seeks opportunities to feature info about lecture in newspapers, magazines, radio, etc. Also ensures that info is included in event listings. Organise any interviews (e.g. setting up green room). Responsible for distribution of flyers in publics places (libraries, shops, etc, work with everyone on team to cover as much of Sheffield as possible). Investigate cost of local magazine ad space – contact forge press, etc. Responsible for implementing any internet marketing – posting on to local/relevant forums/facebook/twitter, etc. – Jen.

Schools/children’s university liaison – responsible for sending out information to schools (secondary schools) and Sheffield science teachers forum for attendance. Develop further material to be sent to schools with multimedia producer. Produce activity materials (if relevant, quizzes/competitions, must consider age-group attending – work with funding assistant to organise prizes). Contact Children’s University for attendance and to develop any further opportunities.

Multimedia producer – someone to produce, most importantly, posters to market the event, a podcast from the lecture and/or dvd to be sent out to schools/other interested parties. Previous experience not required, but would help. Work with media/marketing/schools liaisons to ensure deadline for mail outs and cohesive image.

Funding assistant/reception organisation – Working with project manager to make links with local businesses to organise materials for the reception (e.g., food and drink) and extra sponsorship. Set-up the reception. Work with university link to develop/organise a stall/poster/whatever to show-case Sheffield research for information/outreach purposes of physics department.

University/alumni Liaison – a link between university staff (gaining support from external/community relations office) and the alumni office to contact local alumni and provide a VIP experience for guests. Work with Project Manager and funding assistant to apply for alumni foundation funding and organise the VIP reception experience. Work with funding assistant to set up reception. – Martin

Reception assistants – 2 persons help on the night to organise and set up the reception, serve drinks/food if not provided by whatever catering we end up using.

Ushers – a group of 5 people to help attendees – two persons to be in charge of admissions (checking the guest list against people arriving), one person to show people to the upper tier of the lecture theatre, and two people on the lower tier – on person to be specifically in charge of the VIPs. After lecture responsible for herding attendees in to the reception in Mappin Hall. Don’t necessarily need to be separate people to the above roles, especially for reception assistants.

Jobs with names against them have already been taken, but if any of them tickle your fancy, drop us an email! We’ve got some meetings lined up for this one already, specifically about funding, so if you are interested, get in contact ASAP.

Museum’s/Science club Coordinator/team

Also up-and-coming is our involvement with Museums Sheffield. The weston park museum will be host to the beautiful games exhibition that will be bringing the science or sport to the public. We’ve been given the opportunity to run workshops alongside the exhibition, so if you have any ideas please get in touch. We also have links with the Thackray medical history museum in Leeds and our initial ideas are to produce a “medical marvels: head to to” series of lectures. We also want to start up a science club for schools that will hopefully be based in a museum.

Loads of poeple have already showed interest in this, so please do get involved – the more the merrier!


GEOSET

GEOSET is a tool for researchers to present their work in a virtual fashion to school and college kids all over the world. We’ve got a slot on the first wednesday of ever month for members, or otherwise, to go and record a presentation targetted to school/college kids. We need someone to help coordinate that with the PG Cafe forum folks so that we can get as many resources fo school kids on the web as possible. Again, if you’re interested, please get in touch.


Committee positions

So if any of that seems of interest to you, then please do get in touch – at the AGM we will be appointing the following positions:

Head of Events
Museum Coordinator
Science Club Coordinator
Website Assistants
Website Developers
University Liaison
Volunteer Coordinator
GEOSET liaison

Thank you for making it this far. If you have any questions at all about anything at all, then please do email us on join@sciencebrainwaves.com. We’re really looking forward to working with you. See you all soon!

Michaela

on behalf of the Science Brainwave team.


DNA Extraction from Strawberries by Michaela

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Another experiment we did in Einstein’s Kitchen was extracting the DNA from strawberries, and wowed kids and adults alike!

Please do not eat anything (apart from the strawberries) in this experiment and if you’re doing this with small children please be extra vigilant to make sure they don’t put anything in their mouths.

DNA. It’s the blueprint for life. DNA spells out the instructions to all living things to tell them how to become what they are, and how their cells should work. Discovered back in 1869 as a part of the cell’s nucleus, it wasn’t until the 1950s that some very clever people realised that DNA was in fact the genetic material – the thing that carried genes and was responsible for heredity – the passage of characteristics from one generation to the next – why you look like your parents!  Since then there’s been a surge in research studying how traits are passed on and how the message in genes leads to a cell working the way it does.

DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid – quite a boring name that just describes the chemical structure (shown below). It’s basically a big string of units, where each unit has a different letter, A, T, G or C that the cell reads. These strands form the infamous double helix structure.

As scientists we’re interested in extracting, or getting at, DNA for a number of reasons, for example, to read the sequence of it to compare it from organism to organism, diagnosing genetic diseases, and to use it as a tool to study processes in the cell. DNA can be used from blood and other samples found at crime scenes to identify who could have been there, and the same principle is behind paternity tests.

 

To get at the DNA we scientists carry out a technique not too dissimilar to what we carried out at the festival, and that you can try yourself at home!

So here’s what you’ll need:

  • ·         A cup and a squashing instrument (like a fork)
  • ·         One strawberry
  • ·         10mL of DNA extraction buffer (add 2 tsp of salt to 50mL washing up liquid and then make that up to one litre with water).
  • ·         Cheesecloth
  • ·         A funnel
  • ·         A shot glass
  • ·         A thin stick
  • ·         10mL ice cold alcohol (we used 100% ethanol, but white rum works!). Just stick it in the freezer for a couple hours to cool it.

What you need to do is actually really easy but I’ve included an explanation for each step, so don’t be put off by the length of this:

1.          DNA as mentioned before is found inside the cell’s nucleus, so the first thing you’ll need to do is break open the cells. Simply place your strawberry in the cup and start mushing!

2.          Cells are actually really tiny things, so though after a minute or two of mushing your strawberry won’t be looking much like a strawberry, chances are that a lot of the cells are still intact! So to really help break it up add 10mL of the extraction buffer (about 2 teaspoons) and carry on stirring. Cells are held together in a sack of fatty acids called the membrane. Washing up liquid is a detergent, and in the same way as it cleans off grease it will dissolve the membrane meaning that the cell bursts open to release everything.

 

3.          This mix will contain everything inside the cell including the DNA dissolved in the liquid, as well as a lot of big bits that you’ll want to get rid of, so the next thing to do is filter the liquid away from all the big bits. To do this simply place your cheesecloth inside the funnel and pour your mushin. Give it a bit of a stir so that the liquid passes through to be collected in the shot glass.

4.          Now the next step is almost like magic, but it’s not actually. We can make the DNA appear out of the liquid! That’s because the DNA is dissolved in the liquid but we can make it so it no longer ‘likes’ water and so will turn to a solid – this is called precipitation. Slowly add 10mL ice-cold ethanol and be careful not to disturb the mush (or spray strawberry all over your kitchen). You should see a fluffy white solid forming at the junction between mush and alcohol. This is a little tricky, but bear with me: remember in your extraction buffer you added salt – salts sticks to the negative charges on DNA and neutralises them. Now in chemistry there’s a bit of a rule where things that are the same will dissolve each other but things that aren’t the same won’t dissolve in each other. Alcohol has a charge so by making the DNA unlike the alcohol by neutralising its chargesit means that it won’t dissolve any longer – it will come out of solution as a solid.

 

5.         Get your stick and fish out the white stuff – that is DNA!

 

Every living thing uses this very same chemical, and if you extracted DNA from yourself or a worm it would look exactly the same as strawberry DNA. Strawberries are great for using in this experiment because they contain so much DNA! We have two copies of each of our chromosomes, but strawberries have 8! This has mostly come about through selective breeding by farmers to get bigger strawberries! You might be wondering why it’s just a big white lump and doesn’t at all look stringy. This is because actually DNA itself is very, very small and so you’d need see a single molecule without the help of an extremely powerful microscope that uses electrons instead of light to look at very tiny things. DNA has to be very small to fit inside the cell. In Humans there’s 6ft of DNA in every single cell, and if you were to lay every strand end to end it’d reach to sun which is over 93 million miles away. Then it’d come back again… 600 times!!! That’s a lot of DNA! There are special proteins that wind up the DNA and package it all up so it fits.

Had fun making a mess? Why not send us your comments and pictures! And of course, any questions then drop us a line or comment on the blog.