Features

The first I heard about ‘I'm a Scientist’ was from a link on NERC’s website, advertising upcoming science engagement activities. This sounded like fun: ‘an online forum interacting with school children over a two week period’. I duly filled in the forms and forgot about it. 

In early February, I learnt that I had been chosen as one of the scientists for the two week event in March. The first challenge was to complete an online profile: ‘describe yourself in three words’ ‘who is your favourite band’ ‘tell us a joke’.. hmm.  How am I not going to sound out of touch?

But looking at last year’s entrants, and my new colleagues in the Potassium Zone, I began to realise that ‘being in touch’ was not the point. Instead, part of the object was to show that scientists are actually people, and that we have all found different routes to a career in science.

The other scientists in my zone included a drug specialist at GlaxoSmithKline, a postdoc in Neuroscience at Caltech, a nuclear processing engineer at Sellafield, and a developmental psychologist from the University of Central Lancashire. Now, we were being thrown together in an ‘X-factor’ style competition where the audience were about 300 14-15 year old schoolchildren from 20 schools.

The event itself started slowly. A few questions arrived on the Friday afternoon, but things didn’t really kick-off until the live chats started on the following Monday. And what a day to start: the 7 O’clock news had the first indication of a huge earthquake in Japan and by the time I arrived in work, the scale of the calamity was beginning to unfold. Within a couple of hours, the first live chat session was on.

This was my first time with MSN style messaging; and it wasn’t long before I realised how hopelessly inefficient my typing is. I also didn’t know any shortcuts, and the students had such hugely complicated nicknames: try typing @cocoacrazycicaxoxo at speed! My colleagues in the zone seemed to be able to write an eloquent essay on the workings of the brain in the time it was taking me to say ‘my favourite volcano is Villarrica in Chile..’.

I decided that I would have make up for lost time when answering the questions posted by the students. This settled into a pattern for week 1 - a growing list of questions to answer, that expanded to fill my evenings; and frantic chat sessions during the day. At the beginning of week two, the tempo began to rise: now the students were starting to vote for their favourite scientists – with a vote every day, and evictions at 3pm.

Questions flooded in: not only on science, but on philosophy. Ranging from ‘what's the best question you have ever been asked in your life?’ to ‘Have you ever roasted marshmallows over flowing lava?’ and a whole spectrum of questions following on from BBCs Wonders of the Universe on the Big Bang, entropy and space-time. As the final day dawned, there were just two of us left – and another fifty questions and three live-chat sessions later, I was the last one standing.

Reflecting on the event, it was certainly the most absorbing form of science engagement that I have ever done. The live chats were great for getting conversations going on a whole range of threads - mainly relating to things like 'how do you become a scientist?' and 'what is it like when you are one?'

Some students realised quite quickly that they could join in any of the live chat sessions once they were logged in, and became regular visitors over the next fortnight. The Q+A section was an excellent follow up - with some students taking full advantage to develop conversations over several days with further questions and comments.

By the end, I had answered over 600 questions, thoroughly refreshing my science general knowledge, as well as honing my explanations of what I actually do for a living; and speed-typed my way through over 12 hours of live chat. 

As a zone winner, I now get £500 to spend on a science communication project - so I’ll be off to make some podcasts from active volcanoes!

Professor David Pyle is based at Oxford's Department of Earth Sciences.

Oxford University researchers have linked a surge in the incidence of tick-borne disease in Eastern Europe to poverty levels.

Their study of 14 European countries, published in Parasites and Vectors, associated socio-economic factors in three east European countries with the highest increases in outbreaks of tick-borne encephalitis [TBE]. TBE is a viral infection of the central nervous system caught from the Ixodes ricinus tick.

The scientists attributed the 2009 increases to a reaction to unemployment in countries where pre-existing poverty levels were high. This may have led to a rise in the consumption and commercial use of foods sought in nearby forests, where ticks are found.

‘The bottom line from research is that everyone focuses on the biology of disease,’ Professor Sarah Randolph of the Department of Zoology says. ‘Then we realised it doesn’t rest solely with that but with the other side of the coin - the human exposure to ticks.’

Research in the 1990s by Professor Randolph showed that outbreaks of tick-borne diseases had increased dramatically in many central and eastern European nations. This was ‘likely to have been due to environmental and socio-economic changes associated with the end of communist rule,’ Professor Randolph explains.

Her latest research with colleague Elinor Godfrey has confirmed the link between poverty - as reflected in household expenditure on food - and the prevalence of tick-borne disease. This factor could have an immediate impact on people’s daily activities and behaviour associated with exposure to ticks.

Professor Randolph says: ‘TBE cases were more numerous in 2009 than over the previous five years in almost all countries but the increases were far greater in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.’ In these nations, outbreaks rose by 91%, 79% and 45% respectively. Outbreaks increased by less than 25% in the other countries studied, which included Sweden, Italy, Estonia and the Czech Republic.

The researchers’ analysis ruled out changes in the weather, such as altered rainfall patterns and variations in temperature with the seasons, as explanations for the surge. Professor Randolph believes the traditional use of forest products in east Europe and commercial opportunities for wild food, particularly in Lithuania and Poland, are significant in explaining her findings.

In addition, the physiological and emotional stress of economic hardship could reduce resistance to disease. Fewer people are getting inoculated because the TBE vaccine is relatively expensive for those on low incomes.

‘Recognition of these risk factors could allow more effective protection through education and a vaccination programme targeted at the economically most vulnerable,’ Professor Randolph says.

This beautifully preserved 525-million-year-old fossil is barely 4 cm in length, but minute details can be seen including 36 tiny tentacles along one feathery arm.

Discovered in Yunnan Province in China, the new fossil belongs to an important group of primitive sea creatures that used the tentacles for feeding.

The creatures secreted a substance that built up into a hard tube around their soft body, with the tentacles extending from the top of the tube to catch plankton.

Previously only the tubes have been seen in detail but this new fossil clearly shows the soft parts of the body.

‘Amazingly, it has exceptionally preserved soft tissues – including arms and tentacles used for feeding – giving unrivalled insight into the ancient biology of the group,' says Professor David Siveter of the University of Leicester’s Department of Geology, who led the research.

The fossil was discovered by a team from Yunnan University in China, the University of Leicester and included Derek Siveter from the Department of Earth Sciences at Oxford. Details are published in the journal Current Biology and the study was funded by the Royal Society and the National Natural Foundation of China.

The fossil belongs to a group called pterobranch hemichordates which are related to starfish and sea urchins.

About 30 species of pterobranch are known to exist today, but 380-490 million years ago a group of these animals, called graptolites, were common across the prehistoric oceans. Pterobranches also show some characteristics that offer clues to the evolution of the earliest vertebrates.

Chemical rainbows and robotic vehicles were just some of the topics local pupils explored as part of University events for National Science & Engineering Week.

On 15 March 63 students aged 11-13 from 16 schools in the Oxfordshire area tested their science skills at the Salters' Festival of Chemistry.

In the morning they played chemical ‘Cluedo’, where teams took the role of forensic scientists solving a crime by analysing samples found at a crime scene.

The experiments included a flame test to identify different metal ions and chemical tests to identify non-metal ions. Guest of honour Lord Butler of Brockwell, from the Salters’ Company, joined one of the teams looking to identify the culprit.

Colourful solutions
In the afternoon the teams went ‘Over and Over the Rainbow’ where they had to get to grips with the principles of density and miscibility and use organic and inorganic solvents to come up with their own chemical rainbows.

‘The students had to stack the solutions in the correct order, the most dense at the bottom and the least dense at the top and alternate the organic and inorganic solutions so that they did not mix,’ said Matthew Lodge of Oxford University’s Department of Chemistry, coordinator of the event. ‘Students were marked on their rainbow's quality and the time it took them to make it.’

After making rainbows the teams were introduced to polymers and made a nylon 6-6 string from two different chemicals dissolved in two immiscible liquids. The nylon 6-6 forms at the interface and can be drawn out as a thread and schools were judged on the length of their nylon 6-6 cord.

The day ended with a physics and chemistry talk from Hugh Cartwright. Prizes were then awarded by Malcolm Stewart, head of the judging panel.

Robots & geckos
On 10 March an event at Begbroke Science Park saw 34 pupils aged 14-16 from two Oxford schools learn about the benefits of innovation.

Students from Cherwell School and Marlborough School were introduced to the latest in robotics research: Paul Newman from Oxford University’s Department of Engineering Science showed them the Bowler Wildcat vehicle his team are using to develop robotic technology to automate the cars of the future. 

‘It was really interesting and cool to understand how close we are to the reality of self-driving cars, that was just a dream years ago,’ said Dionne Franklin, a student from Marlborough School.

They also visited the impact engineering lab, the Oxford University Supercomputer and got to see CyberSEM, an online resource offering remote access to a powerful scanning electron microscope located at Begbroke.

Having been suitably inspired the students were then invited to turn inventor by coming up with their very own business ideas based on the latest discoveries which they had to pitch in a ‘Dragon’s Den’-style presentation.

The winning idea was ‘GeckoMan’, from Marlborough School, a project looking to turn technology mimicking the gecko’s sticky feet into a gravity-defying amusement activity.

Festival of Chemistry schools:

Abingdon Preparatory School - Frilford, Abingdon
Bedford Preparatory School - Bedford
Carterton Community College - Carterton
Didcot Girls' School - Didcot
Dragon School - Oxford
HE Middle School Team - Leighton Buzzard
Magdalen College School - Oxford
Moulsford Preparatory School - Moulsford-on-Thames
Our Lady's Convent Senior School - Abingdon
Oxford High School - Oxford
St Andrews School - Bedford
The Cotswold School - Bourton-on-the-Water
The Grange School - Aylesbury
Tudor Hall School - Banbury
Vyners School - Ickenham
Winchester House School – Brackley

Innovation Showcase schools:

Marlborough School - Woodstock, Cherwell School - Oxford

A new way of detecting TB inside cells has been developed by scientists from Oxford University and NIH in the US.

Methods for diagnosing TB haven’t changed much in a century, still relying on the staining of tissue sections and chest X-rays.

In a recent issue of Nature Chemical Biology Ben Davis, from Oxford University’s Department of Chemistry, and colleagues describe a new method which can, for the first time, detect TB inside cells using a small molecule.

‘We designed and created a fluorescent sugar that we discovered is a substrate for an enzyme, Ag85, found on the surface of TB bacteria,’ Ben told us.

‘The sugar is a variant of one that TB uses but is not used at all in mammalian biology. The Ag85 enzyme takes this and attaches a greasy lipid tail - this greasy product then becomes buried on the greasy surface of TB. The result is that the cell surface of the bug is fluorescently 'painted'.’

Ben explains that the net result is a selective labelling of TB even when the bugs are found inside mammalian macrophages, where it normally lies dormant in infected hosts. Other bugs are not labelled and other sugars do not work, so it's very selective.

He adds: ‘We've been able to use this here to map out aspects of TB cell biology but the implications for diagnosing and monitoring TB as a disease are clearly much broader.’

Professor Ben Davis is based at Oxford University's Department of Chemistry.