Tag Archives: UK

Cuts for British Science

Britain’s physics community is reeling from a “disastrous” day of funding cuts that will force scientists to withdraw from major research facilities and see PhD studentships fall by a quarter. Space missions and projects across astronomy, nuclear and particle physics are being cancelled to save at least Â£115m, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) said today.

Fellowships and student grants for PhD projects will be cut by 25% from next year. The announcement has appalled senior physicists who warn the cuts threaten Britain’s future as a leading player in science.
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In February, Gordon Brown delivered his first speech on science in Oxford and stated: “The downturn is no time to slow down our investment in science but to build more vigorously for the future.”

Politicians like to talk about funding science investment. And they do so to some extent. However, they are more reluctant to actually spend money than to talk about the wonders of science. Several countries in Asia are not just talking, they continue to invest, large amounts of money. The USA seems to be willing to put some money (not the kind of funds paid to protect bankers bonuses but significant amounts). Still the amounts the USA is investing is, I believe, falling as a percentage of global investment.

Teenage Engineer’s Company Launches Safety Stair

Young engineer launches stair aid by Geoff Adams-Spink

A young woman from Sheffield has turned a GCSE coursework project into an award-winning stair-climbing device for older and disabled people. Ruth Amos has launched her StairSteady handrail at Naidex 2008 – the annual disability exhibition in Birmingham.

She told BBC News that she was inspired to create the device for the father of one of her teachers who had had a stroke. She won an award for her idea and has now set up a company to sell it. The StairSteady is a horizontal rail at 90 degrees to the wall or banister that people can hold on to as they go up or down stairs.
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The invention was then entered for the Young Engineer for Britain competition and won first prize.

Great stuff. Innovation doesn’t have to be amazing technology. Finding solutions that make people’s lives better is the key. And then showing some entrepreneurship is great, Ruth setup her company when she was 16. I wish her luck.

Scientific Illiteracy Leaves Many at Risk in Making Health Care Judgements

Scientific literacy is important for many reasons and that importance has increased greatly over the last century. Medical research is often difficult to interpret. Often various studies seem to contradict each other. Often the conclusions that are drawn are far too broad (especially as the research conclusions are passed on and people hear of them overly simplified ways).

Many health care options are not obviously all good, or all bad, but instead a mix of benefits and risks, both of which include interactions with the individuals makeup. So we often see contradictory (and seemingly contradictory) advice. Without a level of scientific literacy it is very difficult for people to know how to react to medical advice.

We have numerous posts on the scientific inquiry process showing that acquiring scientific knowledge is complex and can be quite confusing in many instances. While understanding things are often less clear cut than they are presented it is still true that most often strategies for healthy living have far better practices that will provide far better results than alternatives.

The scientific illiteracy that has some think because their are risks no matter what is done that means there is no evidence some alternatives are far superior is very dangerous. As you can see in action now with those that risk their and others lives and health by doing things like not vaccinating their children, or driving when drunk, or driving when talking on a cell phone.

Without a scientifically literate society even completely obvious measures like not using antibiotics on viral infections are ignored.

Friday Fun: Bristol Zoo’s Human Exhibit

Photo of the Homo Sapiens zoo sign at the Bristol Zoo

A mysterious sign has appeared on the side of the Zoo’s popular Coral CafÃ©, designating the area as a place to spot one of the world’s most widespread species – Homo sapiens. The notice, which appeared without warning this week, shows humans ‘on display’ inside the cafÃ© and includes tongue-in-cheek description of the species and its characteristics.

Zoo staff were surprised and amused to discover the new fixture. Dr Jo Gipps, Director of Bristol Zoo Gardens, said: “This is definitely not one of the Zoo’s own signs, it is clearly a prank and a very good one too. It looks completely genuine. We think it’s great sign and we have absolutely no intention of removing it, however I think one of them is probably enough.”

From the sign:

After a gestation period of nine months, the you usually live in the parents’ next for around 16 years. While the parents are out foraging for food, juveniles are looked after in large groups by other adults.

In adolescence, the offspring adopt a more nocturnal lifestyle and engage in ritualized activities of drinking fermented liquids and dancing to rhythmical sounds, which scientists believe may help them to find a mate.
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They are known to adopt other species as pets, particularly dogs (canis lupus familians) and cats (felis catus).

Continue reading →

Bike Folds To Footprint of 1 Wheel

Inventor’s Bike Folds Into Its Own Wheel

Dominic Hargreaves‘s bike, The Contortionist, has been shortlisted for this year’s James Dyson Award for innovation. It may bag the young inventor Â£10,000.

The 24-year-old, from Battersea, London, said he wanted to create a decent folding bike after the one he was using collapsed. “I couldn’t find a folding bicycle I liked,” he added. “I wanted something that could take a bit of punishment and that you could have fun with. “So I made one myself.”

Mr Hargreaves has been in contact with various manufacturers and hopes to get the bike into production soon.

His bike lock system (see photo) won the Toyota IQ Awards.

Washing Machine Uses 90% Less Water

We wrote about the nearly waterless washing machine from Xeros previously, here are some additional details. The nearly waterless washing machine (which uses 90% less water) was developed by transferring known science to another application. After extensive R&D by University of Leeds scientists a nylon polymer was selected to absorb stains and dirt due to its unique property to become highly absorbent in humid conditions. Better still, it is highly resilient so can be re-used time after time without losing its strength.

The power of polymer cleaning
The nylon polymer has an inherent polarity that attracts stains. Think of how your white nylon garments can get dingy over time as dirt builds up on the surface despite constant washing. However, under humid conditions, the polymer changes and becomes absorbent. Dirt is not just attracted to the surface, it is absorbed into the center.

Such research in university settings, then transferred to products are a great source of economic growth and environmental improvement.

Robot Independently Applies the Scientific Method

Robot achieves scientific first by Clive Cookson

A laboratory robot called Adam has been hailed as the first machine in history to have discovered new scientific knowledge independently of its human creators. Adam formed a hypothesis on the genetics of bakers’ yeast and carried out experiments to test its predictions, without intervention from its makers at Aberystwyth University.

The result was a series of “simple but useful” discoveries, confirmed by human scientists, about the gene coding for yeast enzymes. The research is published in the journal Science.
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Adam is the result of a five-year collaboration between computer scientists and biologists at Aberystwyth and Cambridge universities.

The researchers endowed Adam with a huge database of yeast biology, automated hardware to carry out experiments, supplies of yeast cells and lab chemicals, and powerful artificial intelligence software. Although they did not intervene directly in Adam’s experiments, they did stand by to fix technical glitches, add chemicals and remove waste.
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“Adam is a prototype,” says Prof King. “Eve is better designed and more elegant.” In the new experiments, Adam and Eve will work together to devise and carry out tests on thousands of chemical compounds to discover antimalarial drugs.

Very cool.

Robot with Biological Brain

The Living Robot by Joe Kloc

Life for Warwick’s robot began when his team at the University of Reading spread rat neurons onto an array of electrodes. After about 20 minutes, the neurons began to form connections with one another. “It’s an innate response of the neurons,” says Warwick, “they try to link up and start communicating.”

For the next week the team fed the developing brain a liquid containing nutrients and minerals. And once the neurons established a network sufficiently capable of responding to electrical inputs from the electrode array, they connected the newly formed brain to a simple robot body consisting of two wheels and a sonar sensor.
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At first, the young robot spent a lot of time crashing into things. But after a few weeks of practice, its performance began to improve as the connections between the active neurons in its brain strengthened. “This is a specific type of learning, called Hebbian learning,” says Warwick, “where, by doing something habitually, you get better at doing it.”
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“It’s fun just looking at it as a robot life form, but I think it may also contribute to a better understanding of how our brain works,” he says. Studying the ways in which his robot learns and stores memories in its brain may provide new insights into neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease.

Cardiac Cath Lab: Innovation on Site

Photo of John Cooke at the Cardiac Catheterisation Labs at St. Thomas’ hospital in London

I manage several blogs on several topics that are related. Often blog posts stay firmly in the domain of one blog of the other. Occasionally the topic blurs the lines between the various blogs (which I like). This post ties directly to my Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. The management principles I believe in are very similar to engineering principles (no surprise given this blog). And actual observation in situ is important – to understand fully the situation and what would be helpful. Management relying on reports instead of seeing things in action results in many poor decisions. And engineers doing so also results in poor decisions.

Getting to Gemba – a day in the Cardiac Cath Lab by John Cooke

I firmly believe that it is impossible to innovate effectively without a clear understanding of the context and usage of your final innovation. Ideally, I like to “go to gemba“, otherwise known as the place where the problem exists, so I can dig for tacit knowledge and observe unconscious behaviours.
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I didn’t disgrace myself and I’ve been invited back for another day or so. What did I learn that I didn’t know before? The key things I learnt were:

the guide wire isn’t just a means of steering the catheter into place as I thought. It is a functional tool in it’s own right
Feel is really critical to the cardiologist
There is a huge benefit in speeding up procedures in terms of patient wellbeing and lab efficiency
Current catheter systems lack the level of detection capability and controllability needed for some more complex PCIs (Percutaneous Cardiac Interventions)

The whole experience reminded me that in terms of innovation getting to gemba is critical. When was the last time you saw your products in use up-close and personal?

The Year in Bad Science

The Year in Bad Science Ben Goldacre reviews some of the science lowlights of the year.

In a world where rigorous evidence from scientific research languishes unpublicised, the media continued to churn out bogus wacky science stories. Britain’s happiest places were mapped by “scientists”, although the differences were just chance findings; there were innumerable “surveys” from unrepresentative populations; and the right wing press claimed that “Lord Nelson and Captain Cook’s ship logs question climate change theories,” although they did nothing of the sort, as the researchers themselves helpfully explained. We saw how the BBC misrepresented the statistics on parents’ choices about keeping a Down’s Syndrome pregnancy, producing their a publicity avalanche on the back of an incorrect story, and learnt along the way about confounding variables, baseline changes, and more.

In the world of evidence based social policy we saw how the government quietly dropped death as an outcome indicator for their drugs policy, the fascinating inconsistencies in food additive judgment calls, and more. We also watched with delight as right-wing think tank Reform produced a report on the crisis in maths in which they got their maths wrong.