The Great Science Share

A couple of weeks ago, the Great Science Share took place at the Manchester City Academy. It was so much fun to be involved with this again as a Steering Committee member and it was a huge event! Here's a glimpse of what we did, under the leadership of Steve Bennett and Lynne Bianchi and here's a great blog from Mariana Salguiero who was my partner in crime for the day, along with Ethan!

I wrote a blog about the @GreatSciShare for @PhysicsNews :) https://t.co/UTk9mvsas3 @DonnaSTEM @andymiah @LynneBianchi @UoMSEERIH @ManCity

— Mariana Salgueiro (@MarianaWith1N) July 18, 2017

Directions in Virtual Reality

As part of the BBC Digital Cities week, I was delighted to take part and open the VR/AR Show and Tell event at Manchester Metropolitan University's Digital Innovation hub last week. It brought together some really amazing pioneers in VR, demonstrating how it can be an interface for research, industry, art, and entertainment. It was a fantastic affirmation of England's vibrant North West VR/AR network!

Among the people there was WizDish, which is a fantastic low friction platform to allow a player of a VR game to physically walk on the plate, thus moving a character within the digital game. Here's what it looks like.

Manchester Science Festival + @SalfordUni #msf14

Last night was the preview of Manchester Science Festival, a really fun event which saw audience members impersonating chaffinches and witnessed Bez from Happy Mondays present a 3D printed version of his head, while getting quite riled up about fracking - he's in a debate within the fest on 28th. Slightly surreal, as it should be. It's great to be joining University of Salford, Manchester this month, which is the Lead Educational Sponsor of the festival! Ethan was the official photographer for the night and produced, by far, the best impersonation of a Chaffinch.

I am taking part in a debate the same night called 'Playing God', which also features the Prof Steve Fuller and Dr Anna Bergqvist. It's also billed within the Manchester Salon series.

"I, Scientist" at TEDx Warwick [VIDEO]

Some photo highlights followed by a Flickr set

Genetically Evolved Technology, keep your eyes out for Luke Bawazar

all of us incredibly indebted to Lucy Hooberman for kickstarting this

Fabian's photographic art will change how you see the world

Bob Bishop has pretty much been involved with every technological development ever and that's no exaggeration ;) I had some great chats with him

My photo highlight from the day, Derek Paravicini is simply extraordinary

A real treat to see Sir Philip Craven and to chat with him about things he really didn't expect someone at this event to know :)

a lovely end to the day, such a great team

Wellcome Trust Superhuman exhibition

During the London 2012 Games, the Wellcome Trust gallery has held its 'Superhuman' exhibition, to which I contributed.  It's a great exhibition - effectively my whole academic life in a few rooms - and it's on until 16 October (day after my birthday). It's also got some of the content online, including a floating head interview with me, along with people I've worked with in the past: Anders Sandberg, Julian Savulescu, John Harris, Bennett Foddy, and Barbara Sahakian.

Scotland on Sunday profile

A couple of weeks ago, the Scotland on Sunday published a 4-page profile piece about my work. It was written by the awesome Anna Burnside, with whom I've been in dialogue about my research for a few years. It's a really lovely article and a real privilege to have given so much space to explain what I do. It's certainly the most in depth and personal examination of my background, motives and interests. Here's the link to the full piece. The portait was taken by an amazing photographer called Ian MacNicol, who turns out to be (we think) the only Scotland based photographer accredited at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Small world!

Olivier Goulet

Today, I attended FACT's seminar for artists and professionals, based around their Human Futures exhibition. The conversations were broadly about the practice of art processes and how we should proceed with artistic undertakings. One of the most interesting conversations I had was with Olivier Goulet who indicated he was very interested in my view. He immediaely reminded me of Alfredo, of Irene and Alfredo. I want to hook them up together, for Irene to sell his clothes in her 'sustainable clothing' shop in Barcelona.

We talked a lot about his work and I was very interested in how his clothing made from synthetic human skin were received by audiences. He explained that the removal of the word 'human' from publicity led to quite different responses, all of which were really fascinating. The clothes he makes are beautiful; incredibly stylish, trendy and wearable. He's performing tomorrow night and we'll hope to  see him, but here's SkinBag: http://www.skinbag.net/

SciBarCamp (Tornoto, March 15-16, 2008)

my kind of event, why aren't i going!?

SciBarCamp

Table of contents

1. 1. Sponsorship
2. 2. Organisers and Advisors

SciBarCamp is a gathering of scientists, artists, and technologists for a weekend of talks and discussions.  It will take place at Hart House at the University of Toronto on the weekend of March 15-16, with an opening reception on the evening of March 14.  The goal is to create connections between science, entrepreneurs and local businesses, and arts and culture.  The themes are:

• The edge of science (eg, synthetic biology, quantum gravity, cognitive science)
• The edge of technology (eg, mobile web, ambient computing, nanotechnology, web 2.0)
• Science 2.0 (open access, changing models of publication and collaboration, scientific software)
• Scientific literacy and public engagement (eg, one laptop per child project, policy and science, technology as legislation, enfranchising the poor, the young, the old)
• The interactions of science, art and culture:  Scientists and artists as partners in the continuing evolution of the culture.

In the tradition of BarCamps, otherwise known as "unconferences", (see BarCamp.org for more information), the program is decided by the participants at the beginning of the meeting, in the opening reception.  Presentations and discussion topics can be proposed here or on the opening night.  SciBarCamp will require active participation; while not everybody will present or lead a discussion, everybody will be expected to contribute substantially - this will help make it a really creative event.

The talks will be informal and interactive; to encourage this, speakers who wish to give PowerPoint presentations will have ten minutes to present, while those without will have twenty minutes.  Around half of the time will be dedicated to small group discussions on topics suggested by the participants.  The social events and meals will make it easy to meet people from different fields and industries.  Our venue, Hart House, is a congenial space with plenty of informal areas to work or talk, and there will be free wireless access throughout.

Our goals are:

• Igniting new projects, collaborations, business opportunities, and further events.
• Intellectual stimulation and good conversation.
• Integrating science into Toronto's cultural, entrepreneurial, and intellectual activities.
• Prototyping a model that can be easily duplicated elsewhere.

Attendance is free, but there is only space for around 100 people, so please register by sending an email to Jen Dodd (dodd.jen@gmail.com) with your name and contact details.  Please include a link to your blog or your organization's webpage that we can display with your name on the participants list at www.SciBarCamp.org.

Sponsorship

Thanks to our sponsors so far!

• Hart House
• Microsoft
• Mindtouch
• Scimatic Software

We're looking for sponsorship for SciBarCamp.  If you're interested in sponsoring, please contact Jen Dodd (dodd.jen@gmail.com, +1 (519) 572 2275).

Organisers and Advisors

SciBarCamp has three advisors:

• Michael Nielsen (blog, homepage)
• Karl Schroeder (homepage)
• Lee Smolin (homepage)

and three organisers:

• Eva Amsen (blog, Nature Networks, homepage)
• Jen Dodd
• Jamie McQuay (blog)

Upstream Nano

On Friday, Bettina Hoermann and I set up a new email discussion list through jiscmail titled 'Upstream Nano'. We're aiming to build a special interest group on public engagement and nanoscience and nanotechnology, where an exchange of ideas on the particularities of such work are the focus. Joining the list is simple and information can be found here. http://upstreamnano.wordpress.com 

Synthetic Biology, Craig Venter and Bioethics

This week, Craig Venter has been working the UK media to its fullest in what seems a whistlestop tour over to convey his work in the area of synthetic biology. In the UK, news about this broke first in the Guardian on Saturday 6th October. Venter's website promptly indicated that the newspaper was slightly ahead of itself by announcing this work, stressing that publications are not yet in place. It seems now that they were only 3 weeks ahead of themselves as Venter has clearly broken the news on this in the fullest sense. While he still stresses that this work is futuristic and unlikely to give rise to any new life forms within his lifetime, the rhetoric of promise is interesting. Last night on BBC's Hard Talk and on Newsnight earlier in the week, he emphasised the importance of the research for environmental sustainability. This cannot be coincidental, but appears as a decisive, partial rebranding of gentic science. So, here we have a clear handling of the media taking place drawing on persuasive rhetorics about the long-term benefit of experimental science.  He talked about modifying humans to ensure they can survive in climates where greater carbonis in the atmosphere. Nice idea. It's all plausible, but we should still be wary of this utilization of discourses to co-opt political support for science.

I'm sure Venter's work over this period will be the subject of many studies on science communication. Things seem much more sophisticated than they were 10 years ago, when the Human Genome was nearing completion. The ante has been upped, so to speak. Now the scientists are much more in tune with how to get the message out. I could not help but feel that the Guardian story was a first litmus test for public opinion. We've not seen the last of this yet.

Institute of Nanotechnology

This week, I've arranged to give a session at the IoN in Stirling during the first week of August. Earlier this year, I met its CEO Ottilia Saxl, as part of the NanoBio-RAISE project. I also anticipate that the work of the new PhD studentship we advertized will be closely connected to the IoN. It's a fascinating enterprise and I look forward to being there to talk about all that is new media and public engagement.

Future Directions in Science Journalism (9-10 Nov, 2007)

for more info: http://www.sciencejournalism.net/future_directions.htm

November 9 & 10, 2007 Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, UBC (Vancouver, Canada)

KEYNOTE SPEAKER Alfred Hermida UBC professor of digital journalism; former news editor, BBCNews.com

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Session 1: Hype and manipulation in science journalism How much is science hyped in the press, who is responsible for it and why does it happen? Most importantly: how can science reporters recognize hype and avoid manipulation?

Session 2: Dealing with conflicts of interest How does the commercialization of science relate to science journalism? How should a journalist look for conflicts of interest in the stories they write? What conflicts do the science journalists themselves have?

Session 3: Audiences online Studies show that more and more people are going online when they look for health and science news. Where are they looking? How is that changing? And what do these new audiences want?

Session 4: Assembling a toolkit for science reporting online Using the information collected in the previous sessions, how can science reporters actually apply this knowledge to the stories they write online?

Conference banquet and awards ceremony Four-course meal, drinks and the first annual Canadian Science Journalism Awards Ceremony! Award winners will be in attendance.

Journal of Science Communication

I've just been browsing the contents of the JSC after having received notification from SAGE that a number of their journals are freely available online this month (JSC isnt one of them but 'Science Communication' is). Anyway, within the JSC site, I've seen something I've not seen before - english versions and original versions of articles. They have quite a range of languages in play here. What a great idea.

Nano2Life

Last week, the NanoBio-RAISE ethics group met in Grenoble where we were hosted by Professor Francois Berger. During our visit, we witnessed five hours of a surgical procedure where electrodes were implanted deep into the brain of a patient with Parkinson's Disease. We were also introduced to the other facilities they host here in Grenoble. It was an enlightening experience in all kinds of ways. We were able to speak with a number of the surgeons during the procedure, which seems to have been a landmark for the medics, as it was the deepest they have gone into the brain. The city is a remarkable place, where scientific research is embedded into its culture. We could not fail to miss the 'No Nano' graffiti.

Since I find a lot of my work in the area of public engagement attempts to deal with dissent, I was intrigued by this graffiti and could not read it simply as a problem. By all accounts, the sentiment is not clearly something that is shared by the general population and I always intuitively conclude that such activism is indicative of a healthy community. Of course, there are other concerns in France which have to do with its immediate political future. Nanotech is experimental science and if the right are successful in the next election, there are fears that this could stall the important innovation that is clearly taking place here.

One of the biggest values of this trip was to learn more about the 'Nano2Life' network. We had dinner with various people who are involved with this network including Patrick Boisseau. Coincidentally, upon my return I was invited to one of their meetings in Germany, though I am double booked that week.

This meeting was such a contrast to the other EU project on enhancement I am involved with (http://www.enhance-project.org), though I suspect I need to get along to the cognitive enhancement section of that project (Anders?). In the case of NanoBi0-RAISE, there are very limited expectations of genetics to deliver enhancement independent of other NBIC technologies.

Society for Experimental Biology (2 April, 2007)

Today, I'm in Glasgow speaking at the SEB meeting. Currently, Myra Wilson is speaking on her experience as a judge on Robot Wars. What a great job that seems! I was talking about public engagement issues, mainly the way we might utilise non-formal mechanisms through which to engage the public, blogs, comedy, art. The paper was titleD: Popular Science: The Rules of Engagement.

The panel debate is next!

Are we about to enter an era of Designer Medicines? (2 Nov, 2006, Manchester)

Are we about to enter an era of Designer Medicines?------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nowgen (the North West Genetics Knowledge Park) invites you to find out how genetic tests are used to identify the most effective drugs for individuals.

One of the applications of this technology is described today in BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6070202.stm

We will explore a variety of applications and the broader implications for society. We are keen to give the public chance to find out more from experts in the field and, most importantly, have their say. We will be using interactive voting pads to involve the audience and record their reactions.

It is being held on 2 November 2006, from 5.45pm until 8pm at Central Manchester Hospital site - The Nowgen Centre, 29 Grafton Street, Manchester, M13 9WU.

Call 0161 276 5956 to reserve your free place, or email: bookings [AT] nowgen.org.uk