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During September Joanna carried out her brainology tour. This was funded by the money she won through taking part in I’m a Scientist. She travelled to science museums and schools in Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool. The workshops were geared for school children of all ages and highlighted the research into the brain, looking at topics such as spatial awareness and why the two sides of the brain function differently. The brainology tour aimed to give a greater understanding about how the brain can co-ordinate things like movement, hearing and anger. The brainology tour also covered why brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, occur.

Part of the fun of science is that plans regularly change and develop as research evolves. Dean’s plans for what he spent his I’m a Scientist winnings on have changed a little, and he has kindly updated us with what he spent the money on: My plan changed a little again and I bought a half-decent video camera and all the equipment to go with it – tripod, memory cards, case and 3 years replacement plan – for the people who run Bath Taps in Science festival for £250. This was so they can tape training videos and some funky stuff to put up on TV screens. They appear to be very thankful and will use it to make clips of this year’s event in March. The other £250 has gone to helping 50 pupils from Harwell Primary School get transport to Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for a visit and talk on … Continue reading →

My original intention for spending the money was to provide support for schools to visit Rutherford Appleton Labs. However, it seems that usually extra support isn’t needed. The schools that are further away don’t want to take too much time travelling and the ones who are closer can usually afford to pay for themselves.  So I decided to leave half the money, £250, available for schools to apply to if they need financial support for any of the events that the lab runs. This should be enough to help one or two schools who couldn’t otherwise go. The other £250 will be used for Bath Taps into Science (http://www.bath.ac.uk/math-sci/extracurricular/bathtaps/). This is an annual science festival run during March in Bath (see the picture on the left). It’s set up in a huge hall. Different organizations have a few tables and people (a “stand”) and show off something to do with … Continue reading →

Ben Still won the Sodium Zone all the way back in June 2010. After his win Ben said “I will spend my winnings wisely!“, and so he has… Ben spent his money on setting up the Super K Sonic Booooum. This is a twenty-two meter long ‘river’ of water. People took a boat ride with Ben or someone he works with and learnt about Neutrino Physics on the journey. In order to go on the ride people had to wear white suits, wellies and hard hats! Over the days of the event they had over 600 visitors who took the boat ride and then participated in lectures afterwards. Ben enjoyed I’m a Scientist so much that he took part, and won again, in the STFC sponsored Subatomic Zone in the event last November! Ben’s plans for his second IAS prize money is to put it towards producing some podcasts and … Continue reading →

I have used a small amount of the money to help me with a brilliant idea for the Cheltenham for the science festival. A group of about 8 of us did some `Science Busking’ – that is turning up unannounced at venues (mostly pubs) and getting people talking about science in bars, cafes, and in the street. It went really well! http://www.scandle.eu/news/science-2018down-the-pub2019-at-the-cheltenham-science-festival I built and took along a number of small portable demos to help with this, the photo shows me beginning to solder one of these together. It is a lot of work and some of the bits are pricey, but the nice thing about small portable gear is that it can be used over and over again in many situations, like school visits, so it is worth putting in time and effort to build it properly. While I was at the festival I got together with old friends … Continue reading →

My prize winning funds were used to finance a science communication trip to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, which was held in Chicago from the 4th until the 8th of June this year. With over 50,000 doctors, pharmaceutical executives and researchers attending, it was full of exciting news about new treatments and potential pipeline candidates. I attended as many of the talks and seminars as possible in the four days and used the time to communicate my research to the scientists and researchers at the cutting edge of cancer research. I also kept a beady eye out for promising new drugs which I helped publicise when I got back to London; hopefully these drugs will help future patients with their fights against cancer.