News

This June we’re trying something different*; we’re handing over the eyes and ears of our 10,000 strong Twitter following to some favourite faces of I’m a Scientist Alumni. For a couple of hours each day next week (9th–13th June), a past scientist or teacher will take over the @imascientist account, to tell our newbies what to expect, beguile us with 140 character anecdotes from their time in the zones, and perhaps even share some hints and tips for the upcoming two weeks of event. We’ll announce the scientists and teachers taking the helm, the reins, the front seat, and just about any other driving metaphor you can think of, later this week; watch this space! Takeover tweets will be marked #IASTO *Something fun and totally not related to our Twitterer-in-Chief’s decision to spend maybe our busiest month of the year serving her country on some jury somewhere.

I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here! is back from Monday 16th to Friday 27th June. We’re running 12 themed zones and five general zones, including 2 zones just for Primary School students. That’s 85 scientists talking with students from nearly 120 different schools from all around the UK, from Inverness all the way down to St Austell in Cornwall. Let’s take a look at the schools and scientists taking part this June! For the latest updates on the event, follow @imascientist on Twitter. Our hashtag for 2014 is #IAS2014. Agriculture Zone The Scientists: Ricardo Ramirez The Genome Analysis Centre I help farmers to choose wheat that survives diseases and produce better bread. Liam Harvey PhD Student at Warwick Crop Centre Crops and Robbers- Fungi Vs. Insects Kimberley Lowe Marine Scotland I visit fish farms to look for any signs of diseases that might spread to other farms – I get to cut … Continue reading →

The next I’m a Scientist event: 16th to 27th June 2014 I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here will run for two weeks from Monday 16th to Friday 27th June 2014. This June, we’re running 17 zones; 12 themed zones and 5 general science zones (including two more primary school zones). Keep reading for details of the themed zones, or if you want to jump straight to the application, teachers apply here: imascientist.org.uk/teacher-registration, and scientists here: imascientist.org.uk/scientist-apply. Animal Behaviour Zone What do animals do and why do they do it? We’ll find answers to these questions and more. For example, animals’ mating rituals involve everything from dances to dung, but why the variation? What makes one animal’s behavior special? Agriculture Zone One of the key stages in the development of modern civilization. Today, agriculture provides everything from food to bio-fuels, and any number of other products necessary to sustain human life. … Continue reading →

After every event we ask the scientists and moderators to select the students who stood out to them; the students they thought asked the best questions, or engaged most in the live chats. Well done to all of the student winners, and everyone who took part. There were so many interesting questions, and comments, but there could only be one winner in each zone. So, for fantastic engagement during the event, for posting brilliant questions and comments, the student winners below will each receive a £20 WH Smith’s gift card. Cancer Zone: cupcake94, Abbotsmede Primary School Colour Zone: amygreenee, St Joseph’s College ComputationalBio Zone: shania000000, Ark Academy Extreme Size Zone: g30rg1na, St Theresa’s School Light Zone: lumiereclair, Spalding High School Nuclear Zone: sturdyboy, Churston Ferrers Grammar School Organs Zone: werewolvesrock2002, Howell’s School Plants Zone: wookie, Betheny School Xenon Zone: lowennat, Friends Junior School Caesium Zone: emanresu, Landscove Primary School Lanthanum … Continue reading →

I’m a Scientist Towers is buzzing with excitement as the Wellcome Trust funded Biomedical themed zones have been chosen. They will be: Animal Behaviour Zone Agriculture Zone Drug Development Zone Infectious Diseases Zone Protein Zone Vision Zone The June event will run 16th–27th June 2014. Update: 8 April 2014The planned Brain Zone has been swapped for the Protein Zone to coincide with the latest issue of the Wellcome Trust’s Big Picture. Brain scientists, please still apply; we need scientists from all research areas for the General Zones, and we’re sure to run a Brain Zone in a future event! Apply now to take part! Scientists, does your research fit with one of these themes? Do you know the ideal researcher for one of these zones? Scientists apply here: imascientist.org.uk/scientist-apply The application deadline is Friday 9th May 2014. Check out our advice on applying over on the About Blog. Teachers, how … Continue reading →

Over the past two weeks 60 scientists have done more than 180 live chats and answered nearly 3,000 questions. We’ve been evicting scientists since Tuesday, and this afternoon we said Goodbye to 12 more. Now just two scientists remain in each zone, ready to battle it out for the £500 prize money, and the title of I’m a Scientist Champion! The winners will be announced at 3pm on Friday, but for now, let’s take a look at your March 2014 finalists… Cancer Zone Matthew Lam vs. Amar Joshi Colour Zone Roy Adkin vs. Rowena Fletcher-Wood ComputationalBio Zone Iain Moal vs. Anna Middleton Extreme Size Zone Nick Wright vs. Alan Fitzsimmons Light Zone Mike Lee vs. Matthew Malek Nuclear Zone Thomas Cocolios vs. Clara Nellist Organs Zone John Foster vs. Adelle Thrower Plants Zone Michael Graham vs. Isabel Webb Xenon Zone Zach Dixon vs. Claire Vinten Caesium Zone Rosie Coates vs. … Continue reading →

We’ve reached the end of the first week of I’m a Scientist with another full day of live chats and questions. The scientists will get the weekend to rest up, and next week the evictions start! Who stays? You decide! Make sure to vote for the scientist you want to win because the one scientist will be evicted from each zone on Tuesday afternoon! As usual, we’ve picked out a few of our favourite CHAT and ASK questions from today. In the Plants Zone, the students wanted to know if plants could survive on Mars: Student: How will the gravity of mars affect the plants? Isabel Webb: Mars has different gravity to us – I dont know how much by without google though! Our plants have evolved to live under trhe gravity we have on earth, so if they were to evolve under different gravity they could handle it. if … Continue reading →

Day Four of I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here has been our busiest yet, with 23 live chats happening across the event! In the Light Zone, one student wanted to know why clouds don’t form rainbows; they’re made of water after-all, aren’t they? Student: If rainbows are made by the sun shining into the water, why aren’t clouds rainbow coloured? Paul Coxon: Good question. It’s to do with the density of the water droplets. In a rainbow light is bent (refracted) by the droplets and dispersed into the separate colours. Similar happens in clouds, but there are so many water droplets making up the cloud that the light is scattered in all directions and the rainbow effect is lost. Mike Lee: You need to have the sun behind you to see a rainbow — most of the time the sun is behind the clouds! only when the sun … Continue reading →

Day three of I’m a Scientist and a day of packed live chats has found students and scientists discussing why leaves change colour, the causes of cancer, and germs: which has more, finger-nails or toilet seats? One fantastic question asked how science has changed since the scientists were in school: Student: What is different about science when you where at school to now? Iain Moal: When I was at school the internet was a new thing and people didn’t really use it until later. Nowadays it has revolutionised science by making it so much easier for scientists around to world to communicate and share data. At the moment I am working with people in the USA, Holland and France. That would be almost impossible when I was at school. Scientists in the Nuclear and Plants Zones are overjoyed, and have finally been sent some questions! One brilliant question asked why … Continue reading →

Day two of I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here has been filled with live chats on everything from zombie apocalypses to time travel. Student: How could we ever go back in time? Matthew Malek: I promised myself that if I ever got the ability to go back in time, I would come to that very moment and let myself know. Then I waited for five minutes. No future me turned up, so I knew that I would never time travel. In the Cancer Zone the scientists were looking at why cancer rates might seem to be increasing: Student: Why do you think cancer rates are increasing? Andrea Hanvey: I think cancer rates are increasing because of increased awareness, screening programs for early detection and better diagnostic testing its easier to pick up now Amar Joshi: Cancer rates are increase for many reasons. One thing is that we are … Continue reading →