News

We have now chosen the scientists and schools for I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! in June. Zones This June is our biggest ever event, with 23 ‘zones’. 12 are general and named after elements, containing a broad range of scientists and research areas. 11 are themed zones, with themes from Microbiology to Energy Generation, Ecology and Marine and Underwater Science. Due to popular demand we are repeating some themed zones from previous years – Sports Science, Genes, Brain, Forensic Science and Evolution. We’re particularly excited about the Healthy Ageing zone sponsored by RCUK’s Lifelong Health and Wellbeing programme, and the Quantum zone which is sponsored by the Institute of Physics. Schools There’s a big variety in the schools taking part, with students involved from Singapore and Hungary to the Isle of Skye. We hope that, as in previous years, classes at these schools are going to have a great experience taking part. … Continue reading →

I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! is like the X Factor, for scientists, on the computer. And YOU are the judges. Teenagers like you talk to real live scientists and then pick which ones should get a prize of £500 to communicate science. Teenagers also have a say in which scientists get to take part. Each scientist who wants to compete has written a one-sentence description of their work. We want to know if you think they should be included. You can rate them here: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/528779/I-m-a-Scientist-Rate-the-Scientists-June-2011 Who do YOU think should be included?

We would like to congratulate the following winning students from the March 2011 event. The moderators thought they all asked good questions and really engaged with the event. The students winners of I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! are: Name School Zone Andrew Wood Tiffin School Argon Benjamin Case Mangotsfield Secondary School Chlorine Erin Ibbetson Broadoak Mathematics & Computing College Forensic Science Samuel Porter The Kings School, Devon Potassium Ahmad Dehghani West Thames College Space Calvin Mallion Chafford Hundred Campus Stem Cell Research Well done to all the students above! They have now received their student winners certificates and WHSmith vouchers. We would also like to thank all the other students who participated. Everyone contributed to the brilliant chats and thought provoking questions, which made this year’s I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! one of the most exciting and fun events yet.

Thank you all of you, it’s been an absolute blast! After two weeks of intense debate, stimulating chats and thought-provoking questions, I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! draws to an end. The five scientists in each zone have battled it out for your votes. The scientists have been eliminated one by one, to reveal the winner in each zone. So, congratulations to the following scientists: Argon Julian Rayner Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Chlorine Murray Collins Institute of Zoology – London School of Economics Forensic Science Mark Hill AND Jamie Pringle Forensic Collision Investigation & Reconstruction Unit, Sussex Police/Keele University Potassium David Pyle University of Oxford Space Adam Tuff The University of York Stem Cell Research James Chan Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Imperial College London The winning scientists all receive £500 to spend on science communication, and we can’t wait to see their wonderful ideas put into practice! Thank … Continue reading →

It’s the second day of evictions in I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here and we’ve had to say goodbye to another scientist in each zone. With just three scientists left in each zone the competition is really hotting up. The scientists are still eager to answer your questions (and collect your votes…) so keep them coming. The winner in each zone will be announced on Friday, so keep on VOTING for who YOU want to win the £500 for a science communication project. We’d like to thank all our scientists for taking part and hope they have enjoyed the experience. When scientists are evicted you can still view their profiles, read their answered questions and leave comments for them. Check out the evicted scientists here- remember the answers, the science, the laughs- and maybe leave them a message! Zone First eviction Second eviction Argon Jemma Ransom Eoin Lettice Chlorine … Continue reading →

We’ve started using a new toy here at I’m a Scientist. It’s called Storify and is “a way to tell stories using social media”. Storify allows you to build up a story by gathering media such as tweets, blog posts and photos in one place. You can re-order the content how you like, and add descriptions and commentary to explain what’s going on. Creating a story of the event will be helpful in a few ways: Firstly, it will provide commentary during the event, all in one place. Anyone interested in the event, from teachers to scientists and sponsors, can easily get a feel for what I’m a Scientist is about. Secondly, we’ll have a record of the event to look back on. Whilst we follow what’s being said about I’m a Scientist on sites such as twitter at the time, it’s easy for updates to get lost and forgotten … Continue reading →

We prepare a lot for I’m a Scientist. We check our lists, we cross off tasks, we write new lists of things to check. The one thing we can’t really do is test how the site will operate under stress. It really helps to have a couple of hundred students trying to access the live chats for that. This morning you obliged and we found something was lacking. A piece of technical wizardry called MemcacheD wasn’t running. MemcacheD basically stores the most used parts of the database in memory and it means less work for the database. Without it the database gets overloaded. This morning with three live chats all at the same time it got overloaded and eventually the server stopped working. The good news is we got MemcacheD started again just before we needed to reboot the server. Since then the site has been used very heavily again … Continue reading →

Joanna Buckley describes taking part in IAS, and what she did with her prize money… Joanna Buckley, winner of the Nitrogen Zone in June 2010, has written about taking part in I’m a Scientist. Have a read to find out what being an IAS scientist is really like, and to see what Jo did with her prize money. It only seems a few weeks since I was gearing up for ‘I’m a Scientist. Get me out of here’ in the summer of 2010. I was relatively new to Twitter at that time and joined, probably like most, because I wanted to be all hip and groovy like Stephen Fry. It was there that I heard about IAS and quickly signed up. After the scientists were chosen, it became apparent that there were four of us from the University of York taking part. We met up, talked tactics and became really … Continue reading →