News

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 →

Here’s the post you’ve all been waiting for, as I can officially announce the scientists taking part in I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! in March 2011. Choosing the scientists was agonising. With over 230 applicants for originally just 25 spaces, competition was incredibly tough. The lovely Institute of Physics came forward and sponsored the Space Zone, creating 5 more spaces for scientists. Even so, there were so many wonderful scientists working on fascinating research that we had to turn down. Scientists were chosen by combining ratings from students and teachers taking part in March, from us and from a representative from our funders, the Wellcome Trust. Students and teachers rated scientists solely on the one sentence description of their work they wrote when they applied. This description was really important. Scientists were rated much higher if they used language that 13 to 14 year olds, from across … Continue reading →

We have now chosen the schools for I’m a Scientist, Get me out of Here! in March. Classes at these schools are going to have a great experience taking part. There’s a big variety in the schools taking part, with students involved from Jersey to Shetland. We are having six ‘zones’ in March. Three are general and named after elements (Chlorine, Argon and Potassium) and will contain a broad range of scientists and research areas. Themed zones were very popular in the March and June 2010 events, and this year we are having three themed zones – Forensic Science, Stem Cells and Space. The Space zone is really exciting as it is sponsored by the lovely Institute of Physics. We would have loved to include everyone that applied, and with four classes wanting to take part for every place, choosing the classes to take part was really hard. Many teachers wanted to take part … Continue reading →