David Whalley, one of the founding members of Bollington SciBar following the success of the inaugural SciBar at the Bollington Festival in 2009, is stepping down from direct involvement in the SciBar planning group. David found speakers for and chaired nearly all SciBars for the first few years, and also helped set up Macclesfield SciBar.

Please join us in thanking David for all his contributions, from coming up with the immortal SciBar rules (there are only two rules, remember) to sourcing speakers, liaising with the British Science Association, setting up the venue with The Vale Inn (thank you Lee!), sorting out a projector, designing the logo and many more behind the scenes actions.

We look forward to seeing you occasionally in the audience, and hope that you enjoy watching your legacy continue.

Meanwhile, any new volunteers for the planning group are extremely welcome – just make yourself known to someone who looks like they need a hand on the night …

Dr Rishma Vidyasagar mentioned this at the end of her talk at the March SciBar, on behalf of one of her colleagues. Participants have to be 40-70, normally healthy with no neurological illnesses, no history of fits or depression, and have to travel to Manchester University. Anyone interested should contact SciBar and we’ll put them in touch.

One of the founding members of Bollington SciBar, and the source of the biological speakers such as on stem cells, is moving to Dorset to be nearer family members. Grenham Ireland – we thank you for your contributions to the science section of the last Bollington Festival and to Bollington SciBar. You also set up this website, donated your screen and gave wise advice at planning group meetings. We will miss you! Our best wishes to you and Christine in your new home. Thanks from everyone.

On Saturday 16th March from 11am-4pm The Manchester Museum hosts the “Body Experience” as part of National Science and Engineering Week. They invite the public to come and explore the human body with scientists from Life Sciences and Human and Medical Sciences at The University of Manchester. Collect a ‘passport’ and travel around the human body from top to toe. Learn how the brain communicates with all the different organs in your body and how it controls your senses. See how the heart works and how your lungs help you breathe. Explore the wonder of the human spine and perform your very own surgery! Travel through your gut and learn about (and see) the bugs that can infect it!

See more at The Body Experience

I saw this announcement on a maiing list and thought it might be of interest to SciBarians.

Bruce Alberts, the editor in chief of the journal Science, would like as many people as possible working in science education to know about this new development.

As of September 2012, “Science in the Classroom,” a new educational resource from Science, is available in beta form, as part of a new open access website that also contains other recent education content from Science magazine (see http://www.sciencemag.org/site/extra/education).

“Science in the Classroom” will consist of a collection of annotated research papers and accompanying teaching materials designed to help students at the advanced high school, community college, and undergraduate level understand the structure and workings of professional scientific research.  Currently three Science papers have been annotated (topics: ecology, chemistry, developmental biology) and are ready for use in the classroom.
http://scienceintheclassroom.org/

Each annotated Science paper contains a “Learning Lens,” which is used to selectively highlight different parts of the original text of the research article, including a scroll over glossary.  Additionally, an educational scaffold containing an expanded explanation of the figures, often with a close-up of the relevant section of the figure itself, has been built into each research article.  Discussion questions, additional activities, relevant news articles, and access to raw data provided by the authors also accompany each paper.

On 27th October, the University of Manchester will be hosting the second Science Spectacular, as part of Manchester Science Festival. The event is free, interactive and a great way for young people and their families to meet researchers and learn more about Science at the University of Manchester.

Saturday 27 October 2012, 11am – 3pm, at The University of Manchester, Whitworth Hall and The Manchester Museum, on Oxford Road (building #50 on campus map). Free, drop in event.

Find out why lotus leave don’t get wet, take a journey through the heart, wrestle with plants that bite back, and get curious with some creepy crawlies. Over 40 interactive, hands on science activities – fun for all the family. Meet the scientists and engineers behind the amazing research at Manchester. There will be lots of activities suitable for children of all ages, including face painting and lucky science dips, and there’s plenty to keep adults entertained too.

Science Spectacular website

I’m sure many of you will have seen recent newspaper articles about the publication of the first results from the Encode Project. ENCODE, the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, is a project funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute to identify all regions of transcription, transcription factor association, chromatin structure and histone modification in the human genome sequence. I have yet to find a good lay explanation but those with a biology background may find this link interesting. The really brave can dip into the data presented as threads here.

If you enjoyed Dr. Alexander’s recent talk “Can Stem cells mend a broken heart” you may be interested in a free event at Manchester Town Hall at 18.30 on 29th May. Look at the post to see flyer and book a place.

For those not yet aware Macclesfield SciBar launches with a talk on “Personalised Medicine – how new biology could revolutionise treatment ” on Monday, 28th May, 2012 at 18.30 in the Park Tavern. Speaker: Ian Wilson. The post gives more info.

Those of you who came to the January SciBar will remember Jonathan Swinton discussing an experiment performed by Alan Turning with sunflowers. This is now planned as a mass experiment and you can read more about this on the BBC story “Greater Manchester sunflowers to test Alan Turing theory” by following the link below. Thousands of sunflowers are to be planted in Greater Manchester to try to prove a theory put forward by a mathematics genius.

Link here

If you want to plant a Turing sunflower and help test Turing’s theory about plant growth, seeds will be available in April and May and you can register at the Manchester Science Festival link below.

Link here