Popular Science Talks- October Round Up

We have had three great talks this month from James McDonald, Matt Hayward and Deri Tomos! During the first two talks we had a twitter live feed and it was great to see you all thinking about the talks and coming up with some questions; one of the important things that I have learnt during the first two years of my degree is that as a scientist it is important to be able to critically analyse the work of other scientists and professionals and asking constructive questions is an excellent start to this process!

I have picked out the two best questions we received this month and here is my attempt at answering them for you!

On what Genomics actually is it is essentially the study of genes, their function, structure, coding v non coding sequences and how they are sequenced, I also found this article on it which goes into much more detail. 

Asking where microbes came from seems to be like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg! A good book on this topic (and the evolution of living things) is The Diversity of Life (on your reading list!) 

Ps. If anyone objects to having their questions posted on here then please email at sbstutorials2014@gmail.com with your Twitter handle.

The Great Egg Drop

During my own Welcome Week at Bangor University, participating in the egg drop challenge was one of the best things that I did and so I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to participate in it with this years freshers.

Often one of the hardest parts about moving to University is learning how to make friends and work together with people you don't really know for one of many group projects you are bound to find yourself involved with during your three or four year course.

 

I was very impressed with this years efforts and I don't think we have ever had as many eggs survive the drop as we did with the first cohort! All of the designs I saw were truly unique and it made me feel ashamed of our groups pitiful attempt at the challenge back in my own freshers week at Bangor!

It was certainly a fun couple of hours for me and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as the staff did!