Day 3 and I have just got use to the landscape of Bradford. Looking back on the past two days, the number of lectures attended has been around six or seven lectures each day. As a result, mentally my mind just seems to be elsewhere away from the topic during the afternoon. I could feel that my brain cells were dying, trying to concentrate. There has been evening sessions taken place. But due to not being able to adapt to such long days, I have not been able to attend them as much as I initially wanted to.
Anyway, third day in and time has gone past so quickly. Today was a new challenge for my mind and body- to see whether or not I could for one cope with the back to back lectures I have signed up to, lasting for one hour each. To my surprise, I have been able to concentrate in the eight sessions I attended started at 10am. With only small comfort breaks in between travelling from one room to the next, today's sessions were mainly about health compared to the psychology related topics yesterday.
"Evidence matters for learning" session led by Richard Churches from the University of Surrey and Tony McAleavy, CfBT's director for research and development, explored how evidence based education approaches around the world has transformed education and in the way how this could unleash education equity within and between countries. A case study from a primary school teacher was also shared to demonstrate that using untraditional ways of teaching can help enhance students' academic experiences. From this session, a booklet of "Evidence that counts- what happens when teachers apply scientific methods to their practice" was given containing teacher led randomised controlled trials as case studies.
Going back down memory lane was what I felt during my next lecture. "Why has small become so big" from Dr Stephen Hickey, University of Bradford spoke how nanoparticles has helped transformed the world of technologies in recent years. Giving examples of, are iPod nano nanoparticles (of course it is not!) has made the audience think just how small these particles are. Nano technology is already being used in electronics, food packaging and equipment. Enabling scientists to understand its properties and manipulating its characteristics, nano materials are being replicated following the knowledge of how nanoparticles work. Dr Hickey demonstrated an experiment of changing the colour of gold hydrochloride solution via heating and producing nano particles. The change in colour spectrum via a spectrometer enabled us to see how nanoparticles behave. I really enjoyed the interactive session as it reminds me of how and why I like science and the practical sessions from school.
Following a small break, I decided to attend my course related lecture. "Do elite athletes have elite vision?" from Professor Brendan Barrett, University of Bradford shared his research project on how athletes do have elite vision through training themselves to behave in certain ways to be the best in their profession. Being the only lecture so far to take place in a sport hall, demonstrations were shown by replicating what Professor Barrett and his team did to their control testing groups (varying from non sporty people, sporting people and groups of different disciplines of elite athletes). A ball machine was used to see how effective differ people catches the tennis balls.
Following on from my course's theme, I then sat in a presidential lecture from Professor Barry Smith the newly elected president for the general section of the British Science Association and Dr Ophelia Deroy on "A question of taste?" It was a very interactive lecture with the audience having the opportunity to test out whether we were super tasters or just normal tasters using our senses. Apparently, those who are super tasters are fussy eaters!! As there are a range of factors that influences our perception and appreciation of the food we eat, from the chemistry of the food to how it is presented on a plate, it was confirmed that our dining experiences are affected by our senses and surroundings.
Due to yesterday's fire alarm, the "Does hair hold the secret to wound healing?" Lecture was rescheduled to this afternoon. Hence it was difficult to choose which one I was to attend having sign up to another session happening at the same time. But nevertheless, I did not regret on attending this lecture instead. It was in testing to see how hair changes over time, to understand the theory behind it and see the effects for wound healing. Dr Desmond Tobin from the University of Bradford discussed how hair plays an important role to us. Through using different methods such as stem cells to help with the effectiveness of wound healing, Dr Tobin shared his research to demonstrate how using potential methods can help treat wounds and restoring damaged skins.
Away from the human anatomy topic, the "Art and big data" lecture was something different and was not something I would normally be interested in. Bringing together art and science to learn more of its relationships, scientist Martin Brinkworth and Mathematician Simon Shepherd shared their project on how using data collected can help generate both art and used as useful too as information for science. An example given was to see how data collected can help track criminal gangs in an area through using mobile phones. A demonstration was shown to see how clusters of dots on the screen can illustrate the individual criminals, at a certain time and place using mathematical calculations. At the same time, data can also generate a piece of visual art.
There are many cases of men suffering from prostate cancer. Professors Richard Morgan and Mohamed El-Tanani from University of Bradford explained how "Diagnosing prostate cancer" using different methods can potentially help reduce the number of cases with prostate cancers. Understanding the background information about prostate cancer to learning how it can be diagnose in accessible ways, researches were shared as to how individuals can prevent themselves of being at risk of this. With a new urine based research currently underdevelopment at the University of Bradford, the talk seeks to explain the methodology of this along with other types of methods.
I was able to attend the evening event this evening. I chose to attend the "Talking colour" which I felt glad to have went. Taken place at the Society of Dyers and Colourist away from campus, interactive sessions and talks were available to see how colour can be transformed into something new through musical, poetry and experiments. Colour is everywhere. Whether from being creative and transforming words into colour through the means of dance, mime and music to see how colour produce 3D effect, the event offered something new. The talk on the "Three dimensional colour" was very interested as the speaker explored the history of colours, how 2D was transform and created into 3D. As it was a very interactive session with us wearing 3D glasses to see the presentation and experiments, it has made mew think how colour is all around us and how our eyes work for us to see objects in a three dimensional way. The "Pattern of Mutation" was also explored through an interactive ink workshop bringing art and science together to understand the process of mutation.
