The Speakezee Podcast The Cosmic Shambles Network

Usually Bruce has no difficulty sourcing sound effects to gussy up the presentations but in this episode, he admits defeat and explains why he nearly resorted to sampling copyrighted songs. The topics this week include 4D materials explained by the engineer Anna Baker from Bristol University, discordant sexual orientation in identical twins from Tuesday Watts of Essex University and the 2017 people’s choice winner of the 3MT finals, Euan Doidge from the University of Edinburgh who explains how he extracts gold from electronic waste.

In this episode, Bruce presents talks from Dr. Robin Law, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Westminster who tell us about the cortical awakening response, Amanda De Salvatore from Lancaster University who explains why more pregnant women need information about the benefits of exercise and Aska Sukuata of the University of Chichester who studies the experience of flow during dance.

In a change to our usual format and in preparation for the new crop of graduate students about to embark on there research careers, Prof Bruce Hood is joined by Prof Dumbledore who will present his hilarious three minute student supervision on the anus project. Comments and complaints to podcast@speakezee.org

Once again, Bruce is joined by consultant medical microbiologist, Dr Kim Jacobson to discuss three medically-related presentations in the 3-minute format. In the first talk Pouya Pour from Bristol University explains his research on using skin cells to generate new heart cells to repair heart disease. Also from Bristol is Amy Burchill who is looking at ways to treat blood pressure via electrical shocks to nerves in the kidney. Finally, Tomasz Dobrzycki from Oxford University is conducting research on the Zebra fish looking to develop stem cell therapies for human conditions. Dr Jacobson provides valuable insights to these areas from a clinical perspective.

In this episode, Bruce meets three finalists from the Bristol heats of the 3MT competition and gets to ask them follow-up questions. James Fleming originally studied taxonomy of fossils but has used this knowledge to reconstruct our understanding of the ancient visual system. Pooneh Roney is researching mindset – the notion that perseverance at certain topics depends on our attitudes and not our true ability. Finally, Alfie Wearn, winner of the 2017 Bristol competition, explains how he got into studying memory, even though he does not have a background in psychology.

The tenth episode showcases female scientists studying holes of various forms. Gabriele Betancourt-Martinez from the University of Maryland explains how she uses xrays to study black holes in space. Back on Earth, Ewa Sypianska from Cardiff University explains how drifting bacteria that are impacting on glaciers forms a different type of black hole and dark matter. Finally, Keri McNamara is a detective volcanologist from from Bristol University who has been studying the history of eruptions of the Aluto volcano in Ethopia like investigating a crime.