allotrope – Page 53 – Akshat Rathi

Science Communication Conference 2010: Day 1

May 27, 2010December 30, 2013 Akshat Rathi2 Comments

Sci Comm 2010 — Science Communication Conference 2010

The Science Communication Conference 2010 had been a much awaited event in my schedule and it was a great privilege to attend the conference having been awarded the bursary by the organisers, the British Science Association.

The conference was held in one of the best venues I have been to in the UK: King’s Place. It suited the needs of the conference perfectly with its big concert hall for plenary speaker events and many smaller located close by were used when the conference split into many parallel events. The centrally located foyer, with its little island tables, was ideal for networking during breaks. The catering service did a decent job with the food and the supporting staff did an excellent job to keep things running smoothly.

DAY 1

I missed the first part (the introduction to public engagement, presentation of the department of business, innovation & skills and a session on jargon) of the conference due to prior commitments on that day. You can read about what happened in that period here. I reached the venue very close to the end of the lunch break and barely had time to grab a bite. I was looking forward to meeting tweeple but that had to wait till the next break.

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TEDxCAM 2010

May 17, 2010December 30, 2013 Akshat Rathi1 Comment

A month has passed since TEDxCAM 2010 and yet it as fresh in my memory as the last meal I had. My second TEDx event (after TEDx Warwick) proved to be many times better. It had more speakers, free food and was held in the Cambridge Union. It was a very professionally organised event for which I managed to get tickets only in the last week presumably because of over-subscription.

After a very foggy morning and a 3-hour train journey, I reached Cambridge feeling nippy. The fog was still lingering and all I could think about was reaching the venue on time. I paced myself through the tiny lanes to find the Cambridge Union (CU), and just like Oxford the walk from the train station to the union did not reveal much of the beauty of the town. The Union was located behind a very cute-looking church that was called, very unimaginatively, the ‘Round Church‘. I reached with about ten minutes in hand only to find a long queue of attendees trying to get inside the Union hall. After a brief wait and to my satisfaction, I found a great seat just behind Aubrey de Grey.

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Are fish oil supplements any good for school children?

May 15, 2010December 30, 2013 Akshat Rathi7 Comments

In 2006, Equazen, a company that sells fish oil supplements donated to Durham city council enough pills to feed 3000 children for one year. Their aim was to assess if the supplements would enhance the performance of students and make a difference to the their GCSE scores. In the Guardian, Ben Goldacre pointed out that from the limited number of studies done on the efficacy of these pills, it was not clear whether the supplements are beneficial, have no effect or cause harm. He also suggested that, if the company is carrying out research on such a large scale, it might as well conduct it in a way that allows it to be considered as a proper ‘trial’ by having an equal number of students who were not given the pill (control group). The company paid no heed and nor did the city council persuade them. They went ahead with their plans and gave the children enough pills for the academic year 2007-08. A year later, the GCSE results were announced and instead of a better performance by the students, a decline in GCSE scores was observed (growth in the number of students gaining A* – C grades in 2006-07 was 5.5% and in 2007-08 it was only 3.5%). Eventually, the company made some dubious statements that received a lot of attention from the press and thus achieved their aim of advertising their product. Even then, Goldacre defended his case and stuck to his claims. Now in 2010, a double-blind study has been published in the journal, Review in Developmental Disabilities that investigates the efficacy of these supplements on normal school students.

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