Live Scientists

LwS Anniversary Month Sum-Up

This month we will be hosting various events in celebration of our 1 year anniversary! Links to everything we’re doing this month can be found below! For our monthly agenda, please visit this blog: https://www.livewithscientists.com/2021/03/27/live-with-scientists-anniversary-month-events/ For details about this month’s competitions, please follow this link: https://www.livewithscientists.com/2021/02/21/live-with-scientists-anniversary-month-get-involved/ To register for our “Research and You: Why science needs you” panel with University of Manchester scientists on the role of the public in their research: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/live-with-scientists-research-and-you-why-science-needs-you-tickets-143276773687 To register for our Science Pub Quiz: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/live-with-scientists-science-pub-quiz-tickets-143277124737 To register for our Research & You panel with Autism@Manchester: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/research-and-you-autismmanchester-presents-who-is-research-for-tickets-148489892265 To read our first Citizen Science blog on… Read More »LwS Anniversary Month Sum-Up

Citizen Science Saturday: Blog 2- ‘The birds and the bees’ of Citizen Science

Citizen science is a way for everybody to contribute to the world of science. By using the power of huge numbers of volunteer amateur scientists, rather than only a small number of professionals, a much more extensive, exciting and impactful dataset can be put together! The projects can range from astronomy to ecology to oceanography and might involve looking at images on a computer, manipulating molecules in a simulator, or venturing outdoors. By taking part, you’re contributing important information to the scientific community that could lead to exciting discoveries about the world around us or inform policy making, both of… Read More »Citizen Science Saturday: Blog 2- ‘The birds and the bees’ of Citizen Science

Citizen Science Saturday: Blog 1 – Eterna – the RNA folding game

If like me, you enjoy playing a good video game, then you might already have saved some lives by staying at home and doing just that during the COVID-19 lockdowns. But what if you could more directly contribute just by playing a game?!  Enter “Eterna” – a citizen science project that uses your solutions to puzzles to improve medicine and contribute to science! (Need to be 13 years or older to play – due to US law)  Eterna is an RNA folding puzzle game – you may have heard a bit about mRNA – messenger RNA – recently, since this form of RNA is the basis for… Read More »Citizen Science Saturday: Blog 1 – Eterna – the RNA folding game

Anniversary Month Events

In April 2021 Live with Scientists will be marking our first anniversary with a celebration of what we stand for that “Science is for everyone”.   We will be hosting a series of events during the month focussing on the fantastic impact that the public has and continues to have on research. From a panel discussion of from researchers whose research has especially benefited from your input to highlighting fantastic citizen science projects that everyone can participate in! We will also be challenging researchers to describe their research in emojis and hosting lightening talks – quick, snappy and to the point! If you’ve missed… Read More »Anniversary Month Events

COVID-19 Blog Series: Part 3

Blog part 3: Treatments  Fighting back- As COVID-19 vaccine development and roll-out to the UK public occurs at a rapid pace. Questions now turn to how we are going to treat those currently suffering from COVID-19, and how can we limit spread of the disease in the future. In this blog we are focussing on how our treatment of pandemics has evolved over time. By looking back at lessons learned from past key pandemics, we can appreciate how we are now able to respond rapidly to COVID-19 through the development or novel treatments for COVID-19 including monoclonal antibodies to treat hospitalised patients and novel antiviral drugs that in the future, we could administer at home during the early stages of disease.   PAST Throughout the course of… Read More »COVID-19 Blog Series: Part 3

COVID-19 Blog Series: Part 2

Blog part 2: Fighting back: Training our immune system with vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 Disclaimer: This blog is for information purposes only – please consult a medical professional for advice if you are concerned about COVID-19 or vaccine suitability.  In the last blog we saw how our immune system can fight back against SARS-CoV-2. But for some people this will mean getting unwell during their initial infection, and as we know, COVID-19 can be fatal especially in at-risk groups. So, what we want is to teach our immune system to recognise SARS-CoV-2, by inducing immune memory – to protect us from future disease or infection but without risking illness. Well, we… Read More »COVID-19 Blog Series: Part 2

LIVE Talk | This Wormy World: Parasites – Friend or Foe? | 18:30 (UK time), 16 March 2021.

LIVE streaming at YouTube 18:30 (UK time), 16 March 2021. Summary: My research interests are in immunity to infection, especially infections by large multi-cellular parasitic worms. I will concentrate on our studies of whipworm infection. This is a type of parasitic worm that infects humans (about 1 in 15 people) although different types of whipworms also infect multiple types of animal. I will discuss our discoveries on how infection establishes and how the immune system works to control it. More importantly perhaps, I will describe how the parasite avoids being controlled by the immune system and how this information may… Read More »LIVE Talk | This Wormy World: Parasites – Friend or Foe? | 18:30 (UK time), 16 March 2021.

LIVE Q&A | Infected Before Birth: Cytomegalovirus, An Uncommon Problem? | 18:30 (UK time), 8 March 2021.

LIVE streaming at YouTube 18:30 (UK time), 8 March 2021. Summary: My main research interest is around viral infections that occur during pregnancy and get passed on to the unborn baby sometimes causing serious disease. These are known as “congenital infections”. Before we developed the MMR vaccine the most serious congenital infection was caused by rubella virus which is sometimes known as the German Measles virus. If a pregnant woman caught rubella during the first 3 months of her pregnancy her baby had a very high chance of being stillborn, or if it survived having permanent problems affecting their heart, their… Read More »LIVE Q&A | Infected Before Birth: Cytomegalovirus, An Uncommon Problem? | 18:30 (UK time), 8 March 2021.

COVID-19 Blog Series: Part 1

Fighting back: The immune system’s battle against COVID-19  SARS-CoV-2 is the virus which causes COVID-19, a disease which I’m sure you’ll all be familiar with by now. It has tragically caused the deaths of over a million people worldwide – but not everyone who catches it gets severely ill. What is going on in the individuals who suffer from COVID-19 the most severely? The secret lies in their immune systems.  The difficult thing our body must deal with when fighting COVID-19 is that the virus likes to hide inside our cells. Here, the virus is shielded from detection and attack by our immune system and can happily replicate itself to produce more virus. Fortunately for us, when a virus like SARS-CoV-2 invades a cell, it causes a… Read More »COVID-19 Blog Series: Part 1

Google AI Experiments – An Online Hands-On Activity

AI (Artificial Intelligence) Experiments with Google are similar to mini games that showcase how AI can easily memorize patterns that it is coded to memorize and recognize these patterns very quickly. This is known as machine learning. For example, you can draw something and have the AI guess it for you (quite quickly) or you can listen to 14000 different sounds…or 14000 different bird sounds! Our volunteer, Youssef, showcases this with a couple of experiments. He will show you how to access and try them, and even make one yourselves – just watch the short video guide below! Check out… Read More »Google AI Experiments – An Online Hands-On Activity