Chocks away!

The last few weeks have been a bit busy for the nanodamograms as the team have now handed over 3 chapters of the new module - intro, pre-conception to birth and food. Well done!! Handovers for Book 1 are coming thick and fast and consist of more than just handing over a finished document. The handover version has all images stripped out and put into a new document that requires annotating so that the artist knows exactly what the final image should look like. We also need to create the online content, the answers to self-assessment questions and any other bits and pieces that the editor needs.

So it's feeling very real now. We feel like we've been working on this since the dawn of time, and for some of us (me) the slog will continue well into next year. However, from today, S240 Analytical Science: Health, heritage and environment officially goes live with the launch of course description and registration page! Hoorah! This means that lovely students can sign up to study the fruits of our labour. Indeed, if you google "S240 Analytical Science" you can go straight to it! Here's a screen shot:

Analytical Science conquers the globe

Well not quite, but in the last 48 hours analytical science has cropped up in the most unlikely places.

If truth be told, if I had the time I would watch rubbish on telly, but I don't have that luxury - Sky+ is my friend so I can record the drivel and watch it at my leisure. And so I sat down to watch the latest episode of Midsomer Murders (they've replaced Bergerac). There was disappointingly only 2 murders in this episode and 1 attempted. I digress.

Although pathologist George often pops up in episodes to undertaken a forensic examination of the murders, if was the unexpected statement from the new DCI Barnaby that George needed to "get down here with his spectrometer" that took me by surprise. He wanted George's instrument to work its magic to detect traces of drugs inside a lovely old vintage car. If you want to know how the spectrometer might have done this, then I suggest you get signed up onto S240!!

Now, those who now the S240 team will know that they usually brighten up meetings by consuming copious amounts of cakes and other sweet products. I for one love cake and so Ace of Cakes (on the Food Network) is also a current favourite programme. What about the analyticalscience I hear you cry? Well an episode last night showed the team being commissioned to make a cake in the shape of a CT scanner. A CT SCANNER!! I can't find a picture of it, but below is a picture of a real CT scanner and it looked identical - even down to a patient on the bed!

It got me thinking - what other analytical instruments could be made into cakes. There could be a whole line of analytical science themes cakes to accompany the course. Maybe not.

Handover today!

Yippee! Today, we handed over the first Chapter of our S240 course to our internal publishers. makes it all seem real.

I wish we could have the real stuff, but I'll have to make do with pretending we have champagne with which to celebrate.

If you want to work out how the alcohol content is measured, take S240!

How do we smell?

My (almost) life's research is on volatile compounds and detecting them. In others words, sniffing niffs. But now I realise I have got it all wrong! Take a look at this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12827893

Apparently, it's all down to quantum physics (isn't everything?). Try telling that to a sniffer dog.....

Fantasy module generator

We've been a bit busy lately with the first of our handover dates looming sooner than we'd like, but there are always other things to think about. For example, although we have a name for our module: Analytical Science: health, heritage and environments (note the plural), we have to come up with titles for each book.

Book 1 is about health, food and drugs. It's provisionally called Analytical science for life and health. Book 2 is about space, heritage and the environment (singular). It's provisionally called Analytical science to enrich our lives.

It took us a LONG time to establish the module name. After many hours arguing, we polled those who might actually end up teaching it to come up with something functional yet snappy. We had to think about whether it was plain English so people know what it is about, and whether it will get lots of useful hits on Google. Do we need to do that with each book? We haven't decided, but one member of the course team has suggested:

Book 1: Analytical science in sickness and in health
Book 2: Analytical science for richer or poorer

An equally sensible approach, and in highly scientific fashion, I've used the fantasy novel book title generator to come up with some ideas. We've been offered the following options:

Book 1: The Stolen Ship, The Bone of Linoleum, The Sorceress of the Renegade or the Tattoo in the Thought
(Using the terms: analytical, science, health, food, drugs, screening)

Book 2: The Age's Empire, The Solstice of the Destiny, The Out Adventure or the Chaos of the Place
(Using the terms analytical, science, heritage, space, environment)

The latter pretty much sums things up I think. Done deal.

New bowel cancer screening method

The current method for screening for bowel cancer is the so called faecal occult blood (FOB) test. Basically, everyone between 60 and 69 will be offered the test. They will be asked to place a small smear of faeces on a card, which is sent to the lab for testing to determine whether it contains blood. If it does, they will be called in for further investigations.

The trouble is, the test isn't very good. It misses a good proportion of people who have bowel cancer and may also alarm people who don't by suggesting they may have it when they don't.

But until now, it's the best test available for mass screening.

Scientists are now developing a new test which looks for DNA indicative of cancer in faeces. This could significantly improve the accuracy of screening if it is developed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12637096

Medical abbreviations

Well now we know what the medics really think - make sure you ask to see a copy of your medical notes under the Data Protection Act!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3159813.stm

New microscope

For anyone who thought the wavelength of light limited the size of objects that can be resolved, read this aryicle on the Beeb! Cool new way of using evanescent waves emitted near an object.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12612209

Update: Otzi unveiled

You might have read the blog post last week about Otzi the iceman's reconstruction. Well finally here he is:

And if you go the National Geographic's webpage, you can see all previous incarnations of Otzi - a bit like Otzi through the ages I suppose. But the real press images are at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.

And would you believe, Otzi even has his own Facebook group!!

Working to the analytical limit

The last two days have been a bit stressful. We've worked hard over the last few months (year?) to write our new fabulous analytical science module, but with all things there's always a downside. Our is: we have too much to say. It's a constant problem of mine which I've learned to live with, but I (and the rest of the team) need to pull back and think carefully about a) the things we want to include and b) the things we need to include. These are inevitably two different things.

But why shouldn't we get carried away - we would't be doing this if we didn't want to share our enthusiasm!

Analytical deconstruction = reconstruction

One of my personal favourite parts of our new module (S240) is the chapter about heritage analysis. While many of the analytical techniques were familiar to me, their use in archaeology and art were new and utterly fascinating contexts that I become totally immersed in - I even had a "field trip" to the Mary Rose before she closed for refurbishment!

One of the most important stories in the chapter is that of Ötzi (or Oetzi) the Iceman who was found in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991. The analysis of this guy has been comprehensive, to say the least, and I've done my best to include as much as possible in the chapter. There are no spoilers here, you'll be sad to hear, butI thought it worth mentioning that he was in the news this week.

Since 2011 celebrates 20 years since his discovery, the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano (his home) have commissioned two Dutch guys (Alfons and Adrie Kennis) to produce a new reconstruction of Ötzi based on the results of analytical 3-D imaging (X-ray and CT-scanning). Image analysis has been comprehensive and revealed a LOT about Ötzi's health, lifestyle and death (I said no spoilers!). There's some pictures of the reconstruction process here.

Reconstructing his appearance is no mean feat because, although Ötzi was preserved very well, he did suffer some pressure damage during burial and retrieval. As you will see from the image above, he is not exactly looking his best these days ;-) (Image above c/o South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology via Wikipedia)

Reconstructions have been attempted before (right) but apparently this new one is unique because it gives Ötzi brown eyes. I'm not aware of any published results relating to this (I'm preparedto be wrong), but in 2010 his ancient DNA was sequenced, so perhaps there is some semblance of fact behind this. I know from reading about Ötzi that only fragments of his DNA were available for analysis, however. (Image c/o South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology)

I wish I was able to get to the museum in 2011 to see this, but alas that's unlikely while we're slogging on producing the new module, so I'll be keeping an eye on the web for any images - I assume there is an embargo until it goes on display in March. For more information on visiting Ötzi in Bolanzo, he has his own website! If you are lucky enough to go to the region there is also an art exhibition running alongside, and I particularly like the "ice sculpture" by Marilène Oliver - Iceman Frozen Scanned and Plotted. Clever idea!

CSI: Milton Keynes?

While in the supermarket at the weekend I spotted CSI games for the Nintendo Wii. As a new Wii user, and with analytical science constantly on my mind, I toyed with the purchase then dismissed it in favour of a new shredder. But after a long day today writing scripts for video voiceovers (talking about microscopes and the like) I decided to stick in an online order for CSI:Fatal Conspiracy. I'm curious about how they use the Wii to do stuff like evidence collecting, finger printing and DNA testing - some of which is covered in our new module (S240). I'm not particularly interested in the game, but for the purposes of research I suppose I can try it!

I don't think I'll get away with playing the Wii in working hours (shame), but it certainly might fuel some ideas for future practical work using gaming technology!

First post!

Well, here we are. Nanodamogram's first blog post. So what do we talk about? Nanodamogram is an alias, as you might imagine, and in reality we have multiple personas. We're a happy collective developing a module for the Open University about Analytical Science. Since this module includes analysis in the heath, environmental, heritage, food and space sectors we really wanted its code to include the number 42 (life, the universe and everything), but alas it was not to be - it's S240.

We toyed with the idea of a blog while we were writing the module material, but got caught up in the paperwork, but now we want those in the blogosphere to share our enthusiasm for the module and its themes. So here's our blog, and we're also on twitter (@nanodamogram). Once we've figured out how to do it, we'll have these interconnected, plus a facebook page!

For now, meet our favourite member of the module team, our chlamydia microbe - yes, we even have STIs in this module: