In this episode of Science Chat, I talk to Paidi O’Reilly from University College Cork about the state of technology assessment in Ireland. Paidi is involved in the PACITA project which aims to strengthen the institutional foundation of European technology assessment by helping countries establish and improve their Parliamentary Technology Assessment (PTA) activities.
You can find out more about PACITA and the recent Dublin workshop at http://www.pacitaproject.eu.
The Science Chat podcast can of course be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes.

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Episode 35 of Science Chat is devoted to a new project which will aim to re-organize the way scientific literature is made available to researchers, students, and anyone interested in it actually.
The project is the brainchild of Sam and Amy Molyneux. Sam is a Ph.D student in the University of Toronto and with his sister Amy they are creating Sciencescape, a social map of science with a mission to organise scientific literature in history and real time!
You can keep an eye on their progress by following them on Twitter as @sciencescape and you can sign up for their coming beta product at http://www.sciencescape.org.
The Science Chat podcast can of course be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes.

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This episode of Science Chat is a first as it welcomes our first guest from the Southern hemisphere, from Australia actually.
Brendan O’Brien works with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development in Victoria, Australia, and is also convenor of 60 Second Science, a science outreach competition… and notwithstanding the time difference between Australia and Ireland (where Science Chat is produced) we managed to organise an interview.
You can find out all about 60 Second Science at http://www.60secondscience.net, and the podcast can of course be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes, along with the back catalogue.

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In this episode Science Chat talks with Maria Daly about her science blog Science Calling! Last year Maria was invited to blog for Falling Walls and was also nominated for a Spider award, and her blog is probably one of the best new science blogs out there… in my opinion anyway!
You can find Maria’s blog at http://sciencecalling.com, and the podcast can of course be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes, and while you’re there, why not take the time to catch up on some of the earlier episodes.

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What was your first experience of science communication – what was the first science you were ever told? Can you remember? Well I couldn’t but a recent visit to my optician suggested to me what it might have been.
As I approach the beautifully labeled time of life that is middle-age, apparently my poor tired eye muscles are no longer going to be able to flick between what’s near and what’s far away with the same efficiency that I’ve always been used to. In other words, I am now sporting for the first time in my life a nifty pair of retro black framed glasses.
So being the science type person that I am, I lost no time in googling to see what foods could I eat (or should I have been eating) to preserve things as they are – or maybe even reverse the decline.
You’ve probably already guessed what I found. Yep, that’s right Doc.
Carrots.
You see (pun intended), carrots contain a carotenoid called beta-carotene; your body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A which is an anti-oxidant, and antioxidants such as vitamin A are essential to eye health. Vitamin A is known to help your eyes adjust to light changes.
So what was my first experience of science communication?
“Eat your carrots, they’ll help you see in the dark” (I agree – maybe a slight exaggeration there).
Source: my mother (not a scientist in the strictest sense of the word).
Date: circa 1971 (I was about 4 years old)
If you can beat that I’d love to hear from you…

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As we move closer and closer to ESOF Dublin City of Science 2012 in Dublin, this episode of Science Chat is another look back to the program which took place in Turin for the 2010 City of Science.
The guest on this episode is Barbara Diehl, Programme Manager at the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Said Business School in the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Barbara was moderator of, as well as one of the speakers at the seminar Would Einstein be on Twitter, Exploring the potential and limits of Web 2.0 in science & science communication at the 2010 conference.
You can find out more about Barbara on the Said Business School website http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/centres/entrepreneurship/people/Pages/BarbaraDiehl.aspx, and the podcast can of course be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes… and if you listen to the end you’ll find out the answer to the question as well!

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Hello followers and happy new year 2012, the year when apparently (for non-scientists out there) it will all end!
So, another new year, and a nice interesting new episode of Science Chat to start it off.
By the way, it will be quite an exciting year for Science Chat because the podcast will be branching out with a new strand (which I’ll tell you more about in a future post) but I think you’re going to enjoy it. Of course, Science Chat will continue to examine the big (and not so big) topics in science communication as it has done for the last couple of years, so don’t worry on that score.
So back to this episode:
Cafe Scientifique in Portsmouth is part of the worldwide Cafe Scientifique movement and has been in operation since 2006. It’s run by people from the University of Portsmouth in partnership with Portsmouth City Council and you can find out all about it by searching on the University of Portsmouth website or through this link http://www.port.ac.uk/cafescientifique/ as well as on twitter at @portscafesci. Maricar Jagger who looks after PR for the Cafe was kind enough to take time out to speak to me for this episode.
The podcast can be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes and of course you can find out more about Science Chat by following me on twitter.

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In this episode of Science Chat, episode 30, I talk to Dr John Joyce who founded the Explorers Education programme in the Marine Institute of Ireland to start young people off on the road to becoming marine scientists at an early age… in fact at the primary school level.
This is another great example of someone just getting stuck in and making things happen in science education – and this is also an example of a programme which has been able to integrate with the education curriculum. The programme has quite a cool website with some illustrations by Dr Joyce himself and you can find it at http://www.explorers.ie/.
The podcast can be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes, and as usual, you can contact me either through the blog or through twitter.

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Continuing with Science Chat’s lookback at ESOF 2010 in Turin, this episode features Joachim Dengg who presented the topic entitled Crossing borders with outreach programs and educational networks: A research institute’s novel and daring approach to science education.
You can find more details about Joachim and the outreach programs he’s involved with on http://sfb-outreach.ifm-geomar.de/.
The podcast can be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes, and as usual, you can contact me either through the blog or through twitter.

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As you may have realised by now, one of the main reasons that I produce this little podcast is to look at different and exciting ways in which people are communicating science, so when I saw that Niamh Shaw, one of the actors taking part in Dublin’s Absolut Fringe, a festival of theatre, comedy, music, dance and spectacle, is doing exactly that, I jumped at the chance to get her along to the Science Chat studio for a chat. Niamh’s show is called That’s About The Size Of It and in it she questions our place in the world and reminds us that all humans are curious… and also mostly composed of empty space – as is everything else. She also introduces us to the 10th dimension and asks some interesting questions. You can find out more about the show on the festival website http://www.fringefest.com/event/thats-about-the-size-of-it/ and book tickets as well. The show runs until Wednesday with a performance on Monday 19th Sept and another on Wednesday 21st.
The podcast can be found in the usual place… http://www.sciencechat.podomatic.com/ as well as on iTunes, and as usual, you can contact me either through the blog or through twitter.

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