The ignite talk went really well and the video is now available to watch online:

I think it went down well - I spoke a bit longer than usual and it was hard to time the slides with the rhymes but it was a great venue (+ bar tab), a fantastic crowd, and a really good opportunity to speak in front of friends I hadn't seen in ages. Thanks to everyone at Ignite London. You can find more information there or on twitter with #igniteLDN and @ignite_london.

 My next outing will be to speak alongside NOISEmaker Tom Whyntie, and astrophysicist Dr Andrew Pontzen in Brighton on the 27th February as part of the Brighton Science Festival. Looking really forward to it! I'm also going to be opening the GeekPop Live event in Bristol on the 11th March, with some scientific freestyles and writtens with the supremely talented Jon Chase (Oort Kuiper).

Have a good weekend,

Matt

Hi all,

I've been featured on the Oxford Science Blog:

www.ox.ac.uk/media/science_blog/091116.html

This is an interview with me talking about the Bacterial Flagellar Motor, and a video of one of my colleagues of Rhodobacter rotating (spinning round and round on a coverslip, as we have tethered it by its filament, or propellor). Anyway, take a look if you are interested.

Secondly: I am talking at the Ignite! event this Wednesday in Ginglik in Shepherd's Bush in London:

ignitelondon.net/

Ignite! are a series of 5 minute talks with 20 slides that autoadvance every 15s. It was started by O'Reilly, the guys who make the computer manuals with the animals on the front cover, and the format is designed to spark interest but be quick. I'm going to be rhyming about bacteria, with more detail than usual and also with some awesome appropriated (ie stolen) animations and videos. I'm on 7th, so will be speaking at around 8:30pm, but I think the venue will fill up (200 capacity), so you should get there around 7pm if you want to guarantee a place. It's in a nice bar, and it's free entry, so come along if you are in the area, otherwise you will be able to catch the video on the O'Reilly ignite portal.

ignite.oreilly.com/

Thanks, and after this I'm going to go back to try and finish my PhD....

Matt.

The UK All Star Slam was really high quality. I was blown away watching the qualifying event with my friend from ANU, Australia, Alex Douglas, and I realised I would have struggled to qualify. So lucky I had a wild card. The event was really well run, Spiel Unlimited ran it, Marcus Moore in charge, and there were 15 poets on the day. I went 2nd up, which is a tough slot as early on the crowd usually take a bit of time to get warmed up. I've put my performance on youtube, so you can see it yourself if you want. I probably started a bit fast, and also misread the audience a bit (they might not dislike English tourists in Malia as much as I do...) but got there in the end.

www.youtube.com/watch

Next outing from me is the London Ignite! event. I am speaking at Ginglik in Shepherds Bush on Wed 18th November about Dirty Doners and Diarrhea. Ignite! are a series of events started by O'Reilly in the US, where slides automatically advance every 15s. I'm lucky to be a part of this also, but please come by and have a look if you are in the area. I'm hoping to deliver a 5min poem about bacteria with some visuals also.

ignitelondon.net

 Some hilarity in the news recently when it was publicised that at HMP Verne, in Dorset, inmates had been making hooch from hygiene gel which contains ethanol. Unfortunately noone really published the methodology and the Daily Mail stated that 'some inmates drank it directly'.

I wouldn't imagine that drinking propylene glycol, and ingredient of my hygiene gel next to me, would do you any good, but it is surprising that they authorised this in the first place. HMP Verne, incidentally, looks like a dungeon rather than a prison:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1215865/Prisoners-drunk-swine-flu-hand-gel-Inmates-use-make-hooch.html

One of my other big interests is prison reform; I created the Howard League for Penal Reform society at Oxford and am glad to see that it has finally taken off with the great new committee we have this year. The UK has over 80,000 people in prison, the highest rate in Europe, and the highest rate of children in prison in Europe. This is definitely an issue on the political agenda, and the already stretched budget is due to stretch a little further. 

For more information, see:

http://www.howardleague.org/

Matt

Hi everyone,

I'm Matt Baker, a new NOISEmaker in 2009. I am really pleased to be a part of the NOISEmaker project as it gives me more opportunities to talk about my research, and also allows me to meet other great young scientists that like talking and sharing their research.

I had my orientation session last week and got to meet a bunch of new and old NOISEmakers. Sometimes meeting  people like this can be intimidating, especially when their research seems to be so much more helpful than mine, such as studying ergonomics or building new materials, or solving the riddles of the universe, but I do enjoy greatly working with bacteria and think that the Bacterial Flagellar Motor (BFM) is one of the coolest machines fullstop, not just an example of the power of billions of years of evolution, and the cannyness of life. Of course, it's not totally pure, plenty of people, some in our group, are doing very applied research on bacteria, and on the BFM itself, looking at how to use bacteria as pumps to control flows, or how to go about building an artificial swimmer, but as always, something novel that you haven't heard about before, sold to you by a passionate scientist, sounds cooler than your own work you've been doing for years.

It was also great to see yet again inside the world of PR. I've never had much experience with public relations and I think public sector PR is quite big in the UK. It's useful to think about how things are presented, whether it is research, or just a 'brand' associated with a specific person, and talking to professionals in this field is really interesting. It's always fun to pitch TV ideas, but I do wonder where the money will come from, and it's hard to see sometimes how we can make a show that kids not only want to watch, but encourage their mates to watch. Science can definitely be fun, but can it compete with say, having fun?

I'm going to be performing at the Cheltenham Literature Festival on the 10th October in the UK All Star Slam. I have been very lucky to be invited to perform at this event and have been invited as a wild card to compete directly in this event without having to qualify. It has been a long time since I did a big poetry slam, in fact about 5 years, so I am slightly nervous, but also, I need to have 3 pieces prepared. I'm going to have to dust off some of my old material, and prepare some of my new stuff but I am really looking forward to having the opportunity to show a large audience at Cheltenham what an Australian slam poet can do. I'm really excited about this because I've also arranged for my friend Alex Douglas to enter the qualifier. We went to University together in oz and he is one of the more talented spoken word artists I've ever worked with so I'm looking forward to his coming out of retirement. If you are interested in attending, please check out the following for tickets: (events 24 and 62 at the Cheltenham Literature Festival)

http://cheltenhamfestivals.com/literature-2009/voices-off-the-uk-all-stars-poetry-slam-qualifier/

Thanks,

Matt.