This week Joanna Scott, our London blogger, has been reporting on Soapbox Science, a public event organised by ZSL and L’Oreal, which brought together some of the country’s top female scientists. In hourly shifts, these scientists took to the podium by Gabriel’s Wharf near Blackfriars Bridge and talked about their work to anyone passing. The aim: to dispel the traditional stereotypes of female scientists. What came out of this, you may ask? Yes, scientists can have pink hair!

Over the next few weeks, Joanna will be bringing us interviews with some of the scientists involved in this event, so stay tuned. You can see a full list of the scientists who participated, and their research topics here..

From the Soapbox Science event onto our own Soapbox Science blog. where each week we invite a different guest to share their research interests, book or latest project in a blog post, aimed to get us thinking about something new. This week our guest blogger was Sophie Scott, group leader of the Speech Communication Group at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London (UCL) (UK). In her post, How does learning to read affect our brains? she looks at how social interactions can impact the way we learn to read and write:

The skill of learning to read also forces us to engage with sounds in ways that differ from what we have to do to understand spoken language. Some abilities in the manipulation of speech sounds are present before we learn to read (e.g. being able to tell that two words rhyme), while others emerge as a consequence of our learning to read.

Super-Hero Experiments

From the Lab Bench blogger, Paige Brown, has begun her Super-Hero Experiment extravaganza. Last week she encouraged readers to list their favourite scientific experiments, collecting ideas from Twitter and her blog. This week she is treating us to a series of blog posts, looking at various aspects of some of our favourite experiments. So far she has looked at The Origin of Life experiment and The Waggle Dance. Paige explains:

I will be discussing some of the most revealing experiments of all time, from not only my own point of view, but also from the views of science-loving Tweeters! Have your own ‘favourite science experiment of all time’?

Look out for her next installment. In the meantime, if you have a favourite science experiment, it’s not too late to submit your thoughts.

Your Baby On Crack?

Scitable’s blogger, Khalil A. Cassimally, has been discussing frankly how using cocaine whilst pregnant can damage your unborn child:

During early pregnancy, cocaine consumption correlates with an increased risk of miscarriage. One particularly gruesome scenario is abruptio placentae: the detachment of the placenta from the mother’s uterus, causing dangerous hemorrhage (which comes with potentially excruciating pain-ladies, think of it as menses times 100, if that’s possible) and possible death of the baby.

You can find out more of the risks in his post.

Now onto a legal stimulant: caffeine. In his latest post, Why caffeine jacks you up, David Johnson discusses why certain people are more sensitive to caffeine than others:

It says that in order for caffeine to work, it not only has to be effective as an A2aR antagonist, but that excitatory A2aRs on nucleus accumbens shell neurons must be tonically activated by endogenous adenosine. This is especially important in consideration of individual differences in the subjective effects of caffeine.

Find out more in David’s breakdown.

Elephant Man

The News blog have revealed that the Elephant Man gene has finally been found. An international team has discovered the mutation responsible for Proteus syndrome, a developmental disorder which causes severe, uncontrollable outgrowths of soft and bony tissue, leaving those affected painfully deformed.

Roughly 500 people in the developed world are know to have it. Joseph Merrick (pictured) who lived from 1862 to 1890 and toured Europe as ‘The Elephant Man,’ is probably the disease’s most famous victim. The finding ends a long search for the cause of the disease and may provide some useful insight for treatment given that the gene involved, AKT1, is a well-researched target in cancer.

Find out in the post how the team, run by Leslie Biesecker at the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, discovered the mutation and what their hopes are for the future.

Now onto another scientific discovery. Tinker Ready, our Boston blogger, reveals that researchers in New England have solved the lizard/turtle/bird debate:

However, there are two other possibilities that would bring turtles into the diapsid fold. One is that turtles are more closely related to birds and crocodiles than to lizards. Most of the genetic studies undertaken so far support this.

She links to more sources on this subject in her post.

Famine

One of the more tragic news stories this week is the devastating famine taking place in Somalia. It is the worst famine to hit the region in decades; an estimated 800,000 children are acutely malnourished, with over 80% of them cut off from relief by warlords in the area. The Spoonful of Medicine blog reveals in their update, that even if Somalia’s turmoil subsides, famine might increase long-term disease risk for survivors:

Aid workers are rightfully focused on the immediate needs of the starving Somalis. But their plight may not be over once the famine ends, whenever that may be. Studies of past famines hint that children who endure severe malnutrition at a young age or while in the womb might be at a higher risk for certain diseases.

Question time

Tom Webb has been asking a rather thought-provoking question this week. Is writing a high impact paper the same as doing good science? He reveals his own opinions, airing his concerns:

Now, I have no intention of denigrating these publications, still less of biting the hand that hosts me – clearly, they are world-leading in their standards of originality, significance, and rigour. Rather, I wanted to point out what I see as a worrying trend, which is conducting research with the objective of ‘writing a Nature paper’.

What do you think? Join the growing discussion in his comment thread.

Spicy!

Finally, this week Viktor Poor has been mixing microbiology and Old Spice to make his latest cartoon!

Watch the original Old Spice advert which Viktor has also embedded in his blog post to see where the inspiration came from…Have a great weekend!