Blog posts
Create Sport Regional Final!
Blogging science to life
Wed 4 May 2011, Written by: Chris
After 4 months of hard work by Science and Engineering clubs across the region, At-Bristol are excited that tomorrow is the big day!
The Create Sport Regional Final will see six teams from secondary schools from across the South West come to showcase their designs for a new sports venue (just in time for the Olympics!).
Competing for the chance to take their designs to the grand final of this nationwide competition in London (with prizes including £1000, signed sporting memorabilia and exclusive visits to major sport venues), we can't wait to see the teams' incredible work. The sneak previews of some of the designs have really whet our appetite!
Run by the Institution of Civil Engineers, the event invites a panel of expert judges to cast a close eye over the competition entries.
With leading figures in the field from the University of Bristol, the ICE and the team behind the Wembley Stadium, there are some really inspirational practicing engineers for the schools to work alongside. Our own team of At-Bristol's expert science communicators will be passing verdict on all the team's hard work too!
The whole event is set to inspire and engage students in engineering and raise awareness of careers options in this field.
With At-Bristol's Meet The Expert programme and series of special theme days, the Create Sport Final supports our ongoing work with schools, making science exciting and accessible for all. With all our hands-on exhibits on themes of science and engineering, we're looking forward to providing the perfect venue to host this event, and we've made sure everyone taking part has ample opportunity to explore our 300 exhibits.
In fact, we've even put on an exclusive Launch It! show for the six teams with whizzes, bangs and rockets to investigate forces and explosions.
We'll keep you posted and include pictures of the winning entries later in the week!
Inspiring Interaction's Celebration Event!
Blogging science to life
Tue 12 April 2011, Written by: Chris
Since the January conference, the At-Bristol team have been busy going into schools to help implement all the great ideas from the workshop sessions (and there were so many ideas!).
It's been incredible to see the hands-on science lessons that have been transforming classrooms across the City. So what better way to acknowledge the great work that's been taking place than with a huge celebration event?!
Opening our doors to 440 pupils and their families who've benefitted from the course (with their teachers as delegates), this Saturday provided a brilliant day of hands-on, accessible science in our impressive Rosalind Franklin Room on the top floor of At-Bristol. The sun was shining but it didn't stop people coming in droves to work alongside our volunteers making balloon kebabs, playing with dry ice, firing pop rockets and shooting paper airplanes.
The Lord Mayor presided over events as we gathered everyone together for an incredible science rap by our guest, Jon Chase. The younger visitors to the event recognised him as Mc Orbit from CBBC's SpaceHoppers!
From one incredible science communicator to another, our very own Raj Bista from the Live Science Team (the red t-shirts out in our exhibitions) delivered one of the biggest science shows we've ever done here in At-Bristol. We (nearly literally) raised the roof with a selection of bang and booms from our popular show taking place everyday this Easter holiday.
With help from STEM Ambassadors and inspiring presentations from the schools involved, the whole event was a great success. Thank you to all who have supported this important project and we look forward to continuing to make science accessible to all through future work with primary and supplementary schools. Watch this space.
Hoppy Easter!
Blogging science to life
Fri 8 April 2011, Written by: Nicole
The decorations have already been hung in the foyer and the Easter bunny has visited to put up his special Easter trail. See if you can follow the funny clues round the venue to discover the Easter bunny’s favourite word!
The Live Science team have been busy preparing mounds of modelling clay for our Build a Bunny workshops. From the 15 April you can make your own Easter bunny in these special workshops and then bring it to life afterwards in Animate It! And you can email this animated masterpiece to friends and family making it a personal and green Easter greetings e-card!
Plus from 22 to 25 we will have themed Easter face painting so watch out for fluffy chicks and bouncing bunnies around the venue!
As Spring is all about new life what better way to celebrate than to discover how amazing you are with All About Us! In the Reproduction zone you can explore the life cycle from the tiny beginnings to birth. Then marvel at the Giant DNA Helix and try to identify the quirky knitted cells.
Throughout Easter you can watch and take part in live experiments, including DNA extraction and dissections, unique and interactive in our Live Lab area. And all day every day we will have table top Live Lab activities examine x-rays, hunt for finger prints and listen to your heart beat with the Live Lab activities.
We are also going out and about this Easter. We will be taking lots of activities including microscopes and our fantastic Clean Streaking suits to Cabot Circus tomorrow and Clarks Village on Sunday – so if you are there be sure to pop over and say hi!
Easter Trail 09 - 24
Build a Bunny 15 – 19 April 11.00, 12.00, 14.00, 15.00 £1 per visitor
Easter face painting 22 – 25 April 14.00 – 16.00
Happy World Health Day!
Blogging science to life
Thu 7 April 2011, Written by: Nicole
We are celebrating World Health Day in Live Lab today by looking into the disgusting and amazing world of germs!
300 school children will be visiting At-Bristol to take their health in their hands and discover just how clean they really are! Germs are so easily spread between people and things and this, in turn, spreads infections. The key message of the day is that hand washing is essential and an easy way to prevent the spread of infection.
.jpg "Remember to wash your hands!")
This special Meet the Expert event is happening today in our new Live Lab area. Debra, a lovely Community nurse from Bristol Community Health, will be holding hand washing sessions with a difference! We probably think we can tell just how clean our hands are by looking at them, after we have washed them we think they are squeaky clean but Debra will be bringing a special light box which will tell us otherwise! We are looking forward to the fun and eeew-some results!
Remember your health is in your hands – just by the simple act of washing your hands you can prevent the spread of most diseases.
Here in At-Bristol, we already hold a number of schools workshops, such as Healthy Bodies and Biomedical Science, which delve into what makes us healthy. Plus with All About Us having just launched our brilliant bodies and what makes us healthy is never far from our thoughts.
We are always looking for more opportunities to get under the skin of health and our bodies – which is why working with NHS Bristol to increase awareness of infections and germs on World Health Day is so great!
Celebrate Mother's Day with DNA and stars!
Blogging science to life
Fri 1 April 2011, Written by: Nicole
We are starting to feel all warm and fuzzy what with Mother’s day just round the corner! So what better way to celebrate it than to discover just how amazing you both are!
If you are looking to spoil your mum with a special day then look no further! You can take a lovely saunter along the Harbourside to At-Bristol and then learn the science behind your genes and what makes your nearest and dearest so unique with All About Us!
Marvel at the giant DNA helix, learn all the science behind genes, then Live Lab area you can have a go at seeing the real thing! in Live Lab! Here you can take part in live experiments including extracting your own DNA with cheek cell extraction. Keeping with the family theme you can discover new things about your family with the iDNA interactive monitors such as where your family name originates from and seeing how unique you really are!
There is more All About Us fun for you both as you can plot and compare your heights on Measure Me, have a go at comparing your veins with Vein Viewer and put your mum to the test with Reaction Timer!
There is plenty for mums-to-be too - discover the wonders of the birth cycle and what to expect with Before Birth!
Then have a leisurely lunch in the café, why not pamper your Mum to a homemade picnic of her favourites in our indoor picnic space or on Millennium Square. After lunch get creative in Animate It! and make your own personalised Mother’s Day e-card which can be a soppy as you like!
In the Planetarium treat your mum to a trip to the stars with the Spring night sky. And after gazing in awe at the beautiful constellations and twinkling stars you can finish off your special day together with a lovely cup of tea and slice of yummy cake in the café!
Happy Mother’s Day!
Plans to pebble dash Planetarium
Blogging science to life
Fri 1 April 2011, Written by: Sam
*Edit* Thanks to all who liked this on Facebook or retweeted on Twitter :) Pebble dashing our sparkling Planetarium? It could only be April Fools!
We're pleased to announce that At-Bristol has secured the funding to give the Planetarium - an iconic Bristol landmark situated in Millennium square - a deserved spruce up. Plans to remove the existing chrome plating and replace with pebble dash, to improve the acoustics inside the Planetarium have been well received, and work is due to start this summer.
A spokesperson for At-Bristol commented "Pebble dashing the Planetarium has a number of benefits, not only will it improve the acoustics inside for our presenter-led shows, but it will also save us money on cleaning costs in the long term. Local gulls can create a bit of a mess on the current chrome plated exterior, and it is hoped that a pebble dash will conceal this somewhat".
Are you as excited about the exterior refresh? Let us know in the comments below!
All About Us – honestly we’re not being bigheaded!
Blogging science to life
Thu 17 March 2011, Written by: Nicole
Phew! What a whirlwind of a week!
We’ve had a fantastic launch night for All About Us, visits from Dr Pixie McKenna, John Penrose and Heart Breakfast's Bush Troy and Paulina! Plus to top it all off we’ve had the very first visitors into All About Us!
.jpg "Exhibitions team hard at work!")
Two years worth of designing, researching, prototyping and building was realised last Thursday with the launch of All About Us.
After getting the all clear by the Human Tissue Authority, our awe-inspiring real brain exhibition was installed. Vein viewer was primed and ready, the Digestive Run skeleton was waiting to be fed and Soundbite was on standby… so we were ready for our first visitors!
We were lucky enough to have Dr Pixie McKenna, from Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies, to launch All About Us. She kicked things off with a press tour and promptly got straight down to playing on the exhibits themselves!.jpg "Dr Pixie McKenna on Character Mirror!")
On Thursday’s launch event as well as the amazing new exhibits we also had some fantastic dancers from local company Twisted Theatre in our new Clean Streaking suits to wow visitors with their amazing lifts, twists and tumbles. We will be taking them out and about round Bristol and beyond so look out for them and let us know when you when you see them!
Our new Live Lab area was put to the test with visitors having a go at DNA extraction and meeting experts from GE Healthcare. They brought an exclusive sample of heart cell muscles, which are the latest developments of Stem Cell Technology, for visitors to have a look at. It was a night of celebration which was perfectly summed up by Dr Pixie McKenna saying ‘All About Us is something Bristol should be proud of’ – which made everyone feel very warm and fuzzy indeed!
Friday saw ITV West, BBC Points West and Heart visit At-Bristol to do some recording and filming of All About Us and the amazing exhibits which was very exciting!
Then on Saturday we were lucky enough to welcome John Penrose, Minister for Tourism and Heritage, here to kick-start British Tourism Week. Fresh from visiting the Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare he took a tour of All About Us with Dr Goéry Delacôte, At-Bristol’s CEO. Mr Penrose showed his support for At-Bristol, and the fun educational work we do here by getting hands-on and donning a lab coat in our Live Lab area!
Saturday also saw the start of Brilliant Brain Week! Local Neuroscientists set up shop in Live Lab with a variety of mind-boggling activities for visitors to have a go at – including these sensational swimming caps showing you the different sections of the brain! 
If you have been listening to Heart Breakfast this week you will have heard the great competition we are running to win an annual family membership to At-Bristol. As part of this we welcomed Bush, Troy and Paulina to have a play on All About Us! We got them playing on Goal!, feeding the Digestive Run and having a listen to music on Sound Bite!
Andy Bush was so inspired he even posed a question for our very own Question of the Fortnight blog, so watch this space for the answer…
If you have been inspired by All About Us to find out how amazing you are, simply post your questions below or via twitter, to @atbristol using the hashtag #QF, and we will do our best to answer them.
If you have visited All About Us we would love to know what you thought through twitter, facebook, visitor review or even good old fashioned mail! And we will you up to date with any updates here!
Question of the Fortnight: Why do we get wrinkles?
Blogging science to life
Wed 9 March 2011, Written by: Nicole
Question via Twitter from @FrogetteA
With the launch of the new All About Us exhibition a day away we thought it was time to wet your appetite for all things human with another Question of the Fortnight!
Currently the ground floor of At-Bristol is a hive of activity with the Exhibitions team working day and night to make sure everything is in place for its launch on Friday 11 March! The giant DNA helix is being moved into place and the amazing Digestive Run exhibit is on the floor and the skeleton is settling into At-Bristol!
To get under the skin of why we get wrinkles we must first look at the layers our skin and what it contains.
Your skin is made up of three different primary layers; epidermis (the waterproof layer which acts like a barrier to infection), dermis (is home to the connective tissue and cushions the body from strain) and the hypodermis (which connects the skin to the muscles and bones). Wrinkles affect the epidermis and interestingly a biopsy of a wrinkle doesn’t show anything which distinguishes it specifically as a wrinkle!
Wrinkles are caused by a number of factors some of which are as a result of what is going on within our bodies or internal factors. Others are external factors, which produce wrinkles when or if they come into contact with the skin. External factors include such as sun, pollution tobacco use.
Normal healthy skin contains collagen and elastin and glycosaminoglycans or GAGS. All of these improve skin elasticity and firmness and keep your skin hydrated and the surface of your skin looking smooth and wrinkle-free. After the age of 20 a person naturally produces less of these compounds. Production of less elastin, GAGS, oil and sweat glands decreases and collagen decreases by1% less collagen per year.
This means that the skin becomes thinner and more fragile and that the skins firmness and elasticity naturally descreases meaning the formation of wrinkles is inevitable.
There is in fact research, by Dr Micheal Sherratt, which suggests this decrease in elasticity occurs to our internal organs as well as our skin. His research looks at an importance of ‘fibrillin’ which gives elasticity to the skin, lungs and blood vessels and which actually becomes less effective with age which affects our internal health.
So this natural decrease in springiness, which occurs over time, is one factor. Another is that with age the layers of your skin lose fat, with age which means that the face becomes less ‘plump’.
However, there are the external factors which cause wrinkles. Exposure to sun increases the break down of collagen. Smoking and the 4,000 chemicals it contains also damages collagen and elastin, as does air pollution. It is the combination of these internal and external factors which cause wrinkles to form.
So I hope this goes someway to answer why we get wrinkles and what causes them! If you want a closer look at your own wrinkles and the movement of your face be sure to check out our new Startle exhibition which films your face at on high-speed camera! And if you like what you see you can then email the footage home to yourself or to friends and family with Explore More!
And watch this space for more exciting news about the All About Us launch!
Thanks to @FrogetteA for their question and http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-skin-wrinkle-wit and http://www.physorg.com/news130766126.html for the answer!
Do you have a science question about the human body?
Tweet your question to @atbristol using the hashtag #QF and we’ll answer one question every fortnight!
Find out more information about our new exhibition All About Us
In preparation for launching our new exhibition!
Blogging science to life
Thu 24 February 2011, Written by: Sophina
We're launching our exhibition on 11 March. Here's the low-down on our preparation!
28 Feb - 11 March
Part of downstairs will be hoarded off so we can install our brand new exhibition. For those visiting during this time, we will have a reduced ticket price:
- Adult: £10.00
- Child: £6.00
- Concession: £8.50
- Family: £27.50
- Grandparents' family: £25.50
- Additional child: £5.00
10 March
We will close at 4pm to allow us to add the final touches to the exhibition.
11 March
All About Us opens! The All About Us experience will include 50 new exhibits - find out more about the exhibition.
Jam-packed half term!
Blogging science to life
Mon 16 November 2009, Written by: Nicole
We’re thinking about renaming half term as in At-Bristol there’s nothing half about it! We have a full schedule all week!
To start things off we have the Bang and Boom show and as 2011 is the International Year of Chemistry this is the perfect chance celebrate it! The daily showings of this explosive Live Science show are sure to blow the mid term cobwebs away!
In the Planetarium the countdown is on for 72 trips to the stars in a week! But forget rocket fuel, this is the eco-friendly way to journey around the Winter night sky - though space suits are optional! From the warmth and comfort of the Planetarium the At-Bristol presenters will take you around the galaxy taking a closer look at Orion’s belt and Taurus the bull! Plus for little explorers we have showings of Little Stars and Storytelling twice a day!
And after you have ignited your imagination with Storytelling you can become the character you want with face painting!
As well as this and the 300 hands-on exhibits we will also be testing our new Live Lab area throughout half term.
Part of the ‘All About Us’ exhibition, which opens 11 March 2011, Live Lab will be a place for visitors to carry out and watch live experiments including table top activities, DNA extraction and even dissections! So on Wednesday and Thursday during half term we will be testing a selection of these experiments – pop along and see what our Live Science team have in store for you!
And finally we have not one but two Meet the Expert events lined up!
Saturday 19 sees Jeroen and Yannan, chemistry research scientists from the University of Bristol coming to At-Bristol with a selection of intriguing experiments so you can explore the colourful world of liquid crystals.
And on Thursday meet Biologist Jess Godfey from Cardiff University as she gets vocal about vocal chords! Get ready to articulate your questions as she will be dissecting sheep's lungs, find out how your vocal cords work and test your own lung capacity.
Phew what a week - we can’t wait! With such an amazing packed schedule we are expecting to be pretty busy - so here is our top tips on how to get the most from your day and beat the rush:
• Get fast track entry and book your Planetarium show when you buy tickets online
• Beat the traffic! Cycle, use the bus, Park and Ride or take a lovely stroll along the Harbourside on your way to At-Bristol
• Get the Ferry Boat from Bristol Temple Meads for a leisurely start to your morning
• If you're driving, our car park gets busy. Don't forget the Prince Street, Trenchard Street and Jacob's Wells car park are nearby
See you soon!
Bang and Boom show: Daily 12.30, 13.30, 15.45
Winter night sky: Daily 11.00, 12.30, 13.15, 14.45, 15.30, 16.15
Little Stars: Daily 11.45, 14.00
Face painting: 21 – 25 February 14.00 – 16.00
Live Lab: 23 February 11.00, 13.00, 15.00, 24 February 11.00, 12.00
Liquid Crystals: 19 February 10.00 – 16.00
Get Vocal: 24 February 14.00, 15.00
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