Gregory's First Law

It's not goodbye, it's au revoir

David Gregory (BBC News) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 13:33:00 +0000

The BBC has moved my blog to a new system and expanded its brief to include environment as well as science. You can read the first post here and find the new blog at bbc.co.uk/davidgregorykumar This version will no longer be updated, thanks for reading and see you at the new place!

Climate change, the ozone layer and seaweed

David Gregory (BBC News) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:27:52 +0000

If there's one thing science reporters know it's that you don't confuse stories about climate change with stories about damage to the ozone layer.

But at the University of Birmingham researchers think it is possible that the two may be linked and that climate change could cause damage to the ozone layer thanks to a natural chemical produced by seaweed.

To find out more they're looking to gather data from both ends of the problem. Working with NASA they will be using a robot drone to gather data some twenty kilometres in the sky, that's twice the height of a commercial jet.

Meanwhile just above sea level a British plane will be carrying out the same measurements although this time there are no robots but rather a staff of around fifteen researchers on board.

What the scientists will be looking for is a natural chemical given off by seaweed. A chemical that can damage the ozone layer when it gets up there. The big question is whether or not climate change is driving more of this chemical into the sky.

Combining data from the drone and the aircraft will allow the University of Birmingham scientists to improve their climate models and learn more about this fascinating seaweed problem. It's unlikely seaweed will cause the kind of holes in the ozone layer pollution did. But the researchers say any damage at all will be a sign of the unpredictable effects climate change could have.

Meanwhile it seems robot drones are set to revolutionise this sort of work. Until now you've needed to rely on very brave pilots wearing something closer to a spacesuit than a traditional flightsuit. Pilots need to retreat from very high altitude for rests during a flight, drones of course have no such problems.

Mind you the British plane doing the sea level work is also pretty cool. The aeroplane was originally a flight test prototype, but was completely rebuilt for this role - fitting over 4 tonnes of special equipment, as well as uprated systems and engines and a strengthened fuselage. Typically it flies with over 20 computers and over 50 specialist instruments on any flight, as well as a crew of up to 22.

This is a long term project which will take several years to complete, but it should give us a much better idea of what's going on in the atmosphere right over our heads.

UPDATE

George asks for more detail in the comments about these chemicals. There's a very good article from Nature about all this. Subscription only unfortunately. But basically these are bromine compounds which the researchers say have an impact on the ozone layer. So they're the naturally produced equivalent of the ozone-damaging compounds made to be used in fire extinguishers.

UPDATE II

Added in extra and more accurate detail about the British aircraft courtesy Dr Guy Gratton.

The science of sticky tape

David Gregory (BBC News) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 12:59:35 +0000

Today my colleagues at Radio Shropshire are going to attempt to beat the world record for "shortest time to duct tape a person to a wall". Apparently this is a real thing and you can see some videos here.

You'll notice that it doesn't take much tape to actually stick someone to a wall so that they are suspended off the ground for at least a minute. That's because this broad silver and white tape is in fact incredibly strong.

The always excellent Mythbusters in America have done several tv specials looking at all the fun you can have with gaffer tape. They've made everything from shoes and a canoe to a bridge that successful crossed a 100 foot gap.

But all this is nothing compared to the Alaskan pilot who's light aircraft was mauled by a bear and who repaired and flew his plane using duct tape. Amazing pictures can be found here.

So given all that it is perhaps no surprise it's not going to be hard to stick BBC staff to the odd wall.

Of course humble sellotape still beats duct tape at some things. If you peel a roll of sticky tape quickly in a darkened room you will see small flashes of light. You'll see the same effect opening self-sealing envelopes or crushing extra-strong mints with pliers.

This is triboluminescence. An effect we don't fully understand and it's more than a pretty light show. If you unroll sticky tape fast enough you could in theory generate x-rays powerful enough to take an image of your finger.

Don't worry, ordinary use poses no risk. But all this is a reminded just how amazing these office and workshop standbys can be.

Which lead to my favourite joke of all time. Why is duct tape like the Force in Star Wars? Because it has a light side and a dark side and it binds the universe together.

Helping our garden birds through a tough winter

David Gregory (BBC News) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:55:40 +0000

Wild birds have come to rely on us in a harsh winter. Putting out food and water is absolutely vital for their survival. But it also gives us a chance to see all sorts of wild birds up close.

These close encounters are also useful for conservationists and researchers. If we tell them what birds we can see in our gardens then they can learn much more about the UK's wild bird species and how they are doing.

At the moment there are three different surveys running which you can help with. If you're stuck indoors thanks to snow it might provide a bit of distraction for the kids as well!

First the University of Birmingham would like to learn more about how much we feed our garden birds. This is a link to their online survey. But if you prefer you can also email the project direct at feedingwildlife@gmail.com for a paper form to fill in. It's a simple survey that should only take you five minutes or so.

January is also when the British Trust for Ornithology are running a survey of black caps. These are birds we usually see in the summer but at this time of year they should have migrated south to Spain and North Africa. But more and more black caps are being spotted in winter in the UK making use of our well stocked bird feeders.

The BTO would like to learn more about this apparent change in behaviour and you can find their survey at this link. To help with identification that's a male black cap at the top of this post. This survey will take a bit more effort than the other research listed here, but the answers you will help provide will be fascinating.

Finally this weekend (26-27th Jan) is the RSPB's Big Garden Bird Watch. All the RSPB ask is for you to spend an hour watching the birds in your garden and making a note of what you see. You can find more details and pre-register to send your results in on their website here.

So that's three surveys where you can make a real difference to what we know about the birds we see in our garden. Feeding the birds this winter won't just help them survive, it will also help us learn much more about them and so protect their future as well.

Stargazing Live is back!

David Gregory (BBC News) — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:07:37 +0000

Stargazing Live is returning to BBC Two and BBC Midlands Today. I'm reporting on Karl Jones from Stourbridge who has twice successfully sent a videocamera to the edge of space using a helium balloon. Although finding it when it returns can be a bit of a tricky problem.

If you're interested in doing something similar then there are some great online resources. You can find plenty of step-by-step guides on the internet but this is a good one.

Karl says as well as telling the Civil Aviation Authority what you are up to you need to pack something that will reflect radar into your payload so aircraft can see it. A section of reflective heat blanket is great as it does the job but is light. The UK High Altitude Society has the form you need to fill in at least 28 days before launch and more information here.

Your balloon won't come down exactly where you launch it, so you need a calculator like this to predict where it might land. Karl works backwards, so he finds a good landing location and then works back to see when and where he'll need to launch the balloon

to achieve that. But stick to your timetable, we delayed Karl will all our filming needs and that lead to the balloon ending up 60 miles from where we thought it would land.

You have to keep things light, but Karl still managed to fit in an experiment, in this case what happens to sweets sent into space? The flying saucers (what else?!) returned unharmed, but all the sherbert had gone. If you have any theories as to what happened we'd love to hear them.

You can watch the full flight of Karl's balloon here and learn more about it (and how it lead to a marraige!) on the team's Facebook page.

So if all this has given you a taste for learning more about astronomy then Stargazing Live can help. There are plenty of events listed here. Many are free although some do charge. On the main Stargazing Live website you can also find details on how to get started as an astronomer.

Happy stargazing!

Update: As Karl points out in the comments the project also raised money for charity and you can find out more here.

Getting innovative with infection

David Gregory (BBC News) — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 18:25:54 +0000

For more about tonight's story on the University of Birmingham's Institute of Microbiology and Infection click here.

As our taster tonight showed there's a lot of really interesting research taking place at this newly created Institute. I'm sure we'll be reporting on more breakthroughs from them very soon.

New ways to fund video games

David Gregory (BBC News) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:09:16 +0000

So tonight we're looking at the role of the Kickstarter website in helping to fund video games. Kickstarter started in America but they've recently launched in this country.

Although you can try and fund any idea you like through the website it is interesting to see how it works when it comes to video games. In many ways the key to successful fundraising is reminiscent of good game design.

In creating a project on the site you need to attract people in, give them goals and a sense of progress and involvement. That's pretty much what a good video game should set out to do.

Our report tonight touches on two Kickstarter game projects underway in the Midlands. One for a game being created by Ross Tunney in Stoke-on-Trent and one for a new game based on a 1980's character called Dizzy from a major studio in Leamington Spa.

Ross was looking to create every aspect of his nostalgic RPG himself with the exception of the music so he used Kickstarter to ask for three hundred pounds to hire a composer. In fact he achieved twice the target so he'll be adding extra content.

At the other end of the scale is the Dizzy remake with a request for £350,000 from the Oliver brother of Blitz Games Studios. Although a healthy £25,000 has been pledged that's a long way short of the goal and time is running out. The gaming press has plenty of thoughts about what's gone wrong.

Personally I think it's probably early days for such a large scale kickstarter project in the UK. The website has only just launched here and many of those who visit are Americans who will be unfamiliar with Dizzy's oevre (or oeuf-re?) It's not the only large scale British project that may not achieve its goal either.

But overall it's hard not to be impressed by the potential of crowd funding websites like Kickstarter. It's already helped Ross achieve what he wanted and will hopefully allow him to work full-time on creating his games.

Even Sonic the Hedgehog wants to be an Angry Bird these days

David Gregory (BBC News) — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:02:34 +0000

If you asked people who don't play games to name a famous video game character who do you think they'd suggest? Mario perhaps? Or Sonic the Hedgehog?

Well Sonic is over twenty years old now and in his twenties he's branching out in a whole new direction. No longer do his creators SEGA see him as a character in games you go out and buy from a shop on the high street. Instead he's being giving a new life on smartphones and tablet computers.

The people helping him make this change work at a small games studio near Coventry. Hardlight Studio is a team of about twenty people looking to push Sonic in new directions. The first and biggest change is phones don't have a controller like a traditional console and the team at Hardlight even avoid having virtual buttons on screen.

Instead you use the tilt function of the smartphone to direct Sonic from platform to platform as he climbs ever higher. Now if you enjoy playing games on your smartphone you might think this sounds very familiar. The hot game of about three years ago was a title called "Doodle Jump" where your little character leapt from platform to platform with the score climbing as he did.

Except Sonic was here first. Back in 2006 there was a Sonic game where you leapt from platform to platform, climbing ever higher in the sky. Sadly that game was a bit ahead of it's time. This time around for this fresh game the reviews are looking good and 350,000 people have already bought the game.

Many of the team at Hardlight have come from a console world and it's fascinating to hear them talk about the feedback they get from Sonic on a smartphone. In the old days on a console once the game is out the door that was pretty much it. But with a smartphone game that's just the start. The team can see just how far gamers get in the game, how often they restart a level and when they stop playing. They can then tweak the games in small or even major ways to make sure they keep on playing. And hopefully even decide to spend a bit more money on purchasing extra content for the game such as new characters.

There are several new studios and small teams in the Midlands now focussing on this market and it's possible we may well see one of them create the very next "Angry Birds" a game that has sold over thirty million copies worldwide. As I said even Sonic would like to be an angry bird these days.

A brief history of science parks

David Gregory (BBC News) — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 17:07:45 +0000

This week is the 30th anniversary of Birmingham (formerly Aston) Science Park. So since the raison d'etre of this blog is "science is the answer" can science tell us if science parks are actually a good idea or not?

They've certainly proved popular. Aston was only the third science park in this country but in the three decades that followed they've spread right across the Midlands.

Like all ideas they've fallen out of favour and then made a comeback. In China, India and Singapore they are now seen as essential to progress.

But do the actually work? Especially as many are directly or indirectly funded by us.

I spent an enjoyable time talking to Shirley Hamilton of Techniplant. They were one of the earliest companies to set up on Birmingham Science Park. With support and help they've gone from little more than two people and a desk to a thriving company that's still looking to expand. There's no doubt too that the high-tech processes they create have been very beneficial to Midlands manufacturing as a whole. There are plenty of other similar success stories from science parks all over the region too.

In the 80s it was hoped a science park in a city like Birmingham could bring forward a who new sector of industry to replace declining manufacturing. But that didn't happen. So just what impact have our science parks actually had in the wider economy?

Well actually it's hard to say because there's not a lot of data about although I'd hesitate to suggest that's because Universities don't want to do the research because they're worried what they will discover about the science park that bears their name.

It is slightly easier to find those who criticise the whole concept though. Prof Stuart Macdonald of Aalto University in Helsinki was happy to chat with me over the internet. In the past he's studied Aston and Warwick business parks. He says the highest priority of companies isn't access to academics or the latest research, it's good parking.

Prof Macdonald also says people fixate on the wrong things when it comes to the science park concept. He says the aim for many is to replicate the success of places like Silicon Valley in California but that people grab on to all sorts of odd ideas about what that might involve. Including he says usually having an "inspirational" duck pond on the park. In fact you can trace the duck pond from Silicon Valley to Warwick to brand new parks in Shanghai.

Sadly that's about the most concrete piece of evidence I've really been able to find about the wider impact of these parks. For Birmingham Science Park they can point to the creation of 130 jobs and sixty new companies in the last three years alone and a new £35 million expansion coming soon. But might that have happened on an ordinary industrial estate? Providing there was plenty of parking it's certainly possible. Duck pond or no duck pond.

My morning with Dora the robotic explorer

David Gregory (BBC News) — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 16:42:50 +0000

I'll tell you a little truth about robots and television. They really don't mix. Especially robots and live television.

So sometimes in the name of getting a shot you ask if the robot you are filming could be made a little bit more cooperative. Which usually means turning off the robot's brain and putting it in "joystick mode" where it becomes a really expensive remote controlled toy.

But my morning with Dora was mostly spent with her thinking for herself. She really is a remarkable achievement even if not the prettiest of robots I've filmed.

The researchers from the University of Birmingham have spent four years on Dora. As they freely admit for them it's less about how a robot looks and more about how smart they can make it.

So Dora can map a room and look for objects or people. She's been programmed to be curious and to recognise what sort of room she's in. So if asked to find a magazine she'll start searching the living room first rather than the kitchen.

The aim is to produce robots that can cope in normal, chaotic human environments like our homes or offices. The project with Dora has now finished. But new research proposals are in and if successful the team want to build robots that can function for weeks and months at a time rather than hours.

You may one day find a daughter or Dora in a nursing home or working as a security guard in your office.

The 100 player video game

David Gregory (BBC News) — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:08:00 +0000

Last night in Birmingham I played a video game on a giant cinema screen along with 99 other people. What struck me as extraordinary was the games designers managed to convey fairly abstract goals, get a large crowd working together and even make it fun.

Birmingham based Wall Four is trying to create videogames for large numbers of people that can be played in cinemas. Providing cinema chains with alternative sources of revenue to films. You can read more about the young Birmingham company and see the game I played on their website.

The game we played last night is called Renga. It's a fairly abstract looking game that features some pretty familiar gaming tropes including defending a spaceship and tackling a final level boss.

But what's really interesting is the games various characters are controlled via 100 laser pointers distributed in the audience. Astonishingly people rapidly discover how pointing at particular locations on your ship or on an enemy can move or destroy them.

In the dark people seems happy to yell out discoveries and advice and quickly the audience becomes pretty effective at working out the goal and how to achieve it. Although there were some in our audience who also delighted in trying to subvert the aims of the group. Perhaps not totally surprising in an audience drawn heavily from the gaming industry. Last night was one of Birmingham's regular Launch gaming industry events.

Renga is an impressive and effective piece of game design. In a broader context it also shows the sort of stuff the Midlands gaming industry is capable of producing outside the dominant games companies and their AAA titles. Smaller start-ups working on innovative ideas. It's one reason why half the games produced in the UK are now made in the Midlands.

And back in the cinema, all 100 of us defeated the alien boss at the end.

Bluetongue vs Schmallenberg

David Gregory (BBC News) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:47:09 +0000

Bluetongue and Schmallenbery are both unpleasant diseases that have much in common. Both affect farm animals and both are spread by infected midges blown here from the continent. It's also worth saying both disease pose no direct risk to you or me.

Both have also been the subject of quite a lot of media interest. Indeed we're talking Schmallenberg on Midlands Today once again. For farmers Schmallenberg is particularly nasty because it really is a hidden disease. The first sign your sheep or cattle are infected is when they give birth to deformed or dead offspring.

According to the Institute of Animal Health the disease has managed to overwinter in the UK. This means it could be out there at the moment, and as farmers start to introduce rams to ewes there is a real risk to their unborn lambs.

It is possible to reduce that risk. For example farmers can spread out their lambing season, so if infected midges arrive a smaller section of the flock will be at risk rather than all of it.

What's missing is a vaccine against Schmallenberg. According to independent research it was the availability of a bluetongue vaccine and its use here that helped us avoid the sort of problems seen in Belgium where 7% of the country's cattle herd died from the disease. A similar outbreak here could cost the country around £500 million.

Unfortunately while research into a vaccine for Schmallenberg continues it won't be available in time to protect this year's lambs and calves. All our farmers can do is take reasonable precautions and hope infected midges avoid their farms.

And now here is the people forecast

David Gregory (BBC News) — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:17:24 +0000

Can a mobile phone predict where you will be tomorrow? Indeed it can, to an accuracy of about 20 metres and it's all thanks to your friends.

Imagine you are planing to head out after work on Friday to meet your friend Suraj for a quick drink at your favourite cocktail bar. About an hour before you leave work your phone bleeps and you get an electronic coupon for half-price cocktails at another bar. You're tempted to try the other place and it picks up your business.

This is just one application of work from the University of Birmingham that uses information gathered from your mobile phone to predict your location at a future time and date. The research was created as part of a competition organised by Nokia to find cool new ways to interpret a year's worth of location data gathered from volunteers.

The end result is a programme that can predict your likely location in the future down to about 20 metres, which is basically a city block. You can read the paper here. And see a video of the programme in action here.

Just the data from your phone on its own isn't enough, the key part of this research is adding in the location data of your friends' phones. That's what allows the prediction to go from accurate to about a kilometer to accurate to about 20 metres. And you don't need to have many friends to do this, in theory really good data from just one friend is enough. In the real world data from two or three would do.

It turns out as social animals it's the interaction with our friends and family that makes us so predictable.

Nokia were so impressed with this research the team won first prize in the competition. It's not too hard to see how something like this could be very useful for all sorts of businesses and more. On the other hand people may well find all this a bit Big Brothery.

In the end though, the data gathered here is what the mobile phone companies and others already know about us. It's possible the first you'll know about a system like this leaving the computer lab is when you get a text offering you half-price cocktails on a Friday just as you leave the office.

Investing in our virtual reality heritage

David Gregory (BBC News) — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 16:10:28 +0000

Nine years ago I met Mike Gogan when he was helping to create a virtual reality version of Anne Hathaway's cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon. The idea was to allow less mobile visitors to "visit" the interior of this important piece of English history even if it isn't possible for them to climb the narrow stairs to get to the first floor.
Since then his company has continued to model heritage sites and you can find details of some of their projects on the company website.
We caught up at Lunt Fort outside Coventry. A roman archaeological site that Mike has also turned into a 3d model. It really helps to get a sense of what was a very crowded and busy fort. Although I have to say some visiting children were also pretty engaged by some spectacularly gory descriptions of fort-life from an excellent guide.
For Mike, working in a fairly specialised area, the business challenge he faces is to make sure he can impress future clients in the face of global competition. And that's where the University of Warwick and the Warwick Manufacturing Group come in.
They've been working with Mike to push his virtual models even further, using the UK's highest resolution 3d "power wall".
The idea is to use the expertise at Warwick to give smaller companies like Mike's an edge when going out and getting new business. I look forward to returning to see Mike in another ten years and seeing how his plans to model heritage sites all over the world.

Help track a tern

David Gregory (BBC News) — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 16:20:20 +0000

Where do sooty terns go when they're not breeding on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic? The young can fly away for five years at a time before returning to start a family.

By using the very latest tracking technology the University of Birmingham has begun to answer that question. They attached tiny tracker chips about the size of a sugar cube to the legs of twenty sooty terns. These trackers can sense sunrise and sunset and that's enough information for the scientists to work out where the birds are.

So far the team has only recovered three of the trackers and they are sharing the data produced with us. As you can see the tracked birds spent up to 200 days out at sea travelling 25,000km. It's likely the birds spent almost all that time on the wing even sleeping while flying.

To keep the trackers as small as possible the data isn't transmitted back in real time. Instead the researchers have to find the birds they have tagged on their return to the Ascension Islands. It's a bit like looking for a needle in a very remote, smelly and noisy haystack.

This sort of technology is revolutionising our knowledge of all sorts of wildlife and the team from the University of Birmingham would like to buy more trackers to track more terns. Sadly the trackers are one-use only devices as they are tightly sealed to protect against the elements and being repeatedly dunked in the sea.

Trackers cost around £250 and if your school or wildlife group would be interested in helping this work and buying a tracker for the researchers to use then you can email the scientists in charge Dr Jim Reynolds at the University of Birmingham by clicking here.

None of this work would have been possible without the help and support of the Army Ornithological Society or AOS. You can read more about them here. At the moment we can see where just three birds have gone but with more trackers the researchers can build up a comprehensive picture of the behaviour of sooty terns. Which will tell us more about the birds and about the wider health of the South Atlantic ocean.