"Why do we end up giving cows antibiotics? Because they cannot work the hand washing taps, and when they try to sing 'Happy Birthday' it just comes out mo m'moo moo moo moo..."
I heard this from Rhiannon seven hours into a straight shift at the Cheltenham Science Festival - it sounded odd but I, and her young audience, understood exactly what she meant (see video below).
Rhiannon and I were the NAMRIP component of the University of Southampton Roadshow (additional stands and helpers from the university are listed at the base of the page). We linked our three NAMRIP exhibits (handcleaning, cow hooves and ultrasonic levitation) in the following story, which the children picked up as they passed from Rhiannon to me:
- first, luminous gel was applied to their hands, which they then washed, only to then discover some gel remained in their fingerprints, under their fingernails etc. The children were invited to think about how infection might spread, e.g. through air travel, through any breaks in the skin (mouths, eyes, cuts etc.). The take-away message was "wash your hands for two verses of 'Happy birthday to you'";
- second, the youngsters passed onto models of cow hooves and the shoes we have been designing for them in NAMRIP to keep infected hooves out of the dirt on the farm floor, to reduce the amount of antibiotics given to cattle;
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third, they passed onto an acoustic levitator that was used to show how we might move cells around with cells to determine what type of infection was present.
The day was long and exciting, with a very enthusiastic young audience that gave us good marks on our scoresheet
Sharing our tent was an audiology team from ISVR, and we paired up well when the public asked about ear infections (see below).
At the end, a huge rainstorm appeared out of nowhere, making the pavements more than ankle-deep on water, so we huddled in the tent as around us, other people disassembled their tents, then regretted it !
Many thanks to Peter Glynn-Jones and his team for loaning us the ultrasonic levitator, and thanks to Shoufeng Yang and Emma Roe for all their hard work to date on the hoof project. The handwashing materials were prepared by Mengyang Zhu, Tom Secker and Craig Dolder. The full list of helpers for the week at Cheltenham Science Festival, and their exhibit names, is as follows:
NAMRIP : Rhiannon Lloyd Leighton, Timothy Leighton
Acoustic Levitation : Peter Glynne-Jones
Stem Cells : Jon Dawson, Mohamed Mousa, Shona Waddell, Yanghee Kim
ISVR/Audiology : Fred Vanheusden, Rebecca Duan, Toby Goehring
Theoretical Chemistry : Tim Wiles, Tim Naginey, Hannah Bruce Macdonald and colleagues
ADRC-E (Administrative Data Research Centre England): Lisa Then
Plasma Drives : Charlie Ryan, Chengyu Ma, Alison Dufresne, Marian Daogaru, Dipen Mistry
Supernovae : Sam Connolly, Sam Mangham, Peter Boorman.
Special thanks for organizing the whole event go to NAMRIP members Steve and Tony:
- Dr Steve Dorney , Principal Public Engagement Fellow within Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton, coordinates all the NAMRIP outreach activities.
- Dr Tony Curran , researcher in the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment, runs the University's Roadshow which includes our NAMRIP exhibits.
