Number of the Week: 7,323

That's the number of ideas put forward so far (as of noon today) as part of the Your Country - Your Call initiative. Despite their being no category heading for science, a fair share of the proposals are science based. From the idea to send teams of science postgrads into schools to promote science to the idea to look at teleportation as a feasible means of transportation in Ireland. All human life is there! You've got just a few hours before the open call for proposals close at 11.59 tonight.

43 % have never been to the Natural History Museum

The Irish Natural History Museum has re-opened today after being closed since 2007. Despite a €15 million refurbishment being put on hold, the museum opened today with just minor structural changes having been made.
Due to the halt on refurbishment, little improvements have been made with regard to emergency exit from the upper floors. For that reason, the balcony galleries, containing many thousands of specimens, will no longer be accessible to the general public. This is a real shame, but we should be thankful for small mercies and the fact that the bulk of the museum is now, once again, open to the public.

According to our recent survey 57 % of readers who responded had previously visited the museum on Dublin's Merrion Street. If you haven't been, now is a perfect time to go. It's free, so bring a friend!

So you want to be a scientist?

In the age of TV talent competitions and the X Factor, the BBC have used the format to help amateur scientists turn their ideas into real experiments.

This week, four finalists for the "So you want to be a scientist?" competition were announced. These came from the some 1,300 ideas which were submitted since January.

The amateur scientists will now work with experienced researchers to design and implement their experiments and collect and analyse the results, They'll present the results at the British Science Festival in September when the judges will pick an overall winner.

The four finalists are:

Sam O'kell, a croupier, who wants to test his hypothese that concert crowds are more dense between 6-10 feet from the stage rather than at the very front.

Ruth Brooks, a retired special needs tutor, wants to protect her plants by establishing the homing distance of the Garden Snail. "How far away do I ahve to dump them before they find their way back to my garden?"

Nina Jones, a 17-year-old A-level student, is interested in Facebook and particularly what makes up a typical Facebook profile picture. Adults seem to show a big event in their lives, while teenagers tend to use a picture of themselves having a great time. Nina will see if this is true and why it occurs.

The final place (which was a very close call by all acounts) went to John Rowlands who wants to "investigate the frequency and brightness of noctilucent clouds".

Ideas which made the shortlist, but just missed out on a place in the final include an investigation by a gallery owner into why more people come into the gallery when he places a mannequin in the window. Do art lovers not like to be on their own?

Another shortlisted amateur scientist wanted to see whether getting a choir to sing a piece of music based on the sounds of bees to the hive once a week would increase honey production.

Angus Johnson on the other hand proposed an investigation into the ability of men and women in their ability to find one item amid a clutter of other objects. Are men much messier than women?

Science writer and broadcaster Dr. Adam Rutherford welcomed the competition noting that "science is not a bank of knowledge. It's a way of knowing. Qualifications and working in professional labs certainly does help, but if you've ever looked at something and thought "hmmm, how does that work?" or "what happens if I...?" then you're thinking like a scientist already."

If you're in school and interested in trying your hand at some scientific experiments, then you can try the BT Young Scientist Competition or SciFest.

More Tweeting - Mooney Goes Birdwatching

 This is the post for Nestwatch 2010. For more information on the 2011 nestcams, see our new post.

For information on Nestcam 2012, see the website.
Hot on the heels of our own tweeting debut, congratulations are in order for Derek Mooney and his Mooney Goes Wild team (RTE Radio 1) for continuing their Nestcam experiments.

You can see a robin looking after five hatchlings in Derek's back garden here. Meanwhile, over in Áras an Uachtaráin (the residence of the Irish President), a bluetit is building it's nest and preparing to lay eggs.

In Search of Greatness

There has been much debate in Irish scientific circles lately as to why no scientists had made it into RTE's much hyped list of the Greatest Irish People. I've made the point that instead of bemoaning the fact that the public have snubbed us scientists in favour of some worthy and some (arguably) less worthy individuals, Irish science should be asking itself why it has come to this?

Why don't the general public consider Irish scientists worthy of this title? Do they know enough about them? Do they really value their work?

On the back of this assault on our collective egos, Science.ie launched a poll to find the Greatest Irish Scientist. Robert Boyle (of Boyle's Law fame) was the most popular with almost two thirds of the vote (32.2%). William Rowan Hamilton (21.2%) and Ernest Walton (17.8%), a mathematician and nuclear physicist respectively, came in next.

The full top ten is as follows:

Science.ie poll results – top 10 Irish scientists:

1. Robert Boyle, who turned chemistry into a science
2. William Rowan Hamilton – the algebra he invented in 1843 helped to put a man on the Moon more than a century later
3. Ernest Walton, whose pioneering work began the atomic era
4. Kathleen Lonsdale, the X-ray crystallographer who revealed the structure of benzene and diamond
5. Dorothy Price, instrumental in the fight against tuberculosis, introducing the BCG vaccine to Ireland in the 1930s
6. John Tyndall, the first person to answer the question “Why is the sky blue?” successfully
7. Harry Ferguson, who revolutionised farming when he invented the modern tractor
8. Sir George Gabriel Stokes, for his important contributions to fluid dynamics, optics and mathematical physics, including Stokes’ theorem
9=. Fr Nicholas Callan, who invented the modern induction coil, still used in car ignitions
9=. Charles Parsons, inventor of the steam turbine
9=. William Thompson, who formulated the first and second Laws of Thermodynamics

No room it seems for George Boole, Br. James Burke or Br. John Philip Holland.

Boole was the first Professor of Mathematics at Queen's College Cork (now UCC), where the library is now named in his honour. He invented Boolean logic which formed the basis of modern computer logic and makes him, in hindsight, a founder of modern computer science.

Burke was a Christian Brother who taught at the North Monastery in Cork City and was renowned for his work in developing practical scientific and technical education in Ireland during the late 19th century. Amongst his achievements includes bringing electric light to Cork in 1877, two years before Thomas Edison invented the electric bulb. He was a pioneer and advocate for practical, scientific education in Ireland and represented Ireland at the World's Fair in St Louis, Missouri in 1904.

Writing in The Glamour of Cork, Daniel Lawrence Kelleher (1919) describes an aging Burke as:

"This big, slow-footed, heavy, smiling, half-blind old man [who] has put into practice the most enlightened methods of education.
"Behold him in his class, a combination and anticipation of Montessori, Pearse and a hundred others, a curious wheedling old fellow, the father, uncle and guardian of his pupils, and no master at all in the narrow sense; or another time at the Trades Hall talking to workers back to childhood by his overflowing interest.
"A teacher out of a million, his lesson a preparation for life rather than for any examination test, his shining spirit a light always for any who saw the flame of it, alive".

Holland, a Christian Brother colleague of Burke at the North Monastery, is credited with developing the first submarine to be commissioned by the US Navy (USS Holland), and the first Royal Navy submarine- the Holland 1. The first image in this post shows Holland standing at the hatch of a submarine.

Thanks to North Monastery Past Pupils Union for permission to use photos from their collection. Expect to hear much more about both Burke and Holland in 2011 when the North Monastery schools celebrate their bicentennial.

Spectacular Images of the Eyafallajokull Eruption

The Stromboli Project, has released a set of images which show the Eyafallajokull eruption surrounded by lightning caused by electrical discharge within the column of ash. See the full collection of photos here.

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