We had a fantastic response to our Festive Prize Draw to win an iPod touch.

Thanks to everyone who entered and spread the exciting news on Facebook and Twitter.

We are delighted to announce the winner is Val Stevens at the Rowett Institute, Aberdeen who we hear is “thrilled!”.

Congratulations Val and enjoy your brand new iPod!

We will have lots more FAB-U-LOUS competitions, prizes and promotions throughout the new year so keep a close eye on our blog and all of our social networks for the latest news.

Enter our festive prize draw and you could be the proud owner of an Apple 8GB iPod Touch!

…Or, if you’re feeling the spirit of giving, you can give someone a fantastic holiday present. All you need to do is fill in the entry form and the iPod touch could be yours in time for Christmas. Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook has become a major communication channel in recent years, and new research claims there is a direct link between the number of friends a person has on the site and the size of certain areas of the brain.

The team behind the study were unable to say whether certain regions of the brain are enlarged by having a bigger social circle or some people are 'hardwired' to have more friends. However, a clear association was found between people who have more friends and a higher amount of grey matter in various parts of the brain.

One of the key regions to benefit from this increase in grey matter was the amygdale, which is associated with processing memory and emotional responses. Previous studies had found this area was larger in people with a larger network of real friends and the study confirmed this is true for online relationships too. The size of the right superior temporal sulcus, the left middle temporal gyrus and the right entorhinal cortex were also found to be linked with social networks, although the same link is not found when assessing the number of real world friends. The superior temporal sulcus helps humans perceive a moving object as biological, while the entorhinal cortex is linked with navigation and memory and the middle temporal gyrus helps determine social clues.

Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve really entertained us with your suggestions for the Science World photo caption.

This has been such good fun, here’s another to get your teeth into…

What is Sideshow Dave thinking?

Here is Dr Hal with his sidekick, Sideshow Dave creating another madcap experiment at Science World 2011.

What on earth can they be thinking?!

Tell us your caption ideas on our Facebook page (Remember this is a family show!)

It’s just for fun but we’ll announce our favourite next week.

In addition to Fisher Scientific sponsored competitions held at Science World 2011, SciLabware held a raffle competition during the event to mark this year’s Rugby World Cup, which kicks off in September.

Participants were eligible to win the first place prize of a Rugby jersey of his or her choice or a second place prize of a SciLabware glassware hamper.

“The simple raffle draw formant brought out the competitive spirit in Science World visitors and they were soon queuing up to choose a ticket,” said Mike McLeod of SciLabware. “Our raffle competition attracted over 100 entrants – that’s  over 15% of the event attendees. Fisher Science World 2012 is already in our diary.”

Rihannon Hurst from the department of Biosciences at Birmingham University won first place after drawing ticket number 247. Rhiannon chose a Welsh rugby jersey as a surprise birthday present for her father.
Read the rest of this entry »