Prehistoric Autopsy

I was very excited to see the trailer for Prehistoric Autopsy a few weeks ago, and couldn't wait for the first episode on Monday. In many ways, I got what I was expecting - the same TV cliches that characterise many science or forensic programmes - the blue back lighting, the transparent white board, the top down shots and the large plasma screens showing fantastic reconstructions. But, overall, I was very pleasantly surprised by the format and the informative content. I have watched several of Alice Roberts' shows in the past, and liked them (I hasten to add), but in this one, I thought she was at her best - she seemed relaxed and enthusiastic, and a little less wooden than she has been before. George McGavin is likeable too - I tend to think of him as 'the new' David Bellamy. The idea of concentrating on three of the 'pop stars' or 'icons' of our evolutionary past was a fun twist on the ordinary format of starting at the beginning and working our way up to the present. It was also fast-moving enough to keep up interest. Of course, I was on the look out for slip-ups or factual inaccuracies (I can't help it); and although there were a few instances where clear conjecture or speculation was given one minute, and taken as read in the next sentence; it was generally a really good synopsis of current research into evolutionary anatomy, with some grand old chestnuts and a few new advances thrown in for good measure. And the silicon reconstructions of the hominids were very impressive. I loved the confident, fierce look in Lucy's eyes! Anyway, if you haven't seen all the episodes, I'd encourage you to hunt them out on iPlayer. Hopefully more programmes like this will make it onto the BBC's radar, and bring palaeoanthropology to our living rooms more often.

The summer can't be over yet!

I'm sorry, loyal readers, about my lack of posts recently. I have spent the summer supervising pig decomposition projects, planning my wedding, watching the Olympics and having a short summer holiday with my man. Now, back at home, I am trying to eek out the last dregs of the summer, by preparing to attend a conference in (shucks) Portugal. It is the Emerging Security Technologies 2012 conference, and I will be giving a presentation in the Biometrics workshop about familiar face recongition (co-authored by C. Frowd and H. York). In the study, we asked volunteers to see if they could recognise the scanned faces of their friends - it gives us insight in exactly how we recognise familiar people, and strays quite a lot into psychology, which makes it extra exciting for me! Anyway, enough talking about it..I'd better get on with writing the presentation!

Fun at the Royal Society

This week, I had the honour of being part of the Summer Science Exhibition at the Royal Society. It is an annual event which showcases the best of British scientific endeavour in a fun exhibition open to the public. They host events such as panel discussions and Cafes Scientifiques. I was invited to chair a panel discussion on Friday evening entitled "Following the Fingerprints". The panel members were all well-known forensic scientists: Dr Paul Debenham, Director of Innovation and Development at LGC; Hayley-Jackson-Smith, forensic scientist with the London Metropolitan Police; Clea Koff, forensic anthropologist and author; and famous crime writer, Val McDermid. The room was packed with a mixed audience of students, scientists, children and "culturally-active" (the Royal Society's term, which I love) lay people. After a brief introduction from me, the panellists presented snippets of their work, including the benefits of Luminol for highlighting latent footwear marks in blood; the intricacies of DNA profiling; personal experiences in identifying victims of genocide; and how to write a best-selling suspense novel! Then we discussed such notions as why forensic science captures the imagination so; whether the expectations fuelled by TV shows can ever be reached; the importance of interpretation of forensic evidence; the future technological advancements that could revolutionise our judicial system; our moral obligations as forensic scientists; and many more thought-provoking concepts. The panel was fantastic, and I think we sparked off each other very well, and the audience provided a steady stream of challenging questions. A video of the evening will be available on the Royal Society website shortly.
I really enjoyed the experience, especially the feeling of bonding with the panellists under the friendly fire of the audience questions! I hope to work with each of the panellists again soon.

Book news

Hello again Lovely Readers! Long time no hear! I have emerged unscathed from a mound of exam-script marking, to be greeted by a pile of supervision feedback that won't write itself. While trying to keep all my other projects afloat.
The good news is that my favourite project at the moment - the new, indispensable book for Forensic Science Educators - has just been given the green light by Wiley! If all goes well, the book should hit shelves by the end of next year. In the meantime, all of you who call yourselves 'Forensic Educators', or simply 'educators with an interest in forensics', or even just 'slightly interested'; please have a look and contribute to our new hub of all things to do with Forensic Science Education. We are trying to find out about the real issues that affect real life people who are dealing with/coping with/battling/striding out in every day teaching, research and training in forensics. If you have an issue, and you'd like to share it (after all, 'a problem shared is a problem halved'), then please post a comment.

Busy, busy, busy!

Hello there readers! I apologise for the long delay in posting. My only excuse is that I have been rather busy over the last few months, marking exam scripts; setting up more pig decomposition experiments; running short courses; a little more TV consultancy, launching new book projects; and going on holiday. Oh, and I have got engaged too! Woo-hoo!

In the middle of May, I ran an Higher Education Academy-funded workshop in improving learner experience in forensic science education, open to all lecturers, teaching assistants, practitioner trainers and interested lay people, which was really well received. We used the workshop to launch a new 20 chapter volume dedicated to giving forensic educators and practitioner trainers a useful "tool-kit" for keeping their courses lively, relevant, high quality, and within budget.  If you're involved in forensic science education or training of any sort, or science education that includes a forensic element, have a look at the book project website. The book will be published by Wiley and will be out next year. I will keep you posted about its progress, never fear!

If you're interested in science communication and public outreach (and lets face it, who isn't?), then check out this event that I'll be chairing in July.

Silent Witness gets better

Those of you who have followed my antics from the start may remember one of my very early blog posts (On the set), in which I advised (well, visited, sat around and drank tea is probably more accurate) the cast and crew of Silent Witness about forensic anthropology. You might be interested to note that the episodes in question are due to be aired this week. The episodes are called And Then I Fell in Love (Part 1 and Part 2), and air on BBC1 at 9pm on Easter Sunday and Monday. Look out for the woman squashed into a suitcase - I helped to make her look more realistic by painting her with gravy browning. I also suggested that they increase the moisture content in the suitcase considerably, and I even got a chance to coach Emilia Fox on how to take some craniometric measurements and use spreading callipers - but she knew most of it already.

Washing up

Now, I don't usually bring my work home with me, or at least I try not to; mainly because it is not very popular with Him Indoors. However, this week, I have had to, largely because of silly Health and Safety rules at work. I'll explain. I am currently preparing for my module next week, which is Forensic Craniofacial Identification. This is a great module, of which the highlight is that the students get to try their very own facial reconstruction. This section of the course is taught by the very able and lovely Teri Blythe. Now, for the students to do this, they need a skull to reconstruct, obviously. We don't want them to use real ones, for (I hope) obvious reasons, so we buy these from France Casts, which is great. However, we cannot afford to buy new ones each year, so, inevitably, we have to clean them up each year, ready for the next lot of students. When I say 'we', I really mean 'I'. This is unless I can bribe an eager student into helping me - as I managed to do this year - but unfortunately not with a bribe of any real value at all - just major Brownie points!

So, "How do you get layers of plasticine off plastic skulls?" I hear you ask. Well, with difficulty, that's how! Suffice to say that it involves a LOT of white spirit, which, when I last checked, was not stocked in the stationery cupboard at work.

So, this was our draining board last night...  Ho hum.