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So, what happens when an OU volcanologist is invited out to India to join the filming of a major new BBC series? Find out...

Dr Mike Widdowson, volcanologist at the OU’s Department of Environment, Earth and Ecosystems, joined the filming of BBC TWO series The Story of the Continents in October, which will be aired on domestic UK TV in March-April next year (2013).

Mike’s no stranger to the camera as in 2010, he fronted-up an episode of the Canadian TV series ‘The odyssey of the continents’ which was filmed on location in India, and in the OU’s world-class rock-dating laboratories.

'It was really good to catch up with Iain again'
He said: “This latest filming trip was a bit of a whirlwind excursion lasting only five days. Together with the assistant cameraman Claudio Cadman, I arrived in Mumbai late on the Sunday evening. The remainder of the team, including assistant producers, sound and camera crew had already been out filming in and around the city. By Wednesday evening we had completed everything, and we all flew back home on the Thursday.”

Mike met up with the team, together with the BBC presenter Iain Stewart, very early on Monday morning when they then set off for the spectacular scenery of the Western Ghats hills, some four hours’ drive from Mumbai.

Iain Stewart is well known to many who watch the BBC Earth Science programmes – he has presented TV programmes such as Making Scotland’s Landscape, Men of Rock, and How to Grow a Planet, as well as Volcano Live.

Mike said: “It was really good to catch up with Iain again – we had met in Glasgow on a number of occasions a few years back over beers and a curry – at the time I was jointly supervising a PhD student at Glasgow University.”

Mike and Iain were in India to shoot a piece about the Deccan flood basalt eruptions which is based on Mike’s research there.

“I've been researching the ancient volcanic landscape of western India for over 25 years now, and we have made many key findings through my detailed fieldwork, and the efforts of my PhD students, as well as through our analytical work at The Open University,” he added.

'Massive eruptions, toxic gases, and the struggle of life'
“We’ve unearthed a fascinating story of massive eruptions, toxic gases, and the struggle of life at ‘Deccan ground zero’. What we have discovered is that the effect of these eruptions are likely to have been a major contributory factor to the mass extinction event 65 million years ago - most famous for the demise of the dinosaurs. We aimed to get this idea across in this BBC TV episode – we argue that a combination of Deccan volcanism and a meteorite impact in Mexico was the 'double blow' that killed off many species on the lands and in the oceans at the end-Cretaceous.”
 
The programme will form part of the Australaisa episode of a five-part BBC series. Iain has done 'the talk to camera narrative' based on Mike’s work on the Deccan – “And very good he is, too!” said Mike. At the same time, Mike was filmed 'interview style', and his footage will be used for a parallel series which will go out to BBC worldwide.

'Rat-catchers of Mumbai'
Mike added: “We had four very hectic days filming – it has been hard work with umpteen takes for the various pieces, but always good fun throughout. In fact, we arrived at one locality – the ancient Bhuddist caves of Karla and Bhaja which were cut by hand 2,000 years ago into the Deccan rock - only to find there was a major religious Hindu festival taking place. It was amazingly colourful, with offerings of food being burned on a huge pyre. We filmed in among all the smoke and crowds!”.

The final days of filming were in Mumbai, after which Iain and the crew took a midnight jaunt to film the rat-catchers of Mumbai – but to find out why, you’ll have to watch the TV programme next spring!

 

Pictured is Dr Mike Widdowson with cameraman Claudio Cadman.


 

An OU Senior Lecturer has scooped the title of Most Innovative Teacher of the Year.

Dr Mark Brandon, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science at the OU, achieved the accolade at the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards 2012 last night (29 November 2012).

The award recognised Dr Brandon’s achievements as Principal Scientific Advisor to the Frozen Planet BBC TV series and writing a complementary undergraduate course of the same name, and for his extensive outreach activities.

Commenting on the award, Dr Brandon said: “I am a polar scientist, and my passion is teaching and researching our planet’s magnificent Polar Regions. To be formally recognised in this way is a huge honour for me. I am hoping it will help in some way to keep Polar science in the spotlight and stimulate interest in science in schools, interest groups and policy specialists.”

The Frozen Planet is a short course, and the first chapter is available free online via OpenLearn. More than 15,000 people worldwide have already studied it, and it is the most popular Open University study unit of all time.

Craig Mahoney, Chief Executive of the Higher Education Academy and one of the awards judges, said: “The metrics associated with student registrations, viewer interest, resource development, testimonial support, student feedback and a sustained commitment from The Open University, make Mark an outstanding choice.”

The award was one of only two individual awards at the black-tie ceremony hosted by David Walliams at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, London, the other being the Lord Dearing Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Open University in Wales was shortlisted in the category, Outstanding Employer Engagement Initiative, for its work to significantly expand the number of health support workers being prepared to undertake emerging para-professional posts within a modernised NHS.

John Gill, Editor of THE, concluded: “Anyone looking for evidence of the pioneering spirit, adaptability and sheer quality of our higher education sector need look no further than this year’s Times Higher Education Awards.”


Pictured, from left, are Professor Hazel Rymer, Dean and Director of Studies, Science Faculty; Dr Mark Brandon, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science; Martin Bean, Vice-Chancellor, The Open University; and Dr Nick Rogers, Senior Lecturer, Science

Writing a magical children’s book has provided much-needed life balance for Kate Spencer, who is studying for an OU Natural Sciences degree.

"At one time, being a scientist very definitely meant putting on a white coat, going into a laboratory and fiddling with meters and glassware.

"If you walk around a research lab now, the large majority of people will be looking at screens."

Professor Steve Swithenby, co-director of the OU's new OpenScience Laboratory, talks about how the OU's science teaching is evolving to reflect fundamental changes in the way scientists work. 

He also describes the virtual lab rat and some of the other facilities being developed for the OpenScience Laboratory, an OU project launched with a £1 million grant from The Wolfson Foundation. 

Read the interview with Professor Swithenby in Science Omega here. 

Image: Andy Pini

The Scottish Government has allocated £50,000 annually for the next three years to fund almost 200 students in Scotland to study SK124 Understanding the Autism Spectrum.

This is part of a wider initiative to promote the Scottish Government’s autism strategy. Announcing the initiative,  Michael Matheson MSP, Minister of Public Health, emphasised the role of education and training in increasing understanding of autism and providing support for those who work with and care for people on the autism spectrum.
 
Dr Ilona Roth, Senior Lecturer in Psychology in the Science Faculty and Chair of Understanding the autism spectrum said:  “We are absolutely delighted to be collaborating with the Scottish Government on such an important and worthwhile initiative.
 
“As an authoritative, up-to-date and accessible guide to the field, our course has proved extremely popular, attracting more than 3,000 students over the last three years, including health and legal professionals, teachers, parents and grandparents, as well as people on the spectrum.
 
“The interest in this new Scottish initiative has been fantastic, and the OU in Scotland has worked really hard to get everyone registered in time. We expect well over 1,100 students on SK124 this year, and we are looking forward to welcoming all students when the course starts again in November,” she said.




 

Researchers at The Open University have presented plans for an extraplanetary laboratory that will determine whether it will be possible to establish a base on the Moon, or potentially Mars.

The Open University's Planetary and Space Sciences researchers have developed a conceptual Lunar Volatile Resources Analysis Package (L-VRAP) that, if selected for funding, will ascertain whether there are sufficient quantities of water and fuel at the Moon’s South Pole to support a future manned research base. Researchers also suggest that L-VRAP could be utilised in a similar mission to Mars.

L-VRAP is a miniature chemical laboratory capable of identifying and quantifying volatiles - elements and compounds with low boiling points such as nitrogen, water, carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrogen and methane - in the Moon’s crust and atmosphere.

The device could be fitted to a Lunar or Martian lander and would carry out scientific investigations that are essential to the success of long-term space exploration and could pave the way for an extended human presence away from the Earth.

Dr Simon Sheridan, Research Fellow at The Open University and one of the authors of the paper, said: “To date, only a tiny fraction of the Moon's surface has been physically sampled and analysed and all of that activity took place 40 years ago. Our L-VRAP device is a state of the art sampling and analysis package that will determine in situ, the abundance and the isotopic composition of volatiles present in the Moon’s atmosphere, surface and sub-surface.”

Previously thought to be a dry, barren landscape, recent evidence suggests that the Moon has large pools of frozen water in craters around its poles. By measuring the detailed isotopic composition of key elements, L-VRAP may be able to provide clues to the origin of any water detected on the Moon.

The Lunar Lander mission will be considered at the ESA Ministerial meeting in November 2012. If selected, L-VRAP could launch as early as 2019. Meanwhile, The Open University will be developing L-VRAP in readiness for other space mission opportunities.

The paper describing the L-VRAP has been published in Planetary and Space Science. A copy of “L-VRAP - A Lunar Volatile Resources Analysis Package for Lunar Exploration” is available here.


 
Pictured is an annotated image of the L-VRAP CAD model

 

The OU is working on two Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) to improve competitive advantage.

It has recruited Jennifer Hulse to work on a KTP project with Hichrom Ltd, a HPLC column manufacturer and supplier of the world's largest range of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) columns.

It chose the OU’s Faculty of Science as its academic partner because the Department of Chemistry has over 30 years of experience of silicon chemistry and has published widely on the synthesis of silanes and it will ensure that Hichrom maintains its competitive advantage through leading edge knowledge and expertise.

The OU has also recruited KTP associate Christopher Miller to work on a 48-week KTP project with the Co-operative College, an educational charity which serves the co-operative and mutual sectors in the UK and beyond. The Co-operative College engages in co-operative learning and development globally.

Working with the OU’s Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology, the College will develop the capability to set up and run its own Virtual Learning Environment, to investigate the potential of social networking for learning, and to engage with more co-operative learners more cost-effectively.

Find out more about OU KTPs.





 

An OU PhD student has scooped first prize for her research at a prestigious event in Vienna.

Melanie Georgiou won first prize for her oral presentation at the Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) World Congress in Vienna earlier this month (September 2012).

Melanie presented her interim findings on work using stem cells from adipose tissue, which is part of a bigger project to develop tissue-engineered implantable devices for the surgical repair of the peripheral nervous system.

She said: “It was a great opportunity to showcase our research and I feel honoured to have won! My research indicates that adipose tissue can be used as a source of cells that could be combined with natural biomaterials to engineer new nervous system tissue. Building replacement nerve tissue in this way may one day be useful in repairing peripheral nerves that have been damaged by trauma.”

Dr James Phillips, Lecturer in Health Sciences and Melanie’s PhD supervisor, said: “Melanie’s achievement is remarkable and her work has been instrumental in furthering the overall project. Peripheral nervous system injuries that result in extensive loss of nerve tissue can currently only be treated using grafts of healthy nerves from elsewhere in a patient, resulting in additional damage and limited functional recovery.

"To build an effective replacement tissue that could be used as an alternative to a nerve graft requires a source of suitable cells. Melanie demonstrated how cells from a patient’s fat tissue could potentially form the living cellular component of a tissue engineered replacement nerve. This part of the project involved a collaboration between the tissue engineers at the OU and adipose stem cell experts in Sweden.”

Melanie’s work is part of the work of the Open University’s Biomedical Research Network. Her supervisors are Dr James Phillips, Dr Jane Loughlin and Dr Jon Golding. Further information about this research can be found at: www.jamesphillips.org

Watch this video and find out more...

 

 

Find out more:

• Another video: Research into damage repair and the nervous system
• Open Research Online