Drew won the Calcium Zone in June 2011, here’s how he spent his prize money…
When I competed in “I’m a Scientist Get Me Out of Here”, I rashly promised that I would produce an website game allowing students to play around with different designs and investigate whether they increased or decreased risk. My own research moved in a direction which made this difficult-to-impossible to do, so I’m guilty of bait-and-switch.
DisasterCast!
Here’s what I did with the money instead:
DisasterCast is a podcast about Scary Things. The first episodes came out in January 2013. Each episode is 30 minutes long, and follows the formula:
1) Something old – a discussion about a famous disaster and what we can learn from it. Early episodes include: the Hindenburg Disaster, Challenger, Coal Mine Disasters, Bhopal, and the world’s biggest ever industrial accident (you’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out more).
2) Something new – an easily digestible bite of knowledge about risk and safety science. This includes some real-life application of statistics, as well as things like the relationship between risk and uncertainty, why the HSE doesn’t ban the playing of conkers, and whether thunderstorms are more or less risky that Vogon Construction Fleets.
3) Something out of the blue – a scientific look at things that might kill you in the future. These include the star Gliese 710 (a real threat to humanity in 1.4 million years time), and rogue solutions to climate change (a real threat to humanity right now).
You’ll can find Disastercast at www.disastercast.co.uk, where you can register to be notified when each episode comes out.
