ATOM Science Festival on Abingdon Market Place

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There were about twenty stalls with free science activities on Abingdon Market Place today as part of the ATOM Science Festival. Talks were also ongoing throughout the day elsewhere.
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These two people help at the festival. James White is the founder of the festival  and Dr. Jennifer Turner the founder of Bright Sparks Science, a Community Interest Company based in Abingdon, with an objective to make science fun.
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Dr Mark Thornton has taken over Chairing the Science Festival this year. Previous to that he ran Mostly Books in Abingdon with his wife for eleven years.
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Heather Brown has been involved with admin and publicity, and Dr. Graeme Smith is the Science Co-ordinator at  St Helen and St Katharine school. The animal in the picture is the Tardigrade, one of a number of weird and wonderful creatures put in shops in Abingdon for children to find.
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There were lots of local scientific companies and education institutions  with demonstrations, and offering have-a-go science activities, for all the family. Oxford Instruments, who produce super magnets for research purposes, were showing some properties of magnets. The Ferrofluid in this flask shows the magnetic fields in 3d.Science
Oxford Biomedica develop gene-based medicines, and were showing some of their equipment. What I gathered is they grow kidney tissue in layers in that box and then develop a vaccine specific to the patient that gives them a boost in fighting back against illnesses. Kidney cancer was mentioned. They are also working on something that helps Parkinson Patients produce their own dopamine. The nerve cells that normally produce dopamine have died in Parkinson’s Disease..
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These two Phd students from Oxford have created a system for predicting weather around the globe using 4 Raspberry pi computers (that cost about £30 each).
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Abingdon Naturalists’ Society had various vessels containing creatures dipped out of a pond yesterday. This glass contains Toad Spawn and tadpoles and water plants.

Many youngsters and adults were entranced by all that was happening on these and all the other stalls.

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