Last Wednesday night, I attended the FreshScience talks at the Lion Hotel in North Adelaide. I was there to hear from all the South Australian based young researchers who had just been through two days of media and public communications training, and were now going to give a casual but short talk on their research in a pub setting.

The night was hosted by Sarah Brooker – Managing Director of ‘Science in Public’ , “We believe that the media have an appetite for science”. The presenting researchers were kept on their toes and didn’t even know which order they were to speak in. To make the time limit extra obvious, each speaker with given a birthday sparkler. They were to introduce themselves, have the sparkler lit, and then had until the fire ran out to tell the audience all about their work.

They did brilliantly. Most of the young researchers didn’t even seem to need their full sparkler time. They told us the basics of their work, and then would look down, surprised that the sparkler was still going and so they could tell us more. Much of what they said after their first spiel was more about the impact and importance of their work – how it was going to help people of change things. Often it was the most interesting part!

After their talk, each speaker was asked several questions by both Sarah Brooker and the audience. For some of the speakers, the answers merely expanded on what they had already outlined for us. But for a few, the questions and answer time provided a much clearer picture of what their work was about.

The topics varied considerably. We heard about a fascinating array of research. There was everything from using thermal maps of Mars to find liquid water underground, to phyto-absorbtion and -restoration of mining sites using acacia, to the impacts of greater fish oil consumption in pregnant women to lower the likelihood of allergies in their children, to using system dynamics software to help solve complex social problems, a number on severe brain, spinal cord and body trauma reactions and potential treatments, and one talk on a new sensor, sensitive enough to monitor the health of embryos during IVF.

The young researchers had spent the day working with different media representatives, learning how to convey and discuss their work with the media and the public. This night of talks was presented to a mostly academic audience, who were very interested in the scientific details of how the research developed, what the findings were and then what the broader applications were.

It was a brilliant night and I am keen to attend again next year to hear about the work of the next successful wave of young researchers.

P.S The Lion Hotel did a great job of hosting Fresh Science – just watch out for those extra hot chicken wings!

If you would like to know more about the FreshScience competition, or about Science in Public, check out their website at, http://www.scienceinpublic.com.au