BT Young Scientist - is there something fishy? MOD Note in OP

_Dara_

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Good question - why would you?

I just don’t understand it.

The obvious inference from my post was that I don't begrudge him. I and other have legitimate questions. Criticism is not begrudgery.

cookie1977

Kurtosis wrote: »

Is it known what species of plant he used? Rubus is the genus or latin name of blackberry plans.

Careful now. Facts only please.

Roger Hassenforder

So Roger jnr has his show and tell tomorrow in Junior infants.
Found a spare turbine around the yard, here's the lads dropping it over to the school. some quick set concrete for the plinth, have that 150m hub height bad boy up and spinning before elevenses.
Slam dunk that first prize of a colouring book.

Fcuk you Timmy McCarthy and your citric acid/baking soda volcano.
You fcuking loser.

Pinch Flat

evolving_doors wrote: »

Anyhow.. I've been standing outside Jamseses hospital trying to flog some brambles to doctory Lookin types as they walk in.... no joy.
Junkies are curious though!

Make some jam out of it and put it in a nice jar. They might be interested then.

Charmeleon

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

So Roger jnr has his show and tell tomorrow in Junior infants.
Found a spare turbine around the yard, here's the lads dropping it over to the school. some quick set concrete for the plinth, have that 150m hub height bad boy up and spinning before elevenses.
Slam dunk that first prize of a colouring book.

Fcuk you Timmy McCarthy and your citric acid/baking soda volcano.
You fcuking loser.

I hope it will be pointing into different wind than at home, or else it’s not original work.

FixdePitchmark

went to it last year.

And you could see far too many of them were linked to Universities or PHDs.

Felt bad for kids who had clearly done up their own display and others had ones a professional Graphic Design company would be proud of.

Great kids there - but something not right with some of the projects - seen an electrical display that a kid should not have been allowed to work on so clearly they didn't - asked them and they told me that they got it put together by an Institute of technology

Roger Hassenforder

Charmeleon wrote: »

I hope it will be pointing into different wind than at home, or else it’s not original work.

its ok, I wrote his name on a sticker on the blade.
looks legit

Fann Linn

Kurtosis wrote: »

Is it known what species of plant he used? Rubus is the genus or latin name of blackberry plans.

There's only one genus in this thread.


And her name isn't Rubus.

cookie1977

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

So Roger jnr has his show and tell tomorrow in Junior infants.
Found a spare turbine around the yard, here's the lads dropping it over to the school. some quick set concrete for the plinth, have that 150m hub height bad boy up and spinning before elevenses.
Slam dunk that first prize of a colouring book.

Fcuk you Timmy McCarthy and your citric acid/baking soda volcano.
You fcuking loser.

Damnit to hell I wont have Johnny's finished in time

kaymin

cookie1977 wrote: »

Careful now. Facts only please.

Well, tweedle dum said he used Salix. According to the Irish Times:

The most effective agent, he discovered, was found in a blackberry bramble.

He tested both aerial and root parts of selected plants - so more than one plant.

cookie1977

kaymin wrote: »

Well, tweedle dum said he used Salix. According to the Irish Times:

The most effective agent, he discovered, was found in a blackberry bramble.

He tested both aerial and root parts of selected plants - so more than one plant.

It's fine, I'll wait for the Nature paper publication.

treade1

Dr. Cassandra Quave‏
@QuaveEthnobot
Follow Follow @QuaveEthnobot
More
Replying to @friendlymicrobe @alancostello
It's great to look to plants 4 activity - but there is an important lesson I teach my students: An hour in the library can save weeks in the laboratory. We've actually published a number of papers on the antibacterial activity of blackberry & have a patent https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=rubus+and+quave …

treade1

Dostoevsky‏
@finishedman
Follow Follow @finishedman
More
Replying to @alancostello
Thanks for eloquently stating what I suspected but couldn't quite describe. The idea that teenagers with maybe a couple 100 hours work in a year could produce scientific breakthroughs that teams of PhDs over several years could not is asinine.

deezell

“The judges were aware that he had access to facilities in a third level institution as many of our participants do due to lack of some necessary equipment in their own school labs
I'd say most schools have no access to mrsa bugs, electron microscopes, gas chromatography etc. He would not have been let within a mile of this stuff, so someone else done this work.

jmayo

faceman wrote: »

Article in the Times about it now.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/young-scientist-winner-defended-amid-accusations-of-outside-help-1.3356238

How the fook can they say it was landmark research when there has been very similar research already done, and even in the same geographical area, by his mother and her students.

FFS the irish times has really become an utter piece of shyte.

kaymin wrote: »

The main issue posters to this thread had about the winner is that he never acknowledged his mother. Now we find he did acknowledge his mother in his thank you speech along with every other person that assisted him in a significant way. The issue has now been changed to the fact he had access to resources that other students don't have access to - personally I don't have an issue with this as maybe it will encourage others to be more ambitious with what they try to achieve from their projects.

To those that think he should have come up with his project without reference to anyone else's work or input seem to be ignorant about how science generally works - most scientific progress is made through tiny collaborative steps that are possible through the cumulative work done by others previously.

No you will find one of the major issues raised has been the fact that his mother had been involved in carrying out almost the exact same research 10 odd years ago.
Hence it seems that her role was downplayed or in fact not mentioned in preference to granddad on purpose.

And the other major issue was the access to research facilities and MRSA that he had, which were highly unlikely to ever be found in a secondary school.

kaymin wrote: »

I agree - most likely the judging process in the early stages won't have been rigorous. But to get back to the OP, according to the IT articles, the winning student would have gone through a rigorous judging process - so I don't think it is fair to deny him victory if he passed their knowledge tests.

Simon’s project was reviewed during five separate judging rounds. His work was reviewed by over 10 judges, in a cross-disciplinary approach,”

“The judges were aware that he had access to facilities in a third level institution as many of our participants do due to lack of some necessary equipment in their own school labs.

“The judges, through their rigorous questioning, were happy that the work and research had been undertaken by Simon, and that any assistance he received was acknowledged in his report book as is required by the BTYSTE exhibition rules.”

Were the judges aware that his mother was involved in the exact same research ?

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

I'm a little bit taken aback to the malice and begrudgery being leveled at a 15 year old just because he chose to use resources available to him that others may not have had access to.

I for one will bow to greater knowledge and accept that the judges might have a greater idea of what is required in the contest that the rest of us.

Who are any of us to deny him is reward?

Ah yes when all other arguments fail lets accuse people of begrudgery

The whole thing stinks and the sad thing is other kids are just going to lose interest in competing in what should be a great introduction to the world of science, because they will see the competition as rigged.

This is basically saying that what you now need to win BTYSOTY:
Access to high end scientific equipment and banned substances only found in third level institutions
A parent who is an expert in the project field
More specifically a parent who has carried out the exact same research

cookie1977

Elijah Chubby Typographer wrote: »

I noticed this year the huge surge in projects that were in poster like form so all professionally printed up. Only the odd stand had a manually printed off display . Its got so polished and unfortunately its an impossibility for all students to be on a level playing field as naturally if you've access to a university or the help of an expert you are going to avail of it.

But on a positive note for my disheartened teens BT is a great opportunity for children who may otherwise be shy to showcase and present their work , make new friends, get a 1000 freebies from the exhibitor stands and it wont look to shabby on the old CV to say you were a BT finalist back in the day

As is Scifest which was set up due to the high (now extreme) level of competition in BTYSTE.
http://scifest.ie/

The_Captain

"Could you explain your project young man?"

"Well, basically I just copied research my mother already did. Then, I added some fins to lower wind resistance. And this racing stripe here I feel is pretty sharp."

kaymin

jmayo wrote: »

How the fook can they say it was landmark research when there has been very similar research already done, and even in the same geographical area, by his mother and her students.

FFS the irish times has really become an utter piece of shyte.

No you will find one of the major issues raised has been the fact that his mother had been involved in carrying out almost the exact same research 10 odd years ago.
Hence it seems that her role was downplayed or in fact not mentioned in preference to granddad on purpose.

And the other major issue was the access to research facilities and MRSA that he had, which were highly unlikely to ever be found in a secondary school.

Were the judges aware that his mother was involved in the exact same research ?

From what I understand the mother used Salix while he tested a variety of plants once of which was Blackberry. Blackberry was reported to have the greatest success against MRSA - this had been previously reported by separate researchers in 2012 (i.e. not his mother as far as I'm aware). So he didn't find anything new.

However, it may have been the process the lad went through to test the various plants which impressed the judges. It had the potential to find new alternatives to tackling MRSA.

I don't know how much the judges knew about his mother - the Irish Times indicates he acknowledged his mothers contribution but other posters here seem to think he didn't.

evolving_doors

kaymin wrote: »

From what I understand the mother used Salix while he tested a variety of plants once of which was Blackberry. Blackberry was reported to have the greatest success against MRSA - this had been previously reported by separate researchers in 2012 (i.e. not his mother as far as I'm aware). So he didn't find anything new.

However, it may have been the process the lad went through to test the various plants which impressed the judges. It had the potential to find new alternatives to tackling MRSA.

I don't know how much the judges knew about his mother - the Irish Times indicates he acknowledged his mothers contribution but other posters here seem to think he didn't.

He thanked his parents in the same way people do at any other awards... but gave total 'project specific' praise to the grandad.
Heck who knows, maybe the grandad did guide him along and put him in touch with the university and relevant research.

danmanw8

diomed wrote: »

Next year's winning project
The connection between winners of Young Scientist and their parent's work.

Finally, a project I'd care about!

Deise Vu

Lot of science to read through here lads so forgive me if this has been asked before: If the mother made this scientific breakthrough back in 2007 as was heralded in the IT at the time, why do we still have MRSA?

danmanw8

NIMAN wrote: »

I think we need a Prime Time investigation into this scandal.

This could rock the country to its core.

Step aside Trump, Ireland is where the real corruption is....

r93kaey5p2izun

cookie1977 wrote: »

As is Scifest which was set up due to the high (now extreme) level of competition in BTYSTE.
http://scifest.ie/

In my experience Scifest has gone the same way. It's now at the stage BTYSE was at a decade ago and they're desperately trying to discourage schools from bothering with the regional competitions for all but very high level projects. In fairness they are supporting in school science fairs for ordinary projects and so far aren't refusing anyone from exhibition at the regional one.

It just seems to be the way it goes with these competitions. Each one starts off accessible then they gather momentum, media exposure and prestige and become more and more elite. As I said, I've no issue with the concept of an elite competition for exceptional talent but it seems that it gradually becomes the case that that's the only option available. I see the same with Young Social Innovators (YSI). I worked on a project that won a decade ago, now I doubt it would even get through to the final showcase.

It's a funny one really in that our education system is constantly criticised for focusing so heavily on terminal exams and the high points race, and BTYSE is heralded as the way forward. Yet the whole focus is on this elite final exhibition that's out of reach for the majority. I don't think the event does much anymore to promote STEM or encourage a love of scientific inquiry among most young people.

jmayo

kaymin wrote: »

From what I understand the mother used Salix while he tested a variety of plants once of which was Blackberry. Blackberry was reported to have the greatest success against MRSA - this had been previously reported by separate researchers in 2012 (i.e. not his mother as far as I'm aware). So he didn't find anything new.

So this landmark research "as per irish times" wasn't so landmark after all, seen as it was done 5 years ago. Hmmm.

kaymin wrote: »

However, it may have been the process the lad went through to test the various plants which impressed the judges. It had the potential to find new alternatives to tackling MRSA.

Now would this same process have been the one used by his mammy and her research team, albeit they used a willow or some such whereas he used a briar.

Landmark research indeed.

And to quote that chipwrapper ...

Prof John O’Halloran, a BTYSTE judge and chair of the biological and ecological sciences category, on Friday said the winning project was “really exciting”.

“The unexpected findings deliver a unique approach to killing bacteria using natural plant active ingredients. The rigour of the approach adopted by Simon set his project apart from competitors and made him our overall winner.”

In an interview with The Irish Times, prior to being declared the overall winner, Simon Meehan said the significance of the work he had undertaken was in his view so great that he hoped to patent it.

I do wonder has anyone else patented it ?

kaymin wrote: »

I don't know how much the judges knew about his mother - the Irish Times indicates he acknowledged his mothers contribution but other posters here seem to think he didn't.

Here is something to note about the judges.

What a coincidence one Prof john O'Halloran, the BTYSTE judge and chair of the biological and ecological sciences category is from UCC and sits on a number of management commitees including the Academic Council Teaching & Learning and eLearning committees.

Oh and he was previously Head of School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, which maybe if i am correct is where this young fellow accessed some of the equipment and pathogens ???

Oh and as previous Head of School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences had he not come across any similar research in the past that was
“really exciting” and "The unexpected findings deliver a unique approach to killing bacteria using natural plant active ingredients."

Maybe he should have wandered over the Cork IT and asked them. :rolleyes:

And as for Dr Lucey ...

Dr. Lucey is currently lecturing in Microbiology, Molecular Biology and Quality
Management. Dr. Lucey is a Member of the Council for the Academy of Clinical Science and Laboratory Medicine (ACSLM) and chair of the research committee for the ACSLM. The ACSLM is the accrediting professional body for our joint BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science programme with Clinical Laboratory Placement which is run jointly between CIT & UCC.
She was also Programme Director of the joint CIT/UCC BSc. (Hons) in Biomedical Science 2012-2014.

Does anyone know how big is the biological and environmental sciences in Cork that the head of a department in one third level institution would not know a senior lecturer in similar department in other third level institution.
Oh and especially one that is programme director for a joint venture between the two colleges.

And there may be another link ?

Does anyone know if a colleague of one Dr Brigid Lucy, Dr. Fiona O'Halloran is any relation of Prof John O’Halloran ?

Now wouldn't it be gas if one of the most prominent judges had a close relative working with the mammy of the winner.

The whole thing stinks.

Martina1991

Deise Vu wrote:

Lot of science to read through here lads so forgive me if this has been asked before: If the mother made this scientific breakthrough back in 2007 as was heralded in the IT at the time, why do we still have MRSA?

Discovering natural extracts that are effective against MRSA is one small step in a long process for developing actual effective treatments for patients.

bucketybuck

evolving_doors wrote: »

He thanked his parents in the same way people do at any other awards... but gave total 'project specific' praise to the grandad.
Heck who knows, maybe the grandad did guide him along and put him in touch with the university and relevant research.

Well, his granddad did play a role in the creation of his mother, so there is little doubt that granddad made an important contribution to this project.

Charmeleon

Deise Vu wrote: »

Lot of science to read through here lads so forgive me if this has been asked before: If the mother made this scientific breakthrough back in 2007 as was heralded in the IT at the time, why do we still have MRSA?

There are disinfectants that kill MRSA already, the problem is delivering something that kills MRSA into the infected tissues of the person without doing even more damage than the infection. It’s one thing killing bacteria, cancer cells or HIV in a Petri dish, treating a person is a very long road that is often not even worth taking due to the difficulties involved.

Roger Hassenforder

BT head of comms reckons we're a shower of trolls

https://twitter.com/PriscillaORegan/status/952954271703732224

In other news, Roger Jnr won his 'Show and Tell' with his 3MW turbine. Thrilled with his colouring book. Timmy McCarthy bawling like the fcuking 5 yr imold baby he is. Fcuking loser.

cookie1977

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

BT head of comms reckons we're a shower of trolls

https://twitter.com/PriscillaORegan/status/952954271703732224

In other news, Roger Jnr won his 'Show and Tell' with his 3MW turbine. Thrilled with his colouring book. Timmy McCarthy bawling like the fcuking 5 yr imold baby he is. Fcuking loser.

If you read her twitter feed she very selectively picks and chooses the arguments she's pushing back on and misses the overall issue that in general people have an issue with where the competition is heading (the issue being discussed in this thread).

That's clumsy at best, and disingenuous at worst.

Carlos Orange

Roger Hassenforder wrote: »

BT head of comms reckons we're a shower of trolls

If there is someone you can depend on to critically evaluate things a company is involved in it is the company PR person.