{"id":41,"date":"2012-07-18T11:42:48","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T11:42:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sciencecomma\/?p=41"},"modified":"2012-07-18T11:42:48","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T11:42:48","slug":"chain-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sciencecomma\/2012\/07\/18\/chain-reaction\/","title":{"rendered":"The birth of Chain Reaction!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beginning a Chain Reaction!<\/em><\/h2>\n

\"An<\/a>Chain Reaction!<\/em> is an attempt to do some creative science communication in a way that embodies approaches taken by historians of science.
\nOn a simple level, it celebrates a piece of laboratory kit the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine<\/a>, which is 30 years old in 2013.\u00a0 By rapidly multiplying fragments of DNA into the kind of quantities necessary for experiment, the PCR machine has made possible all of the genetic science of the past generation.<\/p>\n

And yet the PCR machine is an incredibly humble and simple piece of kit, essentially a water bath \u2013 a boiler \u2013 with a cycling thermostat.\u00a0 As such, the PCR challenges many common assumptions about science.\u00a0 Science is not all about fancy ideas; simple and basic graft is a vital part of it.\u00a0 Or, as physiologist L. J. Henderson put it in 1917: \u2018Science owes more to the steam engine than the steam engine owes to Science.\u2019\u00a0 Historians of science (starting with Steve Shapin<\/a>) have sometimes referred to \u2018hidden technicians\u2019 \u2013 the army of workers and gadgets who make it all possible, yet are rarely noticed \u2013 let alone celebrated.<\/p>\n

On 19 July 2012 the University of Kent, with support from the Creative Campus fund, will bring together artists and scientists to start a chain reaction of a related kind.\u00a0 The scientists will teach the artists how to use the PCR machine, with the aim that the artists can begin to shed creative light on how science actually works \u2013 with all of its hidden technicians.<\/p>\n

Conversation will be at the heart of the process.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be provoking artists and scientists alike with serious and cheesy icebreakers:<\/p>\n