Genetics Lecture

I was lucky enough to attend a very interesting science lecture last week. The most interesting talk in my opinion was the talk on "Genetic Fingerprinting" given by the inventor himself, Sir Alec Jeffreys!

He described his discovery as "luck" however it has proved to be very useful and is now used everyday, all over the world for paternity tests and in criminal investigations.

It was first put to use when it proved (through similarities in DNA) that a British boy was the woman in questions son and not her nephew like the immigration authorities believed and this meant the boy was not wrongly deported back to Ghana.

It was first used in a police forensic test in the 1980s and proved the innocence of a male accused of rape and murder. He'd even made a false confession because he believed there was no way of proving innocence and wanted to avoid publicity. Without this new resource the innocent man would still be serving a sentence in jail today and the real criminal would never have been caught!

If you're interested you can read about three other famous cases he talked about here

His moral/lesson of the lecture was given one piece of good luck you can change the world wether it be a scientific discovery, an invention or anything else!

Hospital Volunteer Work

I've just started as a volunteer on the Cardiology ward at Southmead hospital Bristol.
The nurses were very welcoming. Most of the pateints were very elderly and a large number were overweight with diabetes.

There is lots to learn. For example I hadn't realised that the main aim of measuring temperature is to monitor for infection. I hope to learn a little bit about ECGs during my time on the ward.

In addition to my interest in Medicine this vouluntary work will help achieve my gold Duke of Edinburgh award (hopefully).