September 2012

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Research Communicator from AlphaGalileo — September 2012
Autumn Media Training AlphaGalileo's popular media training will be run again this Autumn at our London office. Training will be by Myc Riggulsford MCIoJ, MCIPR, who has over 25 years experience in journalism, public relations and issue management. There will be two one day courses - Course 1 Research, Media and Making Your Point and Course 2 Getting the Message Out – Press Officer Skills. Although the first course is aimed at academics who may be interviewed by the media, it also serves as a useful introduction to the second course for new press officers. If you are interested in attending please confirm your attendance by email to training@alphagalileo.org We will provide an invoice at the rate of £395 or €390 per course per person. We are not planning to run the advanced course on crisis management this year, but could provide it as an inhouse course if there was sufficient interest from a university.
VIP Profile: Anna Blackaby The University of Warwick has so many great research stories across different disciplines that it’s not always easy to draw up individual mailing lists for each press release. For example, one day we could be preparing press releases about happiness and economics and the next day it could be on how our chemists are making chocolate healthier. By putting our communications out through AlphaGalileo, which allows journalists to follow press releases within a specific category, we can get our stories in front of targeted reporters who we know will have a genuine interest in them. Anna Blackaby is the International Press Officer and Faculty of Science Press Officer at the University of Warwick. In case of any queries you can contact Anna at: a.blackaby@warwick.ac.uk
Hits Parade — AlphaGalileo Top 5 Our hit parade compiles the press releases with bigger number of visits in August 2012. 1. Spider version of Bigfoot emerges from caves in the Pacific Northwests — Pensoft Publishers — 14/08/2012 A team of scientists and cave conservationists discovered a relatively huge, unique spider in caves and forests of the Pacific Northwest. The novel combination of evolutionary features in this spider, Trogloraptor, compelled them to recognize a new family. A study of the new family and its evolutionary and conservation significance was published in the open access journal Zookeys. Trogloraptor 2.Earphones 'potentially as dangerous as noise from jet engines,' according to new University of Leicester study — University of Leicester — 29/08/2012 Turning the volume up too high on your headphones can damage the coating of nerve cells, leading to temporary deafness; scientists from the University of Leicester have shown for the first time. 3.Medieval clerics resisted celibacy — University of Huddersfield — 06/08/2012 Medieval clerics did not relish the prospect of giving up sex when the Papacy tried to introduce the principle of celibacy. Resistance was widespread, it was revealed at an academic conference at the University of Huddersfield where two historians are playing a key role in developing the burgeoning study area of medieval masculinity. 4.Computer memory leaks a turn off — Inderscience — 10/08/2012 When you switch off your computer any passwords you used to login to web pages, your bank or other financial account evaporate into the digital ether, right? Not so fast! Researchers in Greece have discovered a security loophole that exploits the way computer memory works and could be used to harvest passwords and other sensitive data from a PC even if it is in standby mode. 5.Adolescent smokers have artery damage — European Society of Cardiology (ESC)— 25/08/2012 Tobacco smoke is considered highly atherogenic in adults, but little is known about the impact of tobacco smoke exposure on cardiovascular health in adolescents. Children and adolescents are exposed to tobacco smoke through passive and active smoking.
Staff Pick — Primate of the Opera: What Soprano Singing Apes on Helium Reveal About the Human Voice — Wiley — 20 August 2012 Have you ever heard an opera singing ape? Researchers in Japan have discovered that singing gibbons use the same vocal techniques as professional soprano singers. The study, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, explains how recording gibbons singing under the influence of helium gas reveals a physiological similarity to human voices. To explore these similarities the team conducted the first acoustic investigation on non-human primates using helium gas. The gas is famous for making human voices appear high pitched by shifting the resonance frequencies of the vocal tract upwards. The gas is useful for studying animal vocal mechanisms as it increases sound velocity and resonance frequencies. The team recorded 20 gibbon calls in normal air atmosphere, before recording 37 calls in a helium-enriched atmosphere. The resulting sounds, which are available as audio files, reveal how gibbons can consciously manipulate their vocal cords and tract to make their distinctive sound. You can read the full article here
Image of the Month The raccoon spreads dangerous diseases as it invades Europe — Plataforma SINC — 28 August 2012 Credit photograph: F.J. García..
The Savvy User's Corner – How to withdraw items… To remove one of your posted items from our website, you need first to login into your account and go to the tab “My Content” and click on “My Submitted Content”. You will see all your posted items with a red prohibition symbol next to them. To withdraw an item just click on this symbol and wait until we send you a confirmation of the removal of your item. As the item was published and alerts sent, we can’t remove the record completely, i.e. the headline will still be visible but it will lead to a message informing users that the item was removed and for journalists to contact the posting organisation for more information. If you have any question about this or any other procedure, please contact the team alphagalileo@alphagalileo.org
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