Brisbane and a Three-Minute Thesis

After 26 hours of flying, including very brief stops in Abu Dhabi and Singapore, Ellie and I arrived in Brisbane on Thursday 16th September. We were met at the airport by Geoff's sister Jenny, who graciously hosted us for the next 10 days.

So why travel from Paris to Islamabad via Brisbane? The answer is that I was competing in the Inaugral Australia and New Zealand (and South Pacific, as they hastily amended the competition name) Three-Minute Thesis Competition. I had won the ANU's Three-Minute Thesis Competition back in April and you can see a video of that performance. The object of the competition is to encourage communication skills amongst researchers, by having us summarise our thesis topics in under three minutes in a form that is intelligible to an educated lay audience. Each of the 33 universities competing in the national (well, international I guess) event had hosted their own competitions, attracting up to 200 entrants per university. As the winner of the ANU's competiion I repeated my April performance, but against a much higher standard of competitors. I was thrilled to get into the Grand Final, after winning my semi-final, but sadly I did not win the overall competition. Click here to see how the ANU reported it.

Nevertheless, it was amongst the most entertaining and stimulating days I had ever spent in a university. The range of research was fascinatng. One researcher has shown how concentrated chilli solution will kill protrate cancer cells whilst leaving healthy cells alone, but the current dosage is so high that it cannot possibly be used therapeutically (yet). She does not recommend rubbing chilli on your prostrate, if you have one. :-)

Another researcher investigated the lifetime costs of male reproductive effort in guppies and found that 'married' guppies had better outcomes than 'Tiger Woods' guppies. He said that the latter 'ended up hungry, skinny and dead'. There's a lesson for us all there.

Getting to and from the competition venue at the St Lucia campus of University of Queensland involved another ferry ride. Leaving the venue and heading back up the Brisbane River into the setting sun was a fantastic experience. I stood at the bow of the ferry, with the wind in my face, as the beautiful Brisbane riverbanks swept by. I think I'm going to be a ferry-boat captain when I grow up.

The rest of the time in Brisbane was taken up with various 'make-and-mend' activities. After Ellie had broken her Mexican retainer in half, we went to an Australian orthodontist and had a permanent wire one glued in place. This will last her until she returns to Australia permanently, then she will need braces again. Sigh.

Michaela came up to visit us briefly, bringing extra items that we had laid aside (like malaria tablets - not much need for them in England or Iceland) and we sent her back with loads of extra stuff we had been lugging around the world. Jenny took us all to the annual Redcliffe fair, which included a re-enactment of the landing of the first settlers and an Aboriginal 'welcome party'. I make no comment on the historical likelihood of this, or the fact that the Aboriginals were wearing their traditional bike shorts and yellow T-shirts. Sigh.

The fair was interesting and Ellie, Michaela and I now have matching bracelets made out of old forks. Very fetching.

Finally, Ellie and I headed off to Coolangatta to attend the 18th birthday party of Josh, a friend from Tuggeranong. It was great to catch up with Josh's parents David and Michele. On Sunday we drive back to Bris Vegas then on Monday it's off to Islamabad for Part Two of our adventure.