ORLANDO, Florida | Wed Jan 30, 2013 10:35am EST

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Americans may be turning away from the hard sciences at universities, but they are increasingly showing up at "science cafes" in local bars and restaurants to listen to scientific talks over a drink or a meal.

Want a beer with that biology? Or perhaps a burger with the works to complement the theory of everything?

Science cafes have sprouted in almost every state including a tapas restaurant near downtown Orlando where Sean Walsh, 27, a graphic designer, describes himself and his friends as some of the laymen in the crowd.

"We just want to learn and whatever we take in, we take in. But we're also socializing and having a nice time," said Walsh, who a drank beer, ate Tater Tots and learned a little about asteroids and radiation at two recent events.

Others in the crowd come with scientific credentials to hear particular scientists lecture on a narrowly focused field of interest.

But the typical participant brings at least some college-level education or at least a lively curiosity, said Edward Haddad, executive director of the Florida Academy of Sciences, which helped start up Orlando's original cafe and organizes the events.

"You're going to engage the (National Public Radio) crowd very easily here," said Linda Walters, a marine conservation biologist from the University of Central Florida who has lectured twice at the Orlando-area science cafes.

Haddad said the current national push to increase the number of U.S. graduates in science, technology, engineering and math, or the STEM fields, is driving up the number of science cafes.

In Orlando, an Orange County STEM Council consisting of business, government and educational leaders recently asked Haddad to help two interested parties launch new science cafes in the downtown library and in a large new town development.

The U.S. science cafe movement grew out of Cafe Scientifique in the United Kingdom. The first Cafe Scientifique popped up in Leeds in 1998 as a regularly scheduled event where all interested parties could participate in informal forums about the latest in science and technology.

Traditionally held in pubs and restaurants, the Cafe Scientifique would start as a short lecture, followed by a short break to re-fill glasses, and then an open discussion, according to the organization's website.

The American movement of independent cafes is loosely organized at the sciencecafe.org website created by public broadcaster WGBH's NOVA science program. Haddad said NOVA several years ago provided a few hundred dollars of seed money to groups around the country that wanted to start a cafe.

However, anyone with a venue, a speaker and a marketing plan can start one. On the sciencecafe.org website, an interactive map shows the location of cafes across the United States and around the globe from Islamabad, Pakistan, to Antwerp, Belgium, to the Hawaiian islands.

Some cafes have cropped up in bookstores, theaters and high school campuses.

In Viera, Florida, about 60 mostly retirees regularly pack a pizzeria to hear speakers from the well-regarded Brevard Zoo or NASA's nearby Kennedy Space Center. In Daytona Beach, scientists from the internationally known Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University draw standing-room-only crowds at a local coffee shop.

Haddad said his hope for the cafes is to engage the public and generate excitement about the STEM fields that might filter down to the next generation.

"My feeling is STEM begins at home, with students who are being brought up by parents or relatives who have some interest in science and may encourage them to do that," Haddad said.

Attending a cafe does not guarantee a speaker as engaging as the popular host of television programs Bill Nye the Science Guy, as Walsh learned when he got lost in the extensive jargon of one lecture.

"I don't know that every scientist is gifted with the ability to work a crowd as well as deliver a lecture on targeted radiation therapy for tumors," said Walsh. "If you can find one that hits both those things, they should have their own television show."

(Editing by Kevin Gray and Kenneth Barry)

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Vomiting Larry gets to work. A humanoid simulated vomiting system, Larry helps scientists analyse contagion. He's particularly useful in the case of Norovirus, a nasty bug which can live for 12 days on contaminated surfaces. Larry was designed by Catherine Makison-Booth of Britain's Health and Safety Laboratory. SOUNDBITE (English) HEALTH AND SAFETY LABORATORY (HSL) RESEARCHER AND DESIGNER OR VOMITING LARRY, CATHERINE MAKISON-BOOTH, SAYING: "Larry is comprised of a mannequin head, which is known as 'Airway Larry', and he's what medical students use to practise things like laryngoscopies on the incubation, so he's very realistic. He has a real tongue and teeth in there that are different material types. His oesophagus is then linked to a cylinder which contains the fluid, so that's essentially his stomach. A piston or push-rod then pushes the fluid up via a pneumatic ram which forces air under the piston, pushes the fluid up and out of Larry's mouth." With little previous research done on the speed and reach of vomiting, Makison-Booth devised a series of calculations to make Larry anatomically accurate. 15. (SOUNDBITE) (English) HEALTH AND SAFETY LABORATORY (HSL) RESEARCHER AND DESIGNER FO VOMITING LARRY, CATHERINE MAKISON-BOOTH, SAYING: "The amount of pressure then was based on the amount of fluid that we had in the stomach and the distance that it would travel for the main bulk of fluid to land on the floor, i.e. 1.2 metres, and that then took 800 kilopascals in order to exert that pressure through the system and enter onto the floor." Larry's mechanical stomach is loaded with water and fluorescent marker. Then it's time to stand well back...... Cleaning up the mess is all part of the research. And it soon becomes clear why fluorescent dye is used. UPSOT: MAKISON-BOOTH SAYING: "So we'll switch the lights off and see just how well I've done." Despite her best efforts at decontamination, remnants of Larry's vomit remain up to three metres away from his mouth. At least a million Britons have had Norovirus this winter. A bug spread largely through projectile vomiting, it's easy to see why infection rates are so high. It takes just 20 Norovirus particles to infect a healthy individual. Larry's inventor thinks he'll prove invaluable for medical students and cleaners on cruise ships and oil rigs, where outbreaks can spread like wildfire. But her advice to the rest of us is to wash our hands thoroughly if we want to avoid feeling as off-colour as Larry.....

Jan. 11 - A robot that vomits on command is the latest weapon in Britain's war on norovirus, a disease currently affecting more than a million people throughout the country. Called ''Vomiting Larry'' by its developer, the humanoid simulated vomiting system is designed to help scientists analyze contagion by simulating the retching process at the same speed and range as a human. Jim Drury went to meet him.

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Actress January Jones, from the drama series ''Mad Men,'' arrives at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, September 23, 2012.

LONDON | Fri Dec 28, 2012 4:10am EST

LONDON (Reuters) - Pop guru Simon Cowell carries pocket-sized inhalable oxygen shots, America's "Mad Men" actress January Jones favors dried placenta pills, and British soap star Patsy Palmer rubs coffee granules into her skin.

Celebrities rarely shy away from public peddling of dubious ideas about health and science, and 2012 was no exception.

In its annual list of the year's worst abuses against science, the Sense About Science (SAS) campaign also named former U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney for spreading misinformation about windows on planes, and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps for false justifications for peeing in the pool.

To help set the record straight, SAS, a charity dedicated to helping people make sense of science and evidence, invited qualified scientists to respond to some of the wilder pseudo-scientific claims put about by the rich and famous.

It suggested Romney, who wondered aloud in September why aircraft crews don't just open the windows when there's a fire on board, should listen to aeronautical engineer Jakob Whitfield:

"Unfortunately, Mitt, opening a window at height wouldn't do much good," the scientist said. "In fact, if you could open a window whilst in flight, the air would rush out...because air moves from the high pressure cabin to the lower pressure outside, probably causing further injury and damage."

January Jones's dried placenta pills, which the actress admitted in March she consumed after giving birth, win no favor with Catherine Collins, principal dietician at St George's Hospital in London.

"Nutritionally, there's nothing to be gained from eating your placenta - raw, cooked, or dried," Collins said. "Apart from iron, which can be easily found in other dietary choices or supplements, your placenta will provide toxins and other unsavory substances it had successfully prevented from reaching your baby in utero."

Gary Moss, a pharmaceutical scientist, patiently points out to Palmer that while caffeine may have an effect on cellulite, rubbing coffee granules into the skin is unlikely to work, since the caffeine can't escape the granules to penetrate the skin.

Phelps's claim that it's fine to pee in the pool because "chlorine kills it" is put straight by biochemist Stuart Jones, who reminds him that "urine is essentially sterile so there isn't actually anything to kill in the first place".

And for Cowell, Kay Mitchell a scientist at the Centre for Altitude Space and Extreme Environment Medicine warns that very high levels of oxygen can in fact be toxic - particularly in the lungs, where oxygen levels are highest.

"Celebrity comments travel far and fast, so it's important that they talk sense," said Sense About Science's managing director Tracey Brown. "The implausible and frankly dangerous claims about how to avoid cancer, improve skin or lose weight are becoming ever more ridiculous. And unfortunately they have a much higher profile than the research and evidence."

To encourage more vigilance among celebrity pseudo-scientists in the future, SAS provided a checklist of "misleading science claims" it suggests should be avoided:

* "Immune boosting" - you can't and you don't need to

* "Detox" - your liver does this

* "Superfood" - there is no such thing, just foods that are high in some nutrients

* "Oxygenating" - your lungs do this

* "Cleansing" - you shouldn't be trying to cleanse anything other than your skin or hair.

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Japanese writer Haruki Murakami speaks during a ceremony where he was awarded the ''XXIII Premi Internacional Catalunya'' prize in Barcelona, June 9, 2011.

STOCKHOLM | Fri Oct 5, 2012 10:12pm EDT

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Japanese author who writes of love and isolation, researchers into "spooky" quantum physics and experts on economic inequality have all been tipped as possible Nobel Prize-winners ahead of the start to the annual awards on Monday.

Medicine, physics and chemistry laureates will receive their Nobels first in Stockholm next week, followed later by economics. But for many outside the world of science, the literature and peace prizes are the most widely discussed at the dinner table.

Odds at British bookmaker Ladbrokes and Sweden's Unibet put Japanese author Haruki Murakami and Chinese writer Mo Yan in the top two places for the literature prize. An American advocate of non-violent struggle and a Coptic Christian who runs a children's mission in Egypt are favored for the peace prize.

Murakami is very popular in Japan, but has also become well known abroad for his works which deal with isolation and love and bring the surreal into everyday life. Mo's works are rooted in his native China, its history and people.

Other literary names bandied about include Ireland's William Trevor, Syrian poet Adonis, South Korean poet Ko Un, U.S. novelist Philip Roth and singer/songwriter Bob Dylan.

Culture columnist Maria Schottenius of Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter said that despite the odds, the choice of the Nobel committee was always unpredictable.

"Last year we had a poet, now it could be a storyteller like Philip Roth," Schottenius said. Swedish poet Thomas Transtromer won the prize in 2011.

For the peace prize, betting agencies favour Gene Sharp, an American advocate of non-violent struggle and Maggie Gobran, a Coptic Christian who runs a children's mission in Egypt, but there is no clear candidate.

TELEPORTATION

Researchers who wrote the rulebook for quantum teleportation, described as "spooky" by Albert Einstein, are among the 2012 Thomson Reuters tips for science.

Research into the inner workings of the cell could be in line for the medicine prize, according to Nobel prediction expert David Pendlebury. His annual forecasts are based on the company's "Web of Knowledge" data on how often a scientist's published papers are cited as a basis for further investigation.

For economics, Thomson Reuters has predicted U.S. and British experts on pricing financial assets, how to measure inequality or how to understand market volatility, as possible winners.

In chemistry, Akira Fujishima at Tokyo University of Science, could be in the running for discoveries of new uses for titanium dioxide, long used mainly as an ingredient for paint.

Though their prestige remains undiminished, the cash element for the annual prizes created in dynamite tycoon Alfred Nobel's will to recognize achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace -- economics was added in the 1960s at the behest of the Swedish central bank -- have been cut by 20 percent to 8 million crowns ($1.20 million).

The Nobel Foundation which oversees the wealth left by the businessman said it was worried about future returns and that it had been hit by overspending in previous years' prize seasons.

The deliberations on all the prizes are wrapped in secrecy. For literature, the 18 members of the Swedish Academy who award the Nobel prize for literature, are only allowed to discuss the prize within the walls of the Academy itself.

It is extremely rare for the name of any winner to leak out, though 2010 was an exception when newspaper Svenska Dagbladet got a tip that test tube baby pioneer Robert Edwards had won.

The prize for medicine will begin the Nobel season on Monday, followed by physics and chemistry over the next two days. The literature prize will likely be handed out on Thursday October 11 or 18th, while the peace prize will be awarded in Oslo on Friday October 12th and the prize for economics on October 15th.

($1 = 6.6889 Swedish crowns)

(Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Paul Casciato)

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