Oldenburg. Steffen Kortlang, a member of staff in the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Oldenburg, won the 3rd Oldenburg ‘Science Slam’. The event, organised by the Graduate School of Natural Sciences and Technology and the Research Centre Neurosensory Science, took place in collaboration with the Oldenburg State Theatre on 22 May 2013 in the Exerzierhalle at Oldenburg’s Pferdemarkt.

Competing in this year’s ‘Science Slam’ were the early-career researchers Sebastian Menze (AWI Bremerhaven) and Sara Jonkers (Dutch Studies), Stefanie Enriquez-Geppert (Psychology) and Steffen Kortlang (Medical Physics) from the University of Oldenburg. Their task was to explain their field of research to a lay audience in 10 minutes in an entertaining way and to inspire them with their work.

In the end, the audience crowned Steffen Kortlang the winner and awarded him the ‘golden brain’ for his presentation on sensorineural hearing loss in humanoid and extraterrestrial life forms. The winner captivated the audience with his alien ‘Hör-nicht-gut’ from the planet ‘Ohr-ion’, who, plagued by inner-ear hearing loss, sought help from Oldenburg’s hearing research team. Using sound examples, he demonstrated various aspects of psychoacoustics and clearly illustrated how hearing damage can be diagnosed: By comparing data from hearing tests with a computer model of the auditory system, damage to the inner hair cells – the sensory cells in the inner ear responsible for transforming mechanical vibrations into neural patterns – was identified in his alien.

[7 June 2013]