A: It’s beyond anything that I imagined. Every year I leave thinking ‘how could we possibly do any better?’, and then to sell more tickets at the start of the festival than we’d sold throughout the whole of the last year [and] to know that it’s our 10th year coming next year, is beyond my wildest dreams. I can’t tell you how proud I am to be a scientist these days because of Cheltenham.

With the extra tents, going from 20 to 40 volunteers, the attention to detail we’ve never been able to put in before, combined with the quality of the programming – 15 scientists giving up their time on the Advisory Board to bring the programme together, and then connecting that with really important issues…maybe it doesn’t surprise me then that the public want to turn up in massive numbers. But I tell you, it gives me a lot of pleasure when they do.

What was your most memorable moment?

A: My most scary moment was definitely the Science Minister, David Willetts arriving. With the deficit, the state of the economy, my lab — I’m worried for everyone back at University College London — I wanted to know from this guy, what he’s going to do with the funding in this country. So to have him on the platform was going to be a key moment for the festival, and certainly a key moment for me. I was petrified coming in to it.

I spoke to the heads of the research councils. The general feeling was that we should be working with David Willetts and explain to him how crucial science is but also, if you don’t fund it, the implications for education, for the country, for healthcare.

So to have that platform and get that pitch right was certainly my most nerve wracking moment. And I think the highlight for me was coming out of that event and feeling that David Willetts had got a slice of science in the one hour he’d spent at Cheltenham. I think he will walk away from it thinking ‘I want to defend these guys’. We need him to go back to the treasury and fight our corner really hard.

What ‘firsts’ were there at this year’s festival?

A: One of the firsts for me was in our Experitent, where we had the live surgery going on. How live was it and how real was it? Well, the test is, I guess, when you walk into theatre and if someone keels over, it feels pretty live and there were definitely a few wobbly legs.

Six surgeons have come from a hospital in London. They’ve given up their day jobs. I don’t know who is doing the surgery back in the hospitals! It’s coordinated by a wonderful consultant with a fabulous name for surgery, called Roger Kneebone, and his team. They were passionate about surgery — all clearly addicted to it. One of the surgeons described to me that even though it’s a simulation, she still has the same levels of adrenaline. As soon as the simulation starts and the blood starts pumping out of this patient as they cut them, she gets the same adrenaline rush. These guys are definitely addicted to the adrenaline rush. They’ve got a certain personality type that allows them to deal with the pressure.

Why is it so special? Because you can never get to see this if you are a member of the public — you can’t walk into theatre. It looks completely real and you get to see how the surgeons are able to deal with those particular situations practically, but more importantly, how on earth they deal with the pressure. Willetts was fantastic, but in terms of a big smile on my face — seeing live surgery, you can’t beat that.

This year’s theme was ‘decadence’. What scientific development do you think has had the greatest impact on our decadent lifestyle?

A: Science and decadence definitely go hand in hand. You can’t have decadence without science. You can’t have chocolates without science, you can’t have aeroplanes to go on holiday, you can’t have cars to drive, you can’t have various types of sports. The lifestyle that we have, the freedom that we have, is given to us by science. Science gives us a remarkable amount of choice — a choice about how we live our lives. I think if we’re going to choose how we live our lives, we’ve got to make informed choices and if you’re going to make an informed choice, you’ve got to know about science. Actually, I think that’s why people turn up at the Cheltenham Science Festival — because they’re very frustrated at times. It’s not possible to make an informed choice sometimes, because they don’t have enough information. I think by coming here, they’re able to take control of their lives in a way they haven’t been able to before.

If there was one thing that allows us to have the greatest form of decadence…oh my goodness, that’s really tricky. I would have thought flight — the opportunity to get on a plane and go to another country and sample a whole new lifestyle and culture — that is a wonderful kind of decadence that we have and we certainly wouldn’t have that without science.

What do you think is a big scientific challenge that we currently have?

A: Time travel, without a doubt! There are definitely quite a few challenges that we have.

I would like to be able to create an imaging technique that provided us with enough information to be able to make a good and accurate diagnosis. Once you have got a diagnosis then you can start thinking about treatments. People sometimes spend years trying to get a diagnosis of a particular condition.

From my point of view, I’d love to be able to develop a new scanning system that will cover a range of conditions — from neuroscience, to oncology, to cardiovascular disease. We’ll be able to put somebody into a scanner and be able to take a picture of, let’s say, the tumour. You’d then be able to inject the drug. The scanning system would then be able to take the drug to the area of tumour. And then, via the imaging system, you’d be able to activate that particular drug to regenerate the tissue. That’s what we’re working on at the moment.

Do you have much time to dedicate to your own research these days?

A: Six days a week I’m flat out doing science back in the lab. My life is completely embedded with the science. And then, as much spare time as I can find around that, I come out to do the public engagement. You prioritise the things in life that you really love. I prioritise the science first of all, because I can’t wait to get in the lab first thing in the morning, and I prioritise the science communication because I can’t wait to talk about it.

In your field of neuroscience, what would you say is the hottest topic at the moment?

A: For the last 10 years, we’ve been imaging anatomy — the structure of the brain. The last 5 years has been about trying to develop techniques that don’t image structure, but image function. Part of my group works on imaging individual molecules so you can see the cell functioning in real time — how it communicates with the next cell and what happens when that goes wrong? Does it form a tumour, does it form heart disease? So instead of imaging the structure we’re imaging a function, and that’s definitely the future.

Of the crazy techniques we have, the most unusual one is that we’ve been able to modify the brain using a virus, and then when you shine a light on the brain it will activate the brain. So for the first time, we won’t have to get someone to think. We’ll actually be able to think for them using light.

By Sue Harris for The Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

This article was originally published on The Times Cheltenham Science Festival website.

Click here for original article.

What does it mean to you to be Guest Director of the festival this year?
A: It’s wonderful because it is the biggest science festival in Britain and I assume it will get bigger, and bigger, and bigger. It’s the 10th anniversary next year isn’t it? So I’ll probably be asking to be Guest Director again because I’ve enjoyed it. It’s brilliant! I’ve done a lot this weekend. The Wonders [of the Solar System] event was great. I did two of those. [The Infinite] Monkey Cage, which I really wanted to do live – well, it was the first time we’ve done that in front of a live audience and it was brilliant, so brilliant that I think we want to do it always in front of an audience now. And I gave my usual talk, except it wasn’t my usual talk because I decided to invent a new one for Cheltenham and did a load of relativity and made it really hard. So I think everyone sat there going ‘Oh God, it’s maths’. I actually did vector identity. The vector, the differential form of Maxwell’s equations and derived the space-time interval. So there we go. I think it was alright.

Why do you feel events like this are important?
A: Science is of primary importance. I honestly think that economically and culturally speaking, it’s the most important thing to be doing in Britain. I think we should make Britain the best place in the world to do science. I think that should be an aspiration. David Cameron should stand up as Prime Minister and say ‘I will make Britain the best place in the world to do science’. The thing is, it’s affordable. We only spend, in total, about ten billion a year on universities, about three and a half billion on R&D. If you were to be bold and double it, Britain would be the best place in the world to do science and you wouldn’t notice in the bottom line of the country. Well, it wouldn’t impact the bottom line downwards. What it would do is impact the bottom line massively upwards. But I think in order to evolve and want to do that in Britain, you need massive public support because it’s a great bold project. And so things like Cheltenham and science on TV are building support for science. We’re going to lead the revolution and make Britain a better place in the world to do science and it will start here. In fact, this is probably the capital of the new Britain. It’ll be Cheltenham Town Hall if I have anything to do with it! Is that a bit overly ambitious?

Is this your first visit to the Cheltenham Science Festival and what do you think of it?
A: No, I was here last year. I did some stuff with Jim Al-Khalili. It’s brilliant. I actually like the fact that it’s quite informal. I like the fact that there’s this room in the Town Hall and everyone mixes together. There’s not a kind of a separation between speakers and the public and there often is at big festivals because it kind of has to be arranged that way. But I like here the fact that you just meet everybody.

Congratulations on your OBE. How does it feel to have shot to fame so quickly?
A: It’s actually beyond odd now. I was in a band before and we had a number one single so I’ve seen it a little bit, but not actually on the scale of after Wonders of the Solar System. I actually have to change my lifestyle because it’s a lot of hassle. That’s good because what it really means is that people are engaging with science. I’m kind of lucky in a way because I seem to have been the first person for a while who has managed to take these wonderful ideas and I’ve been kind of conduit for them. And although a lot of people have been doing it for a long time, you get over critical mass with viewing figures with the BBC. That’s what it is. Usually, you’d get at most about two million people – if you’re lucky, three million – watching a big science show and we had six and a half, if you add them up, for each episode. It’s still on. They just keep repeating it so it’s just consistently picking up an audience. That makes a huge difference. I’m really surprised because suddenly, you do get genuinely noticed like a celebrity rather than a scientist. In fact, my wife found a blog where someone had written ‘The BBC should stop having celebrities like Brian Cox presenting science programmes, they should have scientists’. That’s the funny thing – you get an audience that don’t know who you are. They don’t actually know you’re a scientist. They think you’re on Jonathan Ross so therefore you’re some kind of television presenter. It’s kind of an accolade in a way isn’t it? There’s a definite jump which I wasn’t expecting that has been made because of that programme.

Do you think the media’s recent love of science has been responsible for your rise to fame and do you think that will continue to happen with more and more people?
A: Definitely. It was a conscious decision by the BBC to have the World of Wonder season – which is this kind of year of science – and commissioning programmes with scientists. I mean Kathy Sykes did programmes, Jim Al-Khalili has done them, Marcus du Sautoy, Alice Roberts. The great thing is, because of programmes like Horizon, you can take people who are academics and allow them to grow. It’s not automatic that you can make TV programmes. It takes some practice. You have to learn. And the BBC are excellent at doing that. So it’s not a random thing. I think it’s been building interest for a while and it is primarily down to the BBC I would say.

Which part of your job do you love the most?
A: I love it all. I get frustrated because I like doing physics and I do less of it at the moment. I love making TV programmes, although it’s very hard work indeed, and I like writing more and more actually as well. I’m enjoying writing the books. I enjoy everything. The regret is that I don’t have enough time to do everything. So at the moment, it’s very TV orientated because we’re making a new series – Wonders of the Universe – and that’s going to take up a lot of time until the end of October. Then I’m having essentially 6 months off, apart from Wonders Live that we’re going to do in January. It’s probably a secret, but you can say it.

Do you have a favourite physics fact?
A: My favourite thing is that we can even speak of what the universe was doing 10-36 seconds after it began – so a million, million, million, million, million millionths of a second after the big bang. I mean, we don’t exactly know, but we can use the physics we know now. It’s not just random thoughts. We have some guidelines in the measurements that we’ve made and the physics that we know, to talk about the universe just tiny fractions of a second after it was made.

What came first – playing the keyboards in the band D:Ream or your academic career?
A: I was in two bands. I was in a rock band called Dare from 18 to 23 and that was really a rock band. We toured with Jimmy Page, Europe and all sorts of bands. We made two albums and then split up. I went to university and did a degree. I joined D:Ream accidentally when I was doing my degree and then did my PhD. So I got a PhD whilst I was in D:Ream. I became Professor a couple of years ago as a result of – I ran an upgrade project at the LHC called FP420 which was where you put these little detectors very close to the LHC beams, about half a kilometre away from where the protons collide. So that was my project. We wrote that at CERN and that’s what got me the Professor. And then after that really the TV stuff kind of kicked in.

How did that come about?
A: I’ve always done bits of it. I did some radio stuff really early on when I was doing my PhD and then I think I was a guest on Horizon. This is a way a lot of people come through actually, the BBC. And then they like that bit so then you make a Horizon, and then another one, and another one. So it’s kind of a process. It is learning. You look back at the early stuff you do and it’s really naïve in a way. You find your style changes and becomes more professional, but not in a bad way. It’s just you get better at being in front of a camera, basically. No-one is good at it immediately. So the fact that there is a vehicle at the BBC to allow people to develop is so important.

One of my favourite scenes in Wonders of the Solar System is the solar eclipse in Varanasi. Was it really as magical as it seemed on TV and how did it feel actually being there?
A: Totally unbelievable. I wasn’t ready for it at all, you know, how incredible it would be – which is why I think in the show we just filmed my reaction to it. When you put a TV programme together you have some idea of what you might say but what I said had got nothing to do with that… I was completely carried away by it. And I did feel…I say it…you feel you are on this ball of rock. It has that effect on you. You suddenly become isolated and exposed to the solar system. You just can’t imagine that you’d feel like that. It’s an incredible thing to see.

Do you still play the keyboards and have you ever thought of forming a science super-group with Patrick Moore on xylophone?
A: I do play a bit, but not a lot because I haven’t got time. And I did actually do a piece of music with Patrick Moore on xylophone once with a friend of mine called Graham Massey who’s in a band called 808 State, absolutely years ago. We took some samples of pulsars from Jodrell Bank and turned it into a beat thing and Patrick Moore played over it in Manchester at an event that we had. So I have already had a band with Patrick Moore!

By Sue Harris for The Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

This article was originally published on The Times Cheltenham Science Festival website.

Click here for original article.

Why do you think it is important to share science with the public?
A: Science is important to so many aspects of our lives now. You can see that in issues such as climate change and in healthcare, but also in the economy too – the fact that so much of the growth that we generate in this country ultimately derives from scientific advances. I think it’s very important that people understand that. I also think it’s important that people understand how science works, how discoveries are made, how we know what’s right and what’s wrong and what we can trust.

What do you love about communicating science?
A: First of all, the variety, the fact that there is so much exciting scientific endeavour going on – from the fruits of getting the genome sequence which is phenomenally exciting, to the Large Hadron Collider and space exploration. If you get bored covering science, something is wrong. I also love the rigour of science, the fact that ideas stand and fall on evidence rather than hearsay and assertion. The other great thing of course about writing for The Times about science is the way that you can ring up experts all over the world. They give you time and a personal tutorial on something really exciting. And that’s from one of the top names in the field. That’s pretty fun.

How did you go from a history degree to Science Editor for The Times?
A: I worked on The Times for about 4 years doing general reporting and writing jobs. Then I started a science job about 10 years ago. I don’t think it’s necessarily a disadvantage not to have a science degree. Science is so broad that if you’ve got a degree in particle physics and you’re being asked to write about molecular biology, you are not necessarily any better off. The key thing though is that you have to be able to understand the method of science – how science works – and I think if you can do that, then your actual academic background is less important.

Do you remember your first encounter with science?
A: I wrote quite a lot of leaders about global warming and GM crops when I did a spell as a leader writer. There is a learning curve though. I remember in my first couple of months on the job, I wrote a story about a cancer breakthrough almost every week because I was taking all these press releases at face value. And then I rapidly learned that actually most of these cancer cures that were being described were for mice and weren’t going to get anywhere near humans. You learn to be more sceptical.

If you were to do a PhD, would what it be about?
A: I would want to go into genetics in some field, because for me it’s one of the most fascinating areas of science where real progress is being made really quickly and where it’s starting to have clinical applications. I think what really fascinates me is the insights from the sequencing of the human genome a decade ago are reaching that cusp point now where they’re really starting to spill over into actual medical applications – particularly in cancer, but I don’t think it’s long before we will be testing fairly systematically for how people respond to drugs. The other factor is the technological advance. In the past 10 years, the cost of reading DNA, and speed with which that can be done, has plummeted to the point that it’s now £2000 whereas the first human genome sequence cost about 3 billion dollars and it’s going to fall still further. The main barrier to sequencing everybody is not going to be cost. It’s going to be capacity and processing that information in a useful way.

Do you think it will happen?
A: If I was predicting, I would say that within 5 years a substantial number of people will have had their genome sequenced. Whether it ever becomes universal I don’t know, because there will probably always be some people who don’t want it done. There are interesting ethical questions particularly surrounding things such as sequencing children.

What does The Times do differently to other newspapers in the reporting of science stories?
A: Well first of all we have Eureka, which is unique. We’re the only newspaper to have a science supplement. Secondly, I think my editors have a strong commitment to reporting science accurately and in an un-sensational way. We take the view that people are going to buy The Times because they trust us to get the story straight. Other papers may take the view that they want to be provocative or sensational but that is not the way we like to do things.

What example would you give of a science story that was reported badly and how could it have been better handled?
A: The two immediate ones that I could talk about are MMR and GM crops. In each case, I think the science got rather badly mishandled by certain sections of the press. I think the problem in the end was that the extreme minority views of the maverick scientist. It’s very tempting to set up debates as if they were political debates where you have to tell both sides of the argument fairly. That’s fine in politics, but actually in science where you have 99.9% of the evidence on one side it’s actually misleading and unfair to present an argument like that as balanced. I think certain sections of the media made some bad mistakes over that.

Do you feel the need to counter stories that are reported badly?
A: I have done that. I used to write a column for the old Body and Soul section that did that quite often and I still do it to a degree on my blog. But it’s more about making sure that those kinds of stories don’t get into The Times.

What will be a really hot topic in the next few years?
A: Genetics is one. Climate change obviously is going to be a big issue for the foreseeable future. The other thing that I think is going to be exciting as results come out is the Large Hadron Collider. The other one, which is a less positive thing, is if the science budget is very significantly cut as we fear it might be, then the fall out from that is going to be a significant story as well.

What about longer term?
A: It’s very hard to say, because if you try and predict that far ahead you are almost always wrong. I think that widespread genome sequencing will make a lot of differences in the medical sphere and also change the way we think about ourselves.

Do you visit scientists within their own laboratories and environment?
A: I do try to get out and do that as much as I possibly can because it’s always where you get the best stories. In London there are a lot of events in the evenings that I’ll go to. I very often pick up good stories there. I love coming to events like Cheltenham where you get to see an extremely wide variety of scientists from different disciplines and socialise with them and get to know them more personally.

By Sue Harris for The Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

This article was originally published on The Times Cheltenham Science Festival website.

Click here for original article.

The sun kept shining for the final day of The Times Cheltenham Science Festival. Imperial Gardens were awash with colour and noise, as families enjoyed all the activities and displays on offer in the second of our two weekend family days. Free ice cream went down a treat with the children as a group of young engineers put on an ice cream-making show. The Engineering Café made the ice cream using liquid nitrogen and used the commercial process to illustrate different kinds of engineers.

As always, chemist Andrea Sella put on a spectacular show on Sunday. He wowed adults and children alike with his visual demonstrations about the behaviour of solids, liquids and gasses. With explosions, flashes and Sella’s inimitable humour, the audience were hanging onto the edges of their seats.

We were honoured to have Guest Director, Brian Cox, joining us at the festival over the weekend. It was clear that Cox was extremely popular and the auditorium was packed to the rafters for every one of his five events. Queues for the events snaked almost full circle around Imperial Gardens. And audience members stormed the stage for autographs with the star, after the live stage recording of BBC Radio 4’s The Infinite Monkey Cage. Talking of his rise to fame, Cox told us it feels ‘beyond odd’ but is great because it shows that people are engaging with science.

One of the highlights on Sunday was hearing about his personal experience making the TV series, Wonders of the Solar System. Cox amused the festival audience by explaining that the series is full practical jokes. In one episode of the show, Cox explains how the planet Mars occasionally changes direction and loops back on itself rather than travelling in a straight line. This clip, he told us contains a very small Darth Vader figure, in honour of the Star Wars set which was located close by. See if you can spot it!

It is fair to say that the science festival this year has been a storming success. And what a great way to end the festival — hundreds of smiling families filling the Town Hall, and some of the greatest names in science simply just milling around. There is no place quite like it and we can’t wait to see you all back again next year.

By Sue Harris for The Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

This article was originally published on The Times Cheltenham Science Festival website.

Click here for original article.

Pathologist Suzy Lishman and her team of scientists showed the audience how to investigate a death from a suspected heart attack. Lishman dissected a pig’s heart, which is similar in size to a human heart. In the event Heart Attack she showed how to conduct a post-mortem examination and to look at the heart for damage and signs indicative of heart disease. Different doctors and scientists are involved in the investigations, explained Lishman. Sugar levels and other chemicals in the blood are measured by biochemists and microscopic structural damage is measured by histopathologists. There are also many other tests. There is certainly more to a post-mortem examination than cutting up bodies.

Along the surgical theme, Saturday featured a number of live simulated operations, led by surgeon Roger Kneebone. We went along to the workshop Fancy Yourself as a Surgeon to see what it was all about. It was certainly not for the faint hearted! Commenting on how realistic it was, Festival Director, Mark Lythgoe said, “The test is, when you walk into a theatre and if someone keels over it feels pretty live, and there were definitely a few wobbly legs”.

But it’s not all about the gore. Because of its realistic feel, Fancy Yourself as a Surgeon was a hugely impressive event. We chatted to Max Campbell, Director of Health Cuts Ltd. Max creates prosthetics for film and TV as well as for medical purposes and worked on the TV medical drama Holby City for over 5 years. He told us how the prosthetics are so realistic because of a specific kind of silicone he uses, which can, given the right mix of gel, achieve similar tactile qualities of human skin and tissue.

“Why is it special?” asked Lythgoe, “Because six surgeons have come from a hospital in London and they’ve given up their day jobs. It does worry me a little bit about who’s doing the surgery”.

By Sue Harris for The Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

This article was originally published on The Times Cheltenham Science Festival website.

Click here for original article.

And today is your last chance to come and meet some of these amazing minds. Robert Llewellyn, of Red Dwarf and Scrapheap Challenge fame, join us in Electric Dreams: The Future of Cars. Joined by engineer Roger Kemp and psychologist Harry Witchel, at 6pm the trio will be delving into the possibilities of electric cars. Could this be the answer to eco-friendly road travel?

Continuing on the theme of more carbon-efficient travel, Fuel Efficient Flying at 4.15pm will take a look at the future of air travel. Engineers John Green and Ben Evans will take a look at the design of fuel efficient aircraft as we continue our quest for guilt-free travel.

For those who enjoy a holiday in good old Blighty and appreciate what the British Isles has to offer, why not take a journey with geologist and Royal Society Fellow Richard Fortey. At 8pm, The Hidden Landscape will guide you through the hidden treasures of our British landscape and explain how events millions of years ago have made our landscape what it is today.

In health issues today, a panel of doctors, nurses and scientists will be taking us through the difficulties that hospitals face with the threat of superbugs. In Stopping the Spread of Superbugs, you, the audience, will make decisions that affect the outcome of a patient worried about the risk of contracting a superbug such as MRSA. Find out what decisions hospital staff must make every day to stop these nasty bugs in this interactive event at 2pm.

It’s your last chance to come and see this year’s science festival. It has been the biggest and best yet! Don’t miss it!

By Sue Harris for The Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

This article was originally published on The Times Cheltenham Science Festival website.

Click here for original article.

Why do you think it’s important to engage with the general public about science?
A: I think that science has to be communicated because it’s an aspect of everyday life. You’re interviewing me with a machine that is the product of science. You’re filming me on another that’s got all the latest technology and optics and digital recording skills. I am talking thanks to the amazing workings of my brain and my voice box and everything else. It’s an aspect of what makes us, us. Science sometimes gets this reputation as being all about the really difficult stuff and we need to break that down.

You have been described as ‘the world’s most enthusiastic man’. What is it about broadcasting science that makes you so excited?
A: First of all, I’m not the world’s most enthusiastic man. It’s a friend of mine. He’s far more enthusiastic than I am. But I do get very enthusiastic about doing science. With science, I get access to people who are doing the cutting edge science and the people who are best at understanding that science. They come and talk to me in my studio. It’s an outrageous privilege and I love it! It’s great to be able to talk to the people involved and then hopefully break down the idea that these are difficult areas of science. So I get the question why am I so excited about science, what I don’t get is why everybody else isn’t quite so excited. This is the most amazing thing! It’s taking us into the unknown all the time. What’s not to be excited about?

How much control do you have over what gets included in Material World?
A: It’s very definitely a team. Ideas will come from individuals, from personal contacts and from press releases as well. Sometimes ideas will just come. Occasionally, I have ideas that I’m determined to do on Material World that we never get round to. A little obsession of mine is that I always want to know what the rules are governing what people are professors of. After kind of nagging for a while, eventually we did a kind of special on it and it was one of my favourite Material World’s. There are fantastic stories like a guy who named…I think it’s a series of whelks or mussels after anagrams of the names of his mistress. These things have all got names, they’re all in the dictionaries but the only reason they’re there is because they are anagrams of this guys mistress. There are lots of stories like this. I’m a great believer that there’s a danger in doing science that’s just about discoveries, inventions, breakthroughs, and that leads the public to think that science is always like that. I like to talk about failures and I like to talk about the time that’s involved. I like to talk about the lives of scientists and the way that people collaborate. Scientists are not these extraordinary, weird Teflon-headed people who are completely cerebral. They watch football, they do other things as well. I want to convey that in the programmes.

Why did you choose radio over any other media?
A: There are two answers to that. You could argue that radio chose me as a bald bloke. But the more serious answer is that I’ve always liked radio. On radio, you get the spontaneity, you get the interaction. I like the fact that it’s one-on-one, you get a real feeling for it. Plus, people’s imaginations kick in. I love the fact that I can get people in my studio at 4.30pm on a Thursday, but the conversation will take place in real time. Whereas on TV, you’ve probably got to do about 25 takes and you’ve only got to get 1 minute of good TV. Or if you do it live, you risk it all collapsing down around people. So it’s just my absolute favourite medium.

You do workshops on science communication. Who do you do them with and why?
A: One of the things I’m doing here at Cheltenham is hosting the final of International Famelab. Part of the prize for the people in the Grand Final is you get a British science communicator to come out and give you a couple of days of media training. This year I went to Croatia and to Portugal and did the media training there. It’s really interesting to work with people right at the beginning like that and actually help them with some basics that they haven’t thought about.

Just as importantly, you get the heads of European science agencies and major Europe-based scientific organisations who are probably very senior and have probably not had much in the way of science communication training. Too often, scientists are used to being surrounded by people who know what they’re talking about. You have to change what you do when you are talking to a different type of audience. That’s the most important thing. I think it’s a very useful skill to have in the modern world because too much science doesn’t reach the people it’s affecting – the general public.

What advice would you give young scientists who want to do science communication?
A: First of all, read, listen and watch the people who are doing it already. There are brilliant TV documentary makers and programme makers out there already who have actually worked on some of these things. Watch them and then think ‘hang on, I could do it better’. It’s a difficult balance because what you don’t want people to do is to do it exactly like the people who are already doing it. First of all, read the books that are out there. Read Bill Bryson’s Short History of Nearly Everything because he’s not a science guy, but isn’t that a great book? Watch popular documentaries. If you are actually studying science and you’re in a department, look at the people around you. How good are they? Measure yourself against them. Think about a particular lecture you’ve been given. How would I have done that differently? How could I have simplified that? The general thing that people do is that they try and cram in too much when people can only actually take away two or three ideas. You’ll think it leaves them thinking how clever you are, but they haven’t actually learnt anything.

What is your pet science subject?
A: I studied artificial intelligence a long time ago and I studied psychology, so I quite like it where there is a psychological component to a story. I’m interested in how people respond to science and technology. And I love anything to do with AI because when I was doing it, we were so confident we were only a few years away from incredible robots that would think like humans. With every passing year, we keep going ‘oh, actually, you know the human body is much more sophisticated than we thought’. I love stuff that makes us appreciate what we’ve already got in our lives. I love the stuff that says ‘ever thought about how the eardrum works?’ It makes us really appreciate the piece of kit that we’re in and the lives we have. Then we can actually walk around the streets and go ‘wow! My day has just been made that little bit more amazing.’

By Sue Harris for The Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

This article was originally published on The Times Cheltenham Science Festival website.

Click here for original article

Visiting school children seemed to be having a great time throughout the duration of the school days. Two of the events on Friday stood out for some of the students.

The Bigger Bang almost blew the roof off the large Arena tent in Imperial Gardens. Shocked passers by wondered if everything was OK as they visibly jumped at the sound of the massive booms that were coming from the event. Presenter, Dr Hal of the University of Brighton, used different chemical reactions to create flashes, bangs, pops and stunning visual effects to explain how chemicals with different properties behave. In one stunt, carbon sulphide and nitrogen dioxide were mixed together in a giant test tube and then ignited. The result was a spectacular bright blue flash travelling along the tube, accompanied by a noise likened to a ‘barking dog’.

Here is what some of the students thought of the event:

Later, the team from the Science Museum took key stage 3 children on a journey through the digestive system. It Takes Guts was informative, engaging, sometimes revolting and certainly lively, as the children were invited up on stage for live experiments and competitions – to the sounds of heckling from their classmates. Among the many things that the audience learnt in the event was the reason that poo is brown. The Science Museum team explained, “When Iron comes into contact with oxygen and water it rusts and the same thing happens inside you. It’s called bile and that is why your poo is brown”.

We asked one of the children what they thought of It Takes Guts:

Included in their visit to the festival, children were entertained in the Discover Zone – our free-to-enter space in the Town Hall where people of all ages can interact with live demonstrations, experiments and hands-on activities.

The school days of the festival have been like an enormous classroom full of fun, noise, colour, but above all, science!

By Sue Harris for The Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

This article was originally published on The Times Cheltenham Science Festival website.

Click here for original article.

Modern medicine often astounds and amazes. With the skills of extremely talented surgeons, our chances of surviving accidents and fully recovering from operations of all kinds are continuously improving. Top surgeons are able to perform under immense pressure even with the responsibility of peoples lives in their hands. Today, you can find out what it is like to be a surgeon. We have a live link to our simulated operating theatre in Performance under Pressure: Operation Live at 6.30pm. Dr Dawn from channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies will be joining a full surgical team for the very realistic demonstration, which will be followed by a discussion on how they perform under pressure.

If something a little lighter-hearted is your thing, School for Gifted Children at 9.30pm has been described as a cross between The Royal Variety Performance and The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures. Featuring comedian Robin Ince, this promises to be an evening of brilliant comedy, laughter, debate along with Ray Tallis, Kate Lancaster and Steve Mould.

Ben Miller joins us for The Times debate today: Is this the Age of Science writing? At 4pm, this event will feature a lively discussion between Ben Miller, authors Graham Farmelo and Rebecca Skloot, and The Times Literary Editor Erica Wagner. They will be exploring the importance of the written word in science and the art of great writing. If you are an aspiring or and accomplished writer in any discipline, or just interested in the art of great science writing and then this one is for you.

You may have seen Channel 4’s TV series The Genius of Britain. In this event of the same name at 4pm, some of the series’ presenters, including Robert Winston, Jim Al-Khalili, Kathy Sykes and Olivia Judson will talk to us about the show and take a look at some of the great British achievements in British science.

There is certainly a lot to celebrate here at The Times Cheltenham Science Festival. Don’t forget we also have free events and hands-on activities in the Discover Zone as well as in Imperial Gardens. What are you waiting for?

By Sue Harris for The Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

This article was originally published on The Times Cheltenham Science Festival website.

Click here for original article.

What is your ultimate favourite thing about The Times Cheltenham Science Festival?
A: I like the idea that it’s all enclosed and it’s all contained mostly within the town hall. Here, you step out the door, and immediately next door there is another event, another exciting talk and everyone is milling around and everyone is bumping into each other. It’s just that feeling that you’re somewhere exciting, where lots of exciting things are happening that I don’t tend to find elsewhere.

What are you looking forward to the most this year?
A: On Saturday I’m doing an event on my Chemistry series with Chemist Andrea Sella. I’ve no idea what is going to happen there because he’s going to bring lots of demos and he’s going to expect me to do stuff, and I’m relying on him to stop me blowing myself up or suffocating myself. So I’m excited about doing that.

Today, you did an event on chaos theory. What is chaos theory?
A: The great thing about chaos theory is that you apply simple rules and you repeat them again and again. Under certain circumstances, it leads to something completely unpredictable that you could never foresee. And then there’s the flip-side of chaos which is that the same rules, simple rules, can lead to something complex with beautiful patterns emerging. I like to think that that’s a way of explaining how our universe is complicated. Whether chaos has a bearing on evolution and life is an interesting subject. The word chaos encompasses a lot of ideas.

What would you say is really hot in theoretical nuclear physics at the moment?
A: The big ideas are things like ‘what sort of atomic nuclei can we make’. In the textbooks, you learn at school that the nucleus of an atom is made of protons and neutrons and we fit them all together and a different number of protons give you different elements and so on. We can now make very exotic types of atomic nuclei. You can make new elements in the periodic table that have never been seen before. It’s not straightforward and the maths gets very complicated, but it’s rewarding when you see some new phenomenon.

What do you think will be the most important development in physics in the future?
A: All sorts of things are going to be happening in the 21st century. In particle physics, we’re hoping the Large Hadron Collider is going to churn out results. But I and quite a few physicists are quite keen that the Higgs Boson isn’t found because if it’s not, it means new physics. It means we have to go back to the drawing board and rethink our fundamental theories, which is great because you don’t want all the questions to be answered.

In theoretical physics there are still lots of outstanding questions. There are two theories – quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of relativity – that between them describe all of fundamental physics. But they don’t fit together and we don’t understand. We need a theory like superstring theory that might bring those two ideas together. But no-one knows if that’s the right direction to go in.

Then there are other areas of physics like nanoscience, where physics overlaps with materials science and chemistry. People are going to develop things like smart materials and invisibility cloaks, and weird applications with lasers, that used to be just a dream in someone’s head and now we’re actually thinking about clever ways of building these ideas into reality. There’s hopefully a lot of rewarding discoveries yet to be made.

You’ve recently been a presenter on the TV series Genius of Britain. Who would you say is your greatest scientific genius of all time, and why?
A: The greatest genius of all time I would have to say is Isaac Newton. Isaac Newton did so much. Yes, as he himself said, he stood on the shoulders of giants that came before him, but he brought about what we now call physics today and he’s yet to be matched, even by the likes of Einstein.

How do you see the future of British Science, and what do you think should be done to help secure it?
A: That’s a very important question. We have the Science Minister here at Cheltenham today. It is a worry. In my area of nuclear physics we’ve seen huge cuts in funding, to the extent that we are worried that the discipline itself may not survive in the UK. In other countries it’s very healthy, and they’re building particle accelerators and doing lots of experiments and it’s funded properly. Science underpins the UK economy and I hope that the present administration understands that, that it’s very short sighted to cut research funding. If the UK loses its lead in so many areas that it has at the moment it will be very hard to recover that. I think we have to put the case clearly and strongly whenever we can.

By Sue Harris for The Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

This article was originally published on The Times Cheltenham Science Festival website.

Click here for original article.