And what a day 1 – attending five great events and squeezing in some great borderline sprinting between venues!
All good Science Festival days should start with a sunshiny run along the beach, this should be the inescapable law. Aberdeen today boasts plenty of beach and plenty of unseasonable sunshine.
First up on the programme today is the four-pronged discussion of contemporary neuroscience / psychology ‘How the body shapes the mind’. An exploration of mind-body interactions is given a particularly playful edge in the animated Arthur Glenburg’s final talk, which explores how physical embodiment of stories (complete with plastic play-farm) can improve childrens reading skills.
‘Ancient insects in technicolour’ was a whistle-stop tour of the world of palaeontology. With a healthy heping of audience participation we explored at the challenges behind reconstructing the true colour of fossil bugs, and the possible solutions to be found at the bottom of a concrete bunker in a machine usually used to compress rocks! http://www.royensoc.co.uk/sites/default/files/British_Science_Festival_fossil_insect_colour_event.pdf
‘Do we really need satellites?’ was a special one-off talk by Maggie Aderin-Pocock: part biography, part impassioned discussion of the importance of satellites (natural and artificial) to the smooth running of our everyday lives. Possibly the only talk in the programme to be partly co-presented by a toddler..?
‘A Noah’s ark for the 21st century’ sought to explore the importance we should be placing on the preservation of agricultural biodiversity. I now feel like a world expert on seed bank locations and also fully appreciate the difficulties of trying to keep the humble potato happy in a cold room scenario (although my kitchen cupboards could probably have provided me with a good hint)
Last, but by no means least, ‘Great ideas of biology’ with Nobel Prize winner Paul Nurse was an auspicious occasion, filling up the beautifully vaulted Kings College Conference Centre auditorium. Paul let us in on his ‘top 5’ great ideas (spoiler alert: evolution was definitely in there), including his thoughts on a possible direction for the future study of biology.
Annnnd relax.