Welcome to our blog from the British Science Festival. This year's Festival will be in Surrey from 5-10 September with hundreds events expected to happen at the University of Surrey campus and throughout the county. With workshops, hands-on fun, heated debates, talks, performances and field trips there's something for everyone!
Stay tuned for the latest news and developments from the British Science Festival.

from Yasmin and Natalie (Festival team)

Thursday 30 October 2008

Climate change and space in Manchester


Continuing on with all the happenings at the Manchester Science Festival... On Sunday Maggie Aderin delivered her BA Award Lecture; Climate change: what space can teach us about climate change. Maggie told us about how inspired by the stars she was when she was growing up and that it was a time of great excitement with astronauts going up into space. From then on Maggie’s passion for space seems to continue and she now works as an “instrumentalist”, working with a team in her company to build instruments that take measurements and readings in space. It was incredible to hear about the hard work that goes into producing something that has to go into space. Firstly, it has to be built with the right materials, which are often extremely expensive. These materials and the prototypes have to be tested to extremes; temperature, pressure, wind and other tests simultaneously, to ensure it will be able to stand the extreme conditions it will be exposed to in space. Once you have a finished instrument, you have to actually get it into space which again has huge costs associated with it. So, it’s no easy task.


Maggie’s work is very important in climate change research. Her work helps to monitor changes in climate on earth, by collecting data about CO2 levels and the movement of the wind amongst other things. This contributes to ongoing data which will help to put the bigger picture of how and why the climate is changing and what we can do to combat climate change. These instruments can also be used to collect data from other planets which help us to further understand our own. My particular highlight was a demonstration of how a bottle filled with CO2 heats to a much higher temperature than normal air, providing such a simple example of what increased levels of CO2 are doing and could continue to do to our planet.


Hopefully we’ll see more of Maggie next year at the Festival during the International year of Astronomy!

Wednesday 29 October 2008

Colour - bubbles, butterflies and more


Well, what a week. We’ve been at the Manchester Science Festival and thought I would give a little update of what we’ve been up to. At the weekend, we took two of our fantastic BA Award Lectures to the Manchester Science Festival. First up, Pete Vukusic from the University of Exeter giving his talk Evolutionary colour: Evolutionary colour: understanding nature's use of light. He joined us on Saturday at the Manchester Museum to look at colour, how colour is formed, how we see it and the different types; namely pigments and structural colour. Pigments produce a colour as a result of different wavelengths of light being absorbed. Structural colour works by producing a colour when light interacts with different layers of an object. When light hits the object at different angles the colour can appear to change. A great example is soap bubbles and some butterfly wings. We had great fun painting some audience members’ face with paint and looking at it under UV light, creating bubbles, watching cars change colour and watching creatures disappear. We then found out about the different ways that colour cold be applied in science including use in make-up (no butterflies were harmed!). We had some younger members in the audience than we thought we would and Pete’s ability to adapt the content of his talk and present information for the different age groups throughout was impressive. He was a really engaging scientist, bringing light to his area of work and inspiring the audience – especially the younger ones. I think we have a few budding scientists as a result!

Friday 24 October 2008

Manchester Science Festival

Hi everyone,

We're off the Manchester Science Festival today, where we're taking two of our Award Lectures that took place at the Festival in Liverpool this September. Catch Pete Vukisic's talk on exploring nature's colour on Saturday and Maggie Aderin's talk on Sunday looking at climate change from a new angle. Both these events are free and so if you missed them the first time round get yourself to Manchester this weekend!

2009 Festival: We will soon be taking in nominations for next year's Award lectures, so keep checking the website and blog for the latest news from us.

Thanks

Yasmin, The Festival team

Wednesday 15 October 2008

2009 proposals...

Proposals are coming in thick and fast for next year's Festival. Climate change, space, comedy, communication, language, drama, film.... and we've not even reached the deadline (tomorrow) yet. For more info about running an event... www.the-ba.net/festivalgetinvolved

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Goodbye Liverpool... hello Manchester


This month we are taking two of our fantastic Award Lectures to the Manchester Science Festival. So, if you didn’t catch them first time around or you are in Manchester during the week, get yourself along.

Pete Vukusic, from the University of Exeter will be exploring the nature’s use of colour and its applications in technology, from feathers to fish scales and cosmetics to camouflage in the BA Lord Kelvin Award Lecture, Evolutionary light: understanding nature’s use of colour. Saturday 25 October 14:00 – 15:00, Manchester Museum.

Maggie Aderin will look at climate change from a whole new angle as we find out how space scientists like Maggie make science count in the battle against climate change in the BA Isambard Kingdom Brunel Award Lecture, Climate change: what space can teach us about planet Earth. Sunday 26 October 14:00 – 15:00, Manchester Museum.

Both of these events are FREE and will be held at the Manchester Museum .To book please call 0161 275 2648. For more information about the Manchester Science Festival check out their website: http://www.manchestersciencefestival.com/

Creativity, innovation and evolution

That's our theme for next year's BA Festival of Science which will be in Guildford, Surrey, hosted by the University of Surrey. Now we've finished this year's Festival, it's time to think ahead. There is still some time left if you would like to get involved in next year's Festival. You can submit a proposal to run an event at the Festival. The deadline is 16 October and more info about the proposal process can be found at www.the-ba.net/festivalgetinvolved.

Natalie