Goodbye Manchester...

So what about the rest of the week at the Manchester Science Festival? After ensuring the Award Lectures went smoothly, we got the chance to go to some other events in the Festival. We went on a city walk looking at Radical Manchester, which was run by Urbis and was very insightful. I went to a talk and discussion about tuberculosis and how it is worryingly on the rise again. This was fascinating, since there have been a lot of changes since I learnt about tuberculosis at University. I dropped into lots of exhibitions and went to a documentary and discussion called Cosmic Africa, which explored an African’s work in cosmology and his journey to find where this fit in with the culture and beliefs of many Africans. It was a great documentary and was great food for thought. There was some great food there too! I also got the chance to meet lots of other festival organisers and directors from all over the world which was very exciting. Attending as part of a British Council International Festival Directors symposium, they were at the Manchester Science Festival to see how the UK runs its Science Festivals and what the UK does in terms of public engagement with science. So, it was a great few days in Manchester – our Award Lectures went really well and it was good to have the opportunity to attend events at another Festival. Now back to thinking about Surrey...

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!

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!

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/