Science festival days 3 and 4
Day three (Monday) started with “Sizzling Science”, where a celebrity chef (never heard of him, but I'm not exactly a great follower of such people) cooked up a three-course meal in 45 minutes, to a commentary about nutrients and the chemistry of food. Thoroughly fascinating, and I intend to try the steamed meringues when I get home. In what was to become something of a habit, I rather cheekily asked to promote the poster session at the beginning of the talk. I've been very pleasantly surprised that everybody so far has said yes, and that none of the audiences seem to resent it.
Thence to the Austin Pearce building, which has now been renamed the Austin Powers building for the first poster session. Sadly a very poor attendance, possibly due to the timings we have been given, which clash badly with the lecture that are going on. Many of the people who do come don't want to talk (or are all talked out by the time they reach my poster, which is right in the middle of the room), but those who do are very enthusiastic. Meet Lord Drayson, who stops and talks for quite a while, and then quite a bit later on, Phil Willis MP.
After the poster session, I had a bit of a break, before the “Xchange” which is a kind of daily round-up session held in one of the bars. Slip off early to go to a lecture on Ordnance Survey, given by one of their research guys. This turns out to be very interesting - all about how they update maps and the new technologies they are investigating.
Day 4 (Tuesday) I am timetabled for the morning poster session. Given the poor turnout on Monday, I spend an hour beforehand madly leafleting everyone in sight. Not sure it makes any difference though - still pretty quiet. A lot of people comment that we clash with the lectures. Some people are quite accusatory. I try to point out that we didn't choose the times...
I go to see a press conference after lunch. It's interesting seeing how they're run from the other side. It was all very friendly I thought - it will be interesting to try to go to a more controversial one and see how that is handled. There's one on swine flu on Thursday that I might try to see.
The afternoon is spent in a very long session on archaeological fakes - thoroughly wonderful. A wide variety of subjects, and a break in the middle where we had to work out whether 8 items were real or fake. I got 6/8, which is not bad at all.
Off to the Xchange again in the evening. I foolishly agreed to volunteer to help a couple of the presenters, and at one point was wrapped up in cling film, demonstrating how bacterial mats stop dead birds' wings falling off. The things I do for science!
Thence to the Austin Pearce building, which has now been renamed the Austin Powers building for the first poster session. Sadly a very poor attendance, possibly due to the timings we have been given, which clash badly with the lecture that are going on. Many of the people who do come don't want to talk (or are all talked out by the time they reach my poster, which is right in the middle of the room), but those who do are very enthusiastic. Meet Lord Drayson, who stops and talks for quite a while, and then quite a bit later on, Phil Willis MP.
After the poster session, I had a bit of a break, before the “Xchange” which is a kind of daily round-up session held in one of the bars. Slip off early to go to a lecture on Ordnance Survey, given by one of their research guys. This turns out to be very interesting - all about how they update maps and the new technologies they are investigating.
Day 4 (Tuesday) I am timetabled for the morning poster session. Given the poor turnout on Monday, I spend an hour beforehand madly leafleting everyone in sight. Not sure it makes any difference though - still pretty quiet. A lot of people comment that we clash with the lectures. Some people are quite accusatory. I try to point out that we didn't choose the times...
I go to see a press conference after lunch. It's interesting seeing how they're run from the other side. It was all very friendly I thought - it will be interesting to try to go to a more controversial one and see how that is handled. There's one on swine flu on Thursday that I might try to see.
The afternoon is spent in a very long session on archaeological fakes - thoroughly wonderful. A wide variety of subjects, and a break in the middle where we had to work out whether 8 items were real or fake. I got 6/8, which is not bad at all.
Off to the Xchange again in the evening. I foolishly agreed to volunteer to help a couple of the presenters, and at one point was wrapped up in cling film, demonstrating how bacterial mats stop dead birds' wings falling off. The things I do for science!