CELEBRATING
10 FESTIVALS
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WELCOME
Mark Lythgoe, Festival Director
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WELCOME TO THE TIMES CHELTENHAM SCIENCE FESTIVAL
Kathy Sykes, Festival Director
This year we are celebrating our tenth Festival, and we hope you’ll join us for the party.
We have three wonderful Guest Directors this year, including our first children’s Guest Director! Alan Moore, Tanya Byron and Stefan Gates’ passion is inspirational – read about them and their events on pages 28-29, 32 and 40-41.
To mark our special year, our Festival theme is X – the Roman numeral for ten of course – and we have a whole host of linked events from X-Men to X chromosomes. We’re exploring the advances in science since the very first Festival in 2002, and revisiting some of the topics we looked at then. We’ve also invited back some of the most popular speakers who’ve been to the Festival over the years.
As last year’s Guest Director Brian Cox said, “science really is for everyone, no matter what your knowledge or experience”. Whether you’re completely new to science or a professor, you’ll find this year’s Festival a feast for your mind. We hope to see you there! X represents the unknown, danger and extremes. It is the rebel of the alphabet, the most exotic: there is something about it that inspires curiosity and lures you in... just like the Festival! X marks the spot in Vivienne Parry’s x-rated exploration of the female anatomy (S40, p22) and our event on GPS (S4, p16). X marks the unknown mathematically in Simon Singh’s Powers of X (S107, p34) and philosophically in Andy Miah’s study of Factor X (p13), the mysterious quality that defines what it is to be human. In Hungry? (S53, p25) we’ll be exploring how and why our waistlines have moved from L to XL, XXL and XXXL. And in Gender (S58, p26) you’ll discover there is so much more to what makes you male or female than just X and Y chromosomes. Who’d have thought that one letter would have enough intrigue to inspire so much? Come and embrace the unknown with us. Enjoy! X
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CONTENTS
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Features
4 – 15
Events
16 – 43
Festival Planner
47 – 48
Visitor info
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SCIENCE FOR EVERYONE
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Explore wonderful things, take your mind to new places or simply have a great night out at Cheltenham Science Festival. The Festival features a huge variety of ideas and styles. To help guide you through the programme we’ve selected some of the key themes that run throughout, and over the next few pages you can read fascinating introductions to selected events by our guest contributors. Keep an eye out for these events and more in our full event programme (from page 16). You’ll also find two fabulous feature articles on pages 13 and 15, where Andy Miah explores what makes us human and Mark Henderson celebrates the biggest scientific advances since our very first festival in 2002.
“Cheltenham has something special about it. They get the top people who everyone can mix and mingle with. It has an air of cool - the Glastonbury of the science Festivals” Festival Partner, 2010
BEAUTIFUL
The Shiver S36, Wed, 7.30pm, p22 Quentin Cooper gets a tingle of excitement over this beautiful performance. It would never have crossed my mind, but dance is a fantastic way to get you thinking differently about something we seldom think about at all – the odd double-edged edginess of a shiver: that fleeting frisson of thrill or chill. Or both at once. What’s going on within us – why and how one set of pathways are used for such apparently conflicting emotions – is complex; but even though The Shiver was made with the
involvement of Oxford neuroscientist Professor Morten Kringelbach, this isn’t a lecture in how we’re wired. It’s a performance combining gorgeous choreography, hypnotic music and the provocative, evocative poetry of Lemn Sissay. It is a thing of beauty. Something felt as much as understood, but which opens up all sorts of possibilities and questions that are then explored in the discussion at the end.
OTHER BEAUTIFUL EVENTS Brain Scan: Live S97, p33 BBC Wonders of the Universe S120, p37 Exploring the Plasma Universe S14, p17
That’s the bit I chair – and I get a shiver every time I do it. Quentin Cooper is a journalist and Radio 4 presenter and a member of the Festival advisory group.
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FESTIVAL THEMES
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ENTERTAINING
Your Days Are Numbered: the maths of death S82, Fri, 8.30pm, p30 Funded by a grant from the Wellcome Trust
Timandra Harkness recalls the premiere of her comedy show at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe. I’m not sure that our show was the most intelligent on the Edinburgh Fringe, but our heckles certainly were. “Which year are you taking your data from?” they shouted from the front row. ”Is that stochastic modelling?” and “Couldn’t that be accounted for by ... ?” – which we paraphrased as “show us yer control group!”
We expected a show about death to be scary and full of black humour. But when we did the research we felt more cheerful. Drinking a bit and being slightly overweight turns out to be better for you than being an underweight teetotaller. UK life expectancy is rising so fast that in the hour you spend watching the show, it’s gone up by 12 minutes. So in effect you’ve only wasted 48 minutes of your life laughing about death. And Maths.
“Wonderfully tangential at times and growing exponentially in terms of fascination as it progressed… an enthralling hour of generally wellresearched entertainment, the by-product of which was that we all emerged better educated about what not to worry about.”
You’re not getting a pro rata refund, though.
The School for Gifted Children S111, p34
Timandra Harkness is a writer and performer and a member of the Festival advisory group.
Fringe Review, August 2010
OTHER ENTERTAINING EVENTS A Question of Science S83, p30
Slam The Atom S113, p34
INTRIGUING Making Money with Maths S98, Sat, 2pm, p33 Sharon Bishop is inspired by the intriguing story of a mathematician who did things differently. In the secretive world of financial investment, one company has risen above the others. Renaissance Technologies was set up in the early 80s by James Simons, a professor of mathematics who was frustrated with a problem and eager for a different challenge. He employed code-breakers, computer scientists, mathematicians and astrophysicists to mine huge amounts of data from financial markets, looking for patterns
in the value of stocks, bonds and other investment tools. They used the data to predict whether the value was likely to rise or fall, with extraordinary success. James is now worth $8.7 billion, and as a philanthropist is investing in scientific research and education in the US. Yet the exact reasons for his success remain a mystery. He was the inspiration for David Harding, whose own firm Winton Capital Management is riding a similar wave of success here in the UK. This is the intriguing story of how maths can make you money. Sharon Bishop is the Festival’s Executive Director.
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OTHER INTRIGUING EVENTS Chemistry and Architecture S5, p16 The Rhythm of Life S25, p20 Mapping the Mind S128, p38
FESTIVAL THEMES
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INSPIRING
Nansen S132, Sun, 6.45pm, p38 Mark Maslin shares his admiration for one of his greatest heroes. Fridtjof Nansen was a colossus of science and polar exploration. He was one of the founders of neurology and a pioneer in the diverse fields of oceanography and skiing. In 1888 Nansen lead the first ever scientific crossing of Greenland’s interior, having burnt their boats to discourage retreat. It took two months enduring climbing 9,000 feet above sea level, mastering dangerous ice, exhaustion, and temperatures of -45°C. Five years later Nansen wanted to prove his theory that a current carried the arctic sea ice
from east to west. So he entombed his ship, the Fram, into the ice pack off Siberia, from which it emerged 35 months later into open water near Spitzbergen. Nansen was not aboard as he and a companion had decided to make the 400-mile dash to the North Pole. Though they did not quite make it, they came closer than anyone before and their adventures on the return trip have become the stuff of legends. Nansen was also an artist, historian, diplomat and a Kingmaker. Finally working for the League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations, as High Commissioner for Refugees he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Nansen proves the dictum that ‘the history of the world is but the biography of great men’.
Mark Maslin is Head of the Department of Geography at UCL and Co-Director of the Environment Institute there. He is also a member of the Festival advisory group.
OTHER INSPIRING EVENTS Gagarin S112, p34 What Makes a Champion? S60, p26 The Future of Technology S21, p18
CONTROVERSIAL X-Men vs Bionic Women S45, Thu, 2.30pm, p24 Lesley Paterson asks big questions about human enhancement. As is often the case, what might have seemed like fantasy and the work of a science fiction writer even 10 years ago is now becoming reality. The capacity for humans to have implants or take drugs in order to be restored to ‘normal function’ has now been surpassed. Science and engineering advances now offer individuals the opportunity to go beyond their natural talent and abilities. But what does this mean for those who do not wish to be ‘restored’ as they do
not see their condition (for example, deafness) as a disability? And what about those individuals who do not want to be enhanced but will then inevitably place themselves and their children at a disadvantage in exams, sporting activities, or opportunities for promotion compared to those who have chosen the enhanced path?
for those who choose to be enhanced, when in competition with those who choose not to be.
The Academy is striving to put engineering where it belongs – right at the heart of society, and to promote discussion on the pros and cons of technological advances. X-Men and Bionic Women gives us this opportunity and will explore the science and engineering behind human restoration and whether society requires new rules
The Ethics of Synthetic Biology S33, p21
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Lesley Paterson is Head of Communications and Engagement for The Royal Academy of Engineering.
OTHER CONTROVERSIAL EVENTS
Saviour Siblings S64, p28 The Matrix: Reality or Fiction? S18, p18
FESTIVAL THEMES
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COMPELLING
Vegetative State S67, Fri, 2.30pm, p28 Roger Highfield reflects on the compelling idea that some people in vegetative bodies have conscious minds. While working at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge University, Adrian Owen made headlines worldwide for showing how the brains of apparently unaware patients in a vegetative state could respond in much the same way as conscious people when asked to think of a given activity, such as walking around or playing tennis. Remarkably, he and his colleagues
trained a brain-damaged 29-year-old to answer questions by thinking of the corresponding activity, where wandering around the house was a ‘no’ and serve-and-volleying a ‘yes’. Their conclusion, which is as heartening as it is disturbing, was that some vegetative bodies harbour conscious minds. More extraordinary still, Adrian can now use brain scanning to probe the bewildering penumbra of possibilities that lie between oblivion and consciousness. In natural sleep, we are surprisingly aware of what is going on around us. This is not the case when the sleep is drug-induced, as our experience during major surgery demonstrates – but even here, Adrian and his
colleagues at Cambridge’s Division of Anaesthesia showed that the brain remains highly active when heavily sedated, and even responds to people’s speech with a crackle of activity. Roger Highfield is Editor of New Scientist and a member of the Festival advisory group.
OTHER COMPELLING EVENTS Understanding Excess S47, p24 Exploring the Autistic Mind S71, p29
Psychology of War: from Shell Shock to PTSD S41, p22
K FAMELAB U IN N R U ET R L WIL 11 20 N M AUTU RG FAMELAB.O
We’re enormously proud of FameLab, our international competition to find inspiring new voices from the worlds of science and engineering. It’s reached so many people and places around the world, and it’s great to see the wonderful band of talented people who have been inspired to share their passion for science with others and develop their own style. At this year’s Festival why not come and support the next generation of science presenters – you never know where you might see them next! Who will take the ultimate FameLab crown? Winners from 16 countries – from Hong Kong to the Czech Republic and many others in between – have just 3 minutes each to impress you and our judges in the FameLab International final on Saturday 11 June (S110, p34). FameLab® is developed and operated in the UK by Cheltenham Festivals in association with NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, and in many other countries in partnership with the British Council.
Adnane Qasbar
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SCIENCE IN THE SQUARE Cheltenham’s Town Hall and Imperial Gardens are great places to get immersed in the Science Festival experience for free. Why not pop into The Times Café or The Talking Point for the latest Science Festival gossip and debate, or take the kids to the Discover Zone for some hands on, interactive science action?
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THE TALKING POINT If an event leaves you wanting more then head for the Talking Point, with the speakers and other audience members to continue the debate.
Daily 9.30am – festival close The Waterstone’s Festival Book Tent stocks a range of science titles and is open for author signings.
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AREA 42
DISCOVER ZONE
BBC SCIENCE ZONE
Interactive science zone Suitable for over 16s 12-8pm Fri, Sat, Sun
Town Hall Interactive science for all ages 10am – 5pm daily
Since the founding of the BBC, science has been at the heart of the schedules. Meet the production teams responsible for some of your favourite BBC science programmes, explore the content further, get hands-on with science and have the opportunity to quiz their family of expert presenters in an informal setting.
Be one of the first to play with some of the very latest technology, including 3D mobile phone displays and flexible electronic screens. Right at the cutting edge, this is the very best of British technology, not yet on the market and on public display for the first time.
Visit cheltenhamfestivals.com/ bbc-science-zone for more details on content and sessions.
Meet the researchers, engineers and designers who make our world a more exciting place. cheltenhamfestivals.com/area42
FREE EVENTS There will be lots of free events at the Festival, including The Times’ Science Question Times (S9, 30, 51 & 73) on week days and Turning the Tables interviews (S65, 99 & 118) over the weekend. You can also share your views on bioenergy (S35, p22), discover hidden gems in the engineering world (S37, p22 & S117, p38), learn how to keep yourself and your family safe online (S94, p32) and much more!
LEGO® EDUCATION ZONE Suitable for all ages 11am – 5pm Sat & Sun Can you adapt a car to get it up the steepest ramp? How many goals can you score against our robotic goalie? Join the LEGO® Education team for some hands-on action!
BBC Bang Goes the Theory
ART EXHIBITIONS UNIFICATION 22 May to 12 June 2011 W-CA presents Unification, an exhibition of contemporary art inspired by science. Cheltenham venue to be announced w-ca.net
FAMILY FUN DAY Mark Lythgoe & Mark Henderson
Imperial Gardens Suitable for all ages From 11am Sat & Sun
CHELTENHAM OPEN STUDIOS The Festival is a venue on the Cheltenham Open Arts Studio 2011 art trail. See their exhibitions in the Town Hall’s Spa Well and Waterstone’s Festival Book Tent and and get arty with them at the family fun days at the weekend. cheltenhamopenstudios.org.uk
GCHQ CODE CRACKING CHALLENGE GCHQ have set a Code Cracking Challenge. It’s going to be hard. Are you one of the few who will unravel the clues? See cheltenhamfestivals.com/ gchq-hardest-challenge to try the challenge and for more information about how to enter the competition.
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EPSRC AT THE CHELTENHAM SCIENCE FESTIVAL 7-12 JUNE 2011
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
explore the science of
BLOOD
Visit the Discover Zone to see EPSRC funded exhibits.
Take a seat at the Blood Bar to
with EPSRC
investigate the EPSRC funded science and engineering behind healthcare technology and the mechanics of blood. Stem Cells Wednesday 8th June Carbon Capture Friday 10th June Green Chemistry Saturday 11th June To find out more about us visit our website at www.epsrc.ac.uk. EPSRC is the main UK government agency for funding research and training in engineering and physical sciences, investing around ÂŁ800 milion a year inresearch that ultimately impacts on society and the way we live.
COMMENT
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Professor Andy Miah explores what makes humans unique.
Things are a little different today. Not only have we lived through the Enlightenment and now enjoy a world where multiple belief systems (sometimes) co-exist, we also understand where the Enlightenment went wrong. Today, our biological and social scientific knowledge of humanity has progressed so far that identifying any essential quality - or Factor X - of our humanness may prove to be impossible.
There may have been a time when reaching a consensus on what defines humanity was relatively straightforward. Of course, this didn’t mean that everybody agreed on a single definition, but that knowledge about what made us human was circulated and authenticated in such a narrowly controlled way, that any attempt to reject the prevailing worldview was promptly and easily rejected.
Still, there has been no shortage of candidates – our capacity to reason, to feel a range of second-order emotions like embarrassment, to develop complex language systems and subsequently cultures; even the pattern of our DNA have each been proposed in some form over the last 200 years to assert what is unique and special about the human species. However, each of these measures has fallen foul to discoveries that reveal them to be malleable, not essential, and often shared with other species, leading us unavoidably to conclude that what defines humanity, this Factor X, may simply be our willingness to alter and experiment with our biology. Yet, today’s times are also similar to previous millennia. While today we question the absolute status of biological limits and actively partake in their manipulation through technology, there still remains controversy over how far we should be allowed to go before we corrupt Factor X in such a way as to be catastrophic.
FACTOR X
These concerns are present when large environmental disasters strike, regardless of whether they are caused by humanity, or nature. As well, isolated and unforeseen health pandemics, coupled with failed human interventions, which bring untold harm to our species, all urge caution before we tamper too much with our molecular design or, indeed, that of other species. Still, whether it is the automobile or antibiotics, technology has become inextricable from an increasingly biologically nanoscaled world, where artifice and nature intertwine to form a synthetic biological relationship. Scientists already treat ageing as a disease, the onset of which we should delay or perhaps even halt in the name of our rightful pursuit of health. As well, the growing culture of cosmetic surgical interventions demonstrates how the line between aesthetic and functional modifications is blurred, along with the distinction between therapy and enhancement, where prosthetic devices may soon surpass the capacity of biological organs. As a child of the new millennium, the Times Cheltenham Science Festival may be seen as the midwife of this braver, newer world. Having brought to the public’s attention the gravity of these changes and, in so doing, altered the course of their appropriation, we must surely conclude that the strongest candidate for Factor X remains humanity’s desire to discuss what makes us human. Professor Andy Miah, PhD Director, Creative Futures Research Centre, University of the West of Scotland http://creativefutur.es Andy will be taking part in The Ethics of Synthetic Biology (S33, p21) on Wednesday and X-Men vs Bionic Women (S45, p24) on Thursday.
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Your monthly magazine dedicated to science, life and the planet
Inside The Times on the first Thursday of every month For more information visit thetimes.co.uk/eureka
FEATURE
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CELEBRATING 10 YEARS
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had published its Third Assessment Report, but the United States had rejected the emissions controls of the Kyoto Protocol. And at the CERN particle physics laboratory, the Large Electron-Positron Collider had shut down, despite tantalising hints that the Higgs boson or ‘God particle’ might soon be glimpsed.
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Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, will explore the digital revolution that has made it hard to imagine life without the web. Her own field, quantum computing, is now promising to take it in new directions.
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As Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King proclaimed global warming to be a greater threat than terrorism. As Director of Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, he is helping businesses to find innovative solutions. He’ll highlight science’s growing understanding of global warming and its insights into how it might be contained.
Each of our experts will start to make their case in Eureka magazine, out with The Times on Thursday, June 2nd, before debating together at the Festival on Sunday, June 12th. Then it’ll be up to you, the Cheltenham audience, to decide. Mark Henderson will be chairing A Decade in Science on Sunday (S123, p37). He is also chairing The Race for the $1,000 Genome on Wednesday (S24, p20) and having the tables turned on him, when he is interviewed by a scientist, on Friday (S65, p28). 15
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Jim Virdee, a particle physicist at CERN, will celebrate the opening of the Large Hadron Collider. As he was until recently the spokesperson for the atom-smasher’s Compact Muon Solenoid experiment, he is perfectly placed to consider how it might change our understanding of the Universe.
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The decade has also seen science move on at an exciting pace. At the first Festival, the Human Genome Project had just published the first draft of the complete DNA sequence of our species. The internet was starting to impact our daily lives, but most of us still got online through dial-up connections and the dot-com bubble had recently burst.
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Sir Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, will explain how ten years of research into the human genome — much of it funded by his charity — has delivered insights into the genetic origins of cancer and other diseases that herald a new era of personalised medicine.
NEW
A lot can change in a ten years. Cast your mind back to 2001, the last summer without a Cheltenham Science Festival, and George W Bush had yet to utter the words ‘war on terror’. S Club 7 were topping the charts. And Prince William was about to start at the University of St Andrews, where he would share a flat with one Kate Middleton.
Fast forward ten years, and each field of scientific endeavour stands transformed. The Times has invited four experts at the cutting edge of each of them to guide you through a decade of advances — and to advocate theirs as most significant.
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Mark Henderson, science editor for The Times, looks back at the last ten years of scientific advance.
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TUESDAY 7 JUNE PROFILE
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FLYING WITHOUT A PILOT
LIFE WITHOUT GPS
S1 Town Hall 12.30 – 1.30pm £6 (£5)
Could you live without your Sat Nav? The GPS signal is very weak and could be knocked out at any time by a solar storm or basic jamming equipment. But it is not only used when we’re trying not to get lost, GPS is also vitally important for shipping, farming, health and financial services, telecommunications and tracking goods (and people). Martyn Thomas, Paul Cannon and Alan Grant explore the fragility and security of GPS, and the consequences of losing the signal.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or ‘drones’ are already playing military roles to observe and even attack human targets. The next step could be surveillance closer to home, as the technology gets ever smaller, lighter and cheaper. But will we ever board a pilotless plane to go on holiday? With a video link to the creators of the Nano Hummingbird UAV in the USA, engineers Sophie Robinson and Garnet Ridgway discuss the challenges of making robots fly.
MARK MIODOWNIK Mark is a materials scientist at King’s College London, and a member of the Festival advisory group. He gave The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in 2010, and will be doing the best bits live for you on Sunday (SF28, p42). Physics or chemistry or biology? All of the above and more – materials science knows no boundaries! I did my PhD in jet engine alloys, but now I use the same techniques to study the self-healing properties of biological tissues. Cryogenics or cremation? Cryogenics. When I die I’d like to be shot naked into space in a Superman pose to become a comet with an orbital period of 100 years. So once a century I would return to moon the Earth. Afterlife or Oblivion? Afterlife – we become the compost for the next generation. Except for me of course, since I will be orbiting the solar system. What’s your pick for today? Endangered Elements (S10) is a topic close to my heart, governments are relying on the economic markets to sort out the growing problem of scarcity, but they failed with the banks so can we trust economics with our chemical elements? With thanks to The Times for answers from Eureka’s Who Are You? feature.
S4 Town Hall 2.30 – 3.30pm £6 (£5)
THE LIMITS OF OUR PLANET
CHEMISTRY AND ARCHITECTURE
S2 Town Hall 2 – 3pm £7 (£6)
S5 Town Hall 3.15 – 4.15pm £6 (£5)
‘Living within environmental limits’ is one of the best known ways of explaining what sustainability means. But how do we know what those limits are? Ongoing research is providing policy makers with more and more authoritative data, but do they want to listen to what the scientists are telling them? Jonathon Porritt looks at how far we could push our planet before we reach the boundary of sustainability.
From the Pantheon in Rome, via the ceilings of Cordoba, to the dymaxion domes of Buckminster Fuller, architects have always looked to the patterns of geometry for inspiration. For chemists, the geometries of platonic solids and of connected nets inspire the synthesis of cathedrals at a different scale: the molecular. Zeolite chemist Dewi Lewis and sand dune architect Magnus Larsson talk to Andrea Sella about how they are learning from and working with each other.
HEART ATTACK! S3 Town Hall 2 – 3pm £7 (£6) If you are having a heart attack, chewing an aspirin may significantly increase your chances of survival. But how does it work? And how do doctors know what medicines to prescribe for long term recovery? Pharmacologist Mark Christie and clinician Emma Baker discuss the treatment of cardiac issues in a fascinating analysis of molecules and medicines, risks and benefits, life and death.
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CANCER STEM CELLS S6 Town Hall 4 – 5pm £7 (£6) Current cancer treatments are not always effective. In some cases they only give a few extra months of life and in others seemingly successful therapies result in the cancer eventually coming back. Brian Huntly and Matthew Smalley believe that rogue stem cells could be the root cause. Join them and Kat Arney from Cancer Research UK to explore cancer stem cells and to find out how understanding them could revolutionise the way we think about cancer care.
TUESDAY 7 JUNE
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OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
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S7 Town Hall 4 – 5pm £7 (£6) Ocean acidification, nicknamed climate change’s evil twin, could have wideranging impacts on marine life. About a quarter of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans, and as levels rise they become more acidic. Dive headlong into the discussion with marine scientist Carol Turley and Andy Ridgwell, who models the effects of climate change.
ENERGY: THE SMART WAY?
Map will be supplied with your tickets. Througham Court Garden
Our National Grid was never designed with the environment in mind. Using new technology and creating a ‘smart grid’ will allow the use of more renewable sources and increase efficiency by allowing suppliers to communicate with appliances in your home, turning them on and off depending on supply. But utility companies would know a lot about your activities and even whether you are home. Will this information be safe? Nick Jenkins and Tony Rooke explore how this will be implemented and what it will mean for the UK and Martyn Thomas discusses the digital data security and privacy challenges the smart grid raises.
ENDANGERED ELEMENTS
SCIENCE QUESTION TIME
APING MANKIND
S9 Town Hall 5 – 6pm Free
Raymond Tallis questions the claim that a combination of neuroscience and evolutionary theory is sufficient to explain human consciousness, behaviour, culture and society. Join him to hear his argument that we humans are infinitely more interesting and complex than we appear to be when we are represented as essentially biological organisms. By minimizing the difference between ourselves and our nearest primate kin, are we in fact misrepresenting and even degrading humanity?
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S12 6 – 6.45pm S13 7 – 7.45pm Througham Court Garden £20 Exclusively for Members and Patrons Includes champagne and canapés Christine Facer Hoffman, scientist turned landscape architect, gives an exclusive and personal tour of her spectacular gardens at Througham Court near Bisley, which are inspired by scientific facts and theories. A garden for the 21st century, it includes the Cosmic Evolution garden, Fibonacci’s Walk, Chiral Terrace, Chaos Gate and much more.
S8 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £7 (£6)
Explore today’s biggest debates, newest discoveries and favourite Festival moments with a selection of the day’s speakers, The Times’ journalists and the Festival team.
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S10 Town Hall 5.15 – 6.15pm £7 (£6) From iPods to wind turbines, much of modern day technology contains components made from rare earth elements, many of which are becoming increasingly difficult to source. Chemist Andrea Sella, mineral economist Malin Stein and geologist Frances Wall ask whether we should be mining these precious resources to extinction to keep up with the latest technology, or whether the laws of supply and demand will push the prices up so high that we will be forced to find alternatives.
EXPLORING THE PLASMA UNIVERSE S14 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £8 (£7) We all know about three states of matter – gas, liquid, solid – but there is another state called plasma, which behaves in strange and beautiful ways. Lightning, stars, the Aurora, neon signs, and fluorescent tubes are all made of plasma, but what is this stuff that makes up 99.999% of the visible universe? Kate Lancaster, Melanie Windridge and Lucie Green show striking images and explore the wonder of this strange state of matter. In association with IOP South West
S11 Town Hall 6 – 7pm £8 (£7)
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Exploring the Plasma Universe
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MICROBES AND CLIMATE CHANGE S15 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £8 (£7) There’s more to climate change than simply carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. Plants, animals and even micro-organisms react to a changing environment, and in turn they can alter the balance of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to a surprising extent. Microbiologists Dave Reay, Ian Joint and Andrew Whiteley reveal the secret life of microbes and how they are contributing to and responding to climate change and discuss how they might be able to help us. The Science of Cannabis
you like this, try Ocean ✮ IfAcidification (p17)
LITTLE ATOMS S16 Town Hall 7 – 8pm £3 Little Atoms radio show and podcast is a live talk show about ideas and culture with an emphasis on ideas of the Enlightenment. Join them for a live recording of their podcast, which actively promotes science, freedom of expression, scepticism and secular humanism. Find out more at littleatoms.com
WATERCOLOUR WORKSHOP S17 Town Hall 7 – 8.30pm £10 (£8) Watercolour is an elusive medium and many people dabble with it at some point in their lives without even realising they are playing with science. But what is special about the paints and how do they enable the creation of beautiful pieces of art? Join artist Trevor Waugh to explore watercolour paints, and where they come from, and have a go yourself at trying out some mixing and colour techniques. Materials kindly supplied by Global Art Supplies Ltd
VISIT
THE MATRIX: REALITY OR FICTION?
THE SCIENCE OF CANNABIS
S18 Town Hall 8 – 9pm £8 (£7)
S20 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £9 (£8)
In the 1999 blockbuster, the hero (Keanu Reeves) has a cable plugged straight into his brain so that his thoughts and sensations are directly connected to an evil supercomputer known as ‘The Matrix’. Of course we all know that this is just a movie. Brain-machine interfaces are fiction, not science, right? Wrong! In fact, there are already hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who have wires directly connected to their nervous system. Neuroscientist and 2007 FameLab finalist Jan Schnupp explores what can and cannot be done with this fledgling technology.
Once associated with flower power, Woodstock and the hippie movement, the psychoactive plant cannabis is now being increasingly recognised for its medicinal qualities. Chemicals from cannabis can alleviate a wide range of conditions such as glaucoma, pain and multiple sclerosis. Come and join Mark Miodownik, Andrea Sella, Clive Page and David Potter to explore cannabis – from its history to what makes it work and how modern medicine puts it to good use.
THE POWER OF STEAM S19 Town Hall 8 – 9pm £7 (£6) Most people know steam comes out of a kettle and is used to iron clothes. But there is more to steam today than just that. Hear from engineers James Barrett, Jennifer Geroni, Sophie Robinson and Andrew Welling how steam is used to clean up coal, generate electricity, to transfer heat, and a wide variety of other applications that will surprise you. Steam may even have a future in transport other than creating speed records for steam cars!
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A member of the Society of Biology
THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY S21 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £9 (£8) Technology has developed so quickly recently but what does the future hold for the next ten or even twenty years? What comes next in computing after touch screens and 3D gaming? Will our mobiles communicate with shops and attractions to offer us the latest up-to-the-minute information? Could we carry a mini camera that could store our memories more efficiently than our own brain? Explore the future with computer scientist Derek McAuley.
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WEDNESDAY 8 JUNE
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INSECT COMMUNICATIONS
THE RHYTHM OF LIFE
S22 Town Hall 12 – 1pm £7 (£6)
While it is clear that animals and birds live by the seasons, for a long time humans have been able to counteract the harsh changes in light and temperature using central heating, indoor lighting and a continuous food supply. And yet there are some months of the year with higher frequencies of births, onset of disease and mental health episodes. Join Russell Foster to discover how the social, biological and physical pressures of the seasons still affect us.
Humans talk, birds sing, dolphins click but how do insects communicate? Using the power of smell, insects like bees and ants have mastered pheromones to get their message across. With lots of smelly samples, Adam Hart shows how it is possible to say plenty without uttering a word. In association with the Royal Society of Chemistry Local Section
LIFE AT THE EXTREMES S23 Town Hall 2 – 3.15pm £7 (£6)
Science with a twist is our game – bringing science to life in new and exciting ways. And not just at the queen of science festivals here in Cheltenham but across all the festivals – Jazz, Music and Literature. Whether you’re new to science or consider yourself a bit of a geek, we aim to stimulate your mind. In 2011 our theme is migration. Alongside events on the story of human migration over the last 60,000 years (S84) and the amazing and sometimes mysterious feats of animal migration (S31) we also wanted to create an event which addressed the broader political, social and economic attitudes to migration alongside the science. We contemplated a debate but in the end we decided to find someone who could wrap up the ideas in an all together different format. So we’re very excited to be bringing you a specially-created Mark Steel lecture on migration. Mark, known to be both politically insightful and achingly funny will be providing a new take on migration, one we expect will bring a few surprises and a lot of laughs. cheltenhamfestivals.com/ laboratory
It is hard to believe that anything could live in harsh extreme conditions such as volcanic vents or subzero temperatures. We certainly couldn’t survive, but incredibly some microbes are thriving. David Pearce, James Chong, Malcolm White and Thorsten Allers go to the extremes to find out how microbes are able to survive and whether we can harness their superpowers for our own gain.
THE RACE FOR THE $1000 GENOME S24 Town Hall 2 – 3pm £6 (£5) Decoding the first complete human genome cost $2.7b. It is now down to around $15,000 per genome and the race for the $1,000 genome is on. At this point, genetic sequencing becomes as affordable as a home computer, and it could provide researchers with a quantity of data that would revolutionise our understanding of disease and the way that different people respond to treatment. Adam Rutherford, Caroline Wright and Clive Brown join Mark Henderson to discuss what this genetic information will mean for science and society.
S25 Town Hall 2.30 – 3.30pm £7 (£6)
like this, ✮ IftryyouAnimal Migration (p21)
CLINICAL TRIALS S26 Town Hall 3.30 – 4.30pm Free but ticket required It takes an average of 17 years for a new drug or clinical treatment to get from the lab to the doctor’s surgery and hospital. Why does it take so long? Would it be as safe if the time were any shorter? With an introduction from Mahesh Parmar and Wendy Atkin, who both have experience of clinical trials, have your say and discuss some of the issues.
STEM CELLS S27 Town Hall 4 – 5pm £7 (£6) Stem cells have huge potential to help human bodies recover from the most devastating illness and injury. But there are a few technical hurdles to overcome. For example, how do you separate them from all the stuff you don’t want? How do you persuade them to grow into the shape of a windpipe or a bladder? Geneticist and stem cell biologist Robin LovellBadge and biomedical engineers Nick Goddard and Molly Stevens bring you up to date on the most promising advances.
MAKE THE MOST OF SCIENCE 2011 Use the handy planner at the back of the brochure to plan your perfect Festival
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INSIDE YOUR PET S32 Town Hall 6 – 7pm £8 (£7) Veterinary pathologist Alun Williams, as seen on Inside Nature’s Giants, joins us to discuss the health of our pets. With plenty of specimens he explains how we can diagnose and treat a variety of diseases and conditions that affect our furry friends. From hip replacements in dogs to dietary diseases in cats, he draws parallels with ailments found in humans. In association with The Royal College of Pathologists
THE ETHICS OF SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY Animal Migration
S33 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £8 (£7)
ABOUT A BOY: A SOLITARY X CHROMOSOME
SCIENCE QUESTION TIME
S28 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £7 (£6)
Explore today’s biggest debates, newest discoveries and favourite Festival moments with a selection of the day’s speakers, The Times’ journalists and the Festival team.
Why do some diseases such as haemophilia and muscular dystrophy affect only boys? It’s all down to the X chromosome: women have two and men have one, so if you’re a man with a faulty X there is no back-up option. Geneticist Kay Davies explores the diseases of the X chromosome and how having one, two or even three copies determines your health.
SCHIZOPHRENIA S29 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £7 (£6) Imagine hearing people who aren’t there speaking to you or being convinced that someone is out to get you. Even if diagnosed, treatment with anti-psychotic drugs is not a one-stop cure and can have serious side effects. Join Marjorie Wallace from SANE, neuroscientist Gavin Reynolds and psychiatrist Peter Haddad to discuss the challenges of living with psychosis or schizophrenia.
A member of the Society of Biology
S30 Town Hall 6 – 7pm Free
Claims that Craig Venter ‘created life’ may have been overblown, but humans can now go beyond tinkering with genetics and build a new organism from components. How is this possible – and how should we approach our new-found powers? Adam Rutherford, ethicist Andy Miah and social scientist Jane Calvert tackle the tricky ethical questions thrown up by what some would call an extension of biology and others suspect is ‘playing God’.
ANIMAL MIGRATION S31 Town Hall 6 – 7pm £8 (£7) Animals undertake extraordinary feats of migration to ensure their survival. The Arctic tern, the world’s long distance champion, covers an astonishing 36,000km a year. But how do they know when to move and, without a Sat Nav or map, how do they find their way? Russell Foster and Peter McNaughton explore what science can, and cannot, explain about the seemingly miraculous phenomenon of animal migration.
YOUR AGEING BRAIN S34 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £8 (£7) Becoming forgetful or getting dates and names mixed up are signs that we are getting older, but why do our brains seem to work slower and less efficiently than they used to? Why do some diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and dementia kick in in older age? Neuroscientist Paul Bolam explores our ageing brains.
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this, ✮ IftryyouBabylikeBoomers and the Ageing Revolution (p29)
WEDNESDAY 8 JUNE
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BIOENERGY
SCI-FI ENGINEERING?
S35 Town Hall 7 – 9pm Free but ticket required
S37 Town Hall 8 – 9pm Free
Worries about energy supply and climate change have spurred the search for fuels for the future, such as biofuels. But what might this future look like? Hear from experts, talk through future scenarios and share your thoughts in this interactive session. Join researchers from the BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre to discuss and debate what our future could and should be.
Star Trek’s flip-open communicators look primitive next to our mobile phones, and the Moon hotels imagined in 2001 – A Space Odyssey are a dated dream. Is real technology inspired by science fiction, or are the possibilities of engineering much more astonishing than anything sci-fi writers could dream up? Join some of today’s young engineers to discover where their ideas come from, what inspires them – and when we will finally get our jet packs!
Andrew Pye & Radu Sporea
A PERFECT PICTURE S39 Town Hall 8 – 9pm £8 (£7)
THE MARK STEEL MIGRATION LECTURE S38 Town Hall 8 – 9pm £12 (£10) Res
The Shiver
By special request and as part of our migration theme, writer and comedian Mark Steel pulls his lecture series out of retirement for a special one-off, exclusively for the Festival. Drawing on political, economic and social material and throwing in the odd bit of science too, in his renowned and amusing style Mark explores the highs and lows of migration from all perspectives.
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THE SHIVER S36 Parabola Arts Centre 7.30 – 9pm £12 (£10) Res
this, ✮ IftryyouThelikeSchool for Gifted Children (p34)
What is a shiver? Combining dance, music, image and spoken word, Sadhana Dance Company explore the psychology and physiology behind why we shiver. Whether caused by pain or pleasure, a shiver is an uncontrollable and unpredictable action that we all know, but few understand. This intriguing piece brings together original poetry by Lemn Sissay and cutting-edge science from neuroscientist Morten Kringelbach. The performance is followed by a discussion hosted by Quentin Cooper with the artists and scientists behind this groundbreaking piece.
Digital cameras have become the norm, but how many of us use them to their full potential? With live demonstrations Andrew Pye and Radu Sporea explain some of the basic science behind colour, lighting and exposure. Take home some useful tips for improving your own photographic skills.
X MARKS THE SPOT S40 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £9 (£8) Over 16s only Men are often derided for not knowing where the clitoris is, but who can blame them? Until recently even anatomists got it wrong. Do we even know what it is for or its evolutionary history? Join Vivienne Parry to discover the fascinating story of this poorly understood part of the female anatomy.
PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR: FROM SHELL SHOCK TO PTSD S41 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £8 (£7) In the First World War soldiers suffering from shell shock were shot at dawn for cowardice. The military are now more tolerant and aware, but soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan can develop mental health problems that have devastating effects on their lives and families. Military mental health expert Simon Wessely and historian Edgar Jones, look at shell shock and post-traumatic stress from WWI to the present day.
See feature on page 6.
Mark Steel
22
Ever since GE’s founder Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, GE has had a tradition of science and innovation
Meeting of Minds Today, more than 36,000 GE technologists around the world are working at the cutting edge of science and industry to solve the world’s toughest problems and create breakthrough innovations in areas like the smart grid, diagnostic imaging and composite materials. Research has been the cornerstone of GE technology for more than 100 years and we are proud to continue our support of the Cheltenham Science Festival.
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THURSDAY 9 JUNE PROFILE
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SNAKE BITES S42 Town Hall 11am – 12pm £6 (£5) In many cultures, snakes are regarded as evil. The fact that their bites kill so many people (46,000 a year in India alone) does little for their reputation. So what can snake venoms offer to the pharmaceutical industry and, at a more personal level, how do you avoid or survive a bite? Sharing his experiences of being at the wrong end of snakes’ fangs David Warrell introduces us to a world of snakes, bites, venoms and antivenoms.
JIM AL-KHALILI Jim is a theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster and a member of the Festival advisory group. He’s giving a talk based on his latest BBC Four series Everything and Nothing today (S44). Newton or Einstein? If the choice is between the two’s achievements in science, then Newton is unrivalled. He was the greatest genius who ever lived. If it is their social skills we are comparing, or success with the ladies, then Newton comes a distant second. Fate or choice? Nice question. I would say choice. Despite living in a deterministic Universe in which the future is fixed, this view is only as seen from ‘outside’ our space-time. I believe we still have free will, even if ‘God’ argues that it’s just an illusion. What is it about Cheltenham Science Festival that you love? There are dozens of science festivals all over the UK, all trying to capture that magical something that Cheltenham has, but none can quite match its special atmosphere and buzz.
DIABETES S43 Town Hall 2 – 3pm £7 (£6) There are 2.8 million people living with diabetes in the UK, many of whom need to inject insulin daily to maintain their blood sugar levels. How does diet affect the disease? Could transplanting cells in the pancreas provide a cure? Diabetes researchers Stephanie Amiel and Stephen O’Rahilly join us to discuss the different types of diabetes and how they are working to transform the lives of diabetics.
EVERYTHING AND NOTHING S44 Town Hall 2.15 – 3.15pm £7 (£6) In 1670, Pascal said that “man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness from which he emerges and the infinity in which he is engulfed”. Jim Al-Khalili explains what three and a half centuries has taught us about everything and nothing. Join him on a mind-expanding journey through our current understanding of the infinite universe, the big bang and the vacuous space of nothingness. Can nothing really exist? How do we know what we know?
What’s your pick for the day? I’d choose ‘Was the Universe Created?’ (S59). This sounds like just the sort of deep and profound topic that the Cheltenham Festival can cover in a fresh, thought-provoking and highly entertaining way. With thanks to The Times for answers from Eureka’s Who Are You? feature.
Snake Bites
X-MEN VS BIONIC WOMEN S45 Town Hall 2.30 – 3.30pm £7 (£6) When we talk about doctors making us better we usually mean they give us back our health. But what if engineers and scientists could really make us better, better than we’ve ever been before? Faster, smarter, stronger than nature could manage. Hear from biomedical engineer John Fisher and neuroscientist Barbara Sahakian about how much could soon be possible, and from ethicist Andy Miah about the new dilemmas such technologies could bring. See feature on page 8
TRANSGENIC ANIMALS S46 Town Hall 2.30 – 3.30pm £6 (£5) Explore a world in which mammals glow in fluorescent colours, where mice are fearless and goats spin spider silk. These animals do not exist naturally. But thanks to transgenesis, a process in which foreign genes are inserted into an animal’s DNA, they inhabit our world today. Researchers Robin Lovell-Badge, Tom Weaver and Adrian Isaacs shed light on how transgenic animals are proving ever more vital in the development of new treatments, and what ethical questions arise in their work.
UNDERSTANDING EXCESS S47 Town Hall 4 – 5pm £7 (£6) What drives some people to check their windows are closed ten times before they leave the house? Why do others find it impossible not to bet on the next race, turn down a drink or walk past a shop without buying something? Musician and former drug addict Mehmet Husseyin joins psychiatrist Naomi Fineberg and neuroscientist Jeff Dalley to discuss compulsive and addictive behaviour.
A member of the Society of Biology
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VOLCANOES S48 Town Hall 4.15 – 5.15pm £7 (£6) Volcanoes are explosive forces of nature; they can expel hot ash and spew out molten lava, often with devastating effects. Yet, paradoxically, they indicate a healthy and thriving planet. Join volcanologist Tamsin Mather on a mysterious journey through fire, brimstone and toxic fumes to unlock the secrets of volcanoes alive with activity. Volcanoes are at the heart of Earth’s health, but how do you take the pulse of a planet?
FLU VACCINES S49 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £7 (£6) Should you get a flu jab? Should it be compulsory for health workers? Should more children be vaccinated? Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Health Sally Davies, virologist Stephen Inglis and vaccinologist Sarah Gilbert discuss the flu virus, vaccines and whether we could one day have a flu jab that lasts a lifetime.
UNDER THE BONNET OF YOUR iPHONE S50 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £7 (£6) We all love our iPhones and other smart devices, but are mostly oblivious to the physics, electronics, material science and other technology behind them. Join Radu Sporea, Charles Opoku, Samantha Shaw and Emma Suckling as they reveal the science and history behind the modern technology that we take for granted.
Radu, Emma, Samantha & Charles
Volcanoes
SCIENCE QUESTION TIME
HUNGRY?
S51 Town Hall 5 – 6pm Free
Some people can ignore a plate of biscuits while others will not stop eating until they’ve all gone, even if they’ve just had lunch! But what really drives our appetite and urge to eat? Obesity researcher Stephen O’Rahilly joins endocrinologist Kevin Murphy and psychologist Jane Wardle to discuss how hormones influence feeding behaviour and why some people just can’t stop.
Explore today’s biggest debates, newest discoveries and favourite Festival moments with a selection of the day’s speakers, The Times’ journalists and the Festival team.
TOMORROW’S WORLD NEVER COMES
S53 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £9 (£8)
S52 Town Hall 6 – 7pm £7 (£6) From canned sandwiches to personalised jet packs, history is littered with examples of failed inventions. So what does it take for an invention to become part of daily life and why is it that all too often the next big thing never sees the light of day? Former Tomorrow’s World presenter Vivienne Parry and patent examiner Mark Lewney, present some big ideas that flopped and Trevor Baylis gives his advice to today’s inventors.
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IT’S A FAIR GAME S54 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £7 (£6) How are we testing athletes for use of performance enhancing drugs or even more sophisticated techniques including blood doping and gene modification? Will we ever be able to ensure a level playing field? Are anti-doping regulations too strict? Discuss these questions with sports philosopher Emily Ryall, anti-doping manager for London 2012 Jonathan Harris and Paralympic swimmer Graham Edmunds.
THURSDAY 9 JUNE
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GENDER: MORE THAN X VS Y
MICROBIAL TASTER MENU
S58 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £8 (£7)
S61 Town Hall 8.30 – 10pm £15 (£14)
What makes males male and females female? Our chromosomes tell us what sex we are genetically, but hormones play an important role in translating this to our physical and emotional gender identity. What happens if this process goes wrong? Psychologist Melissa Hines, clinician Ieuan Hughes and geneticist Robin Lovell-Badge explore the development of gender.
Includes lots of tasters and a glass of wine.
You may find the thought of eating anything associated with microbes as a revolting prospect, but without their help our diet would be very dull indeed. Food microbiologist Anthony Hilton explores the microbiology behind some of our tastiest treats from salami and olives to cheese and after dinner mints. And whipping up some samples for you to try a local chef serves up a wide range of microbes on the menu. In association with Waitrose
Mark Lewney
GAIA: THE CABARET S55 7 – 8pm S56 8.30 – 9.30pm Town Hall £8 (£7) Discover a fresh view of life with musician and performer Peter Horton as he presents an alternative and lively celebration of James Lovelock’s Gaia Theory. In this unique interactive cabaret full of songs, sketches and surprises, explore how microbes, humans and the whole global environment are connected.
A member of the Society of Biology
WAS THE UNIVERSE CREATED? S59 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £9 (£8)
S62 Town Hall 9pm - late Free
Did the Universe have a creator? Will it be around forever? Debates around these age-old questions have been raging since Aristotle’s time. Medieval physics and modern cosmology collide as Mark Lewney battles Andrew Pontzen, exploring the history and future of the Universe and asking whether there was ever a time when nothing existed.
Look to the sky for an evening of stargazing with the Cotswold Astronomical Society. Join them for an introduction to our night sky before having a chance to observe the heavens for yourself, with the possibility of seeing Saturn, the second largest planet in the solar system.
YEA, WHY TRY HER RAW WET HAT? THE GEOMETRY OF MUSIC
WHAT MAKES A CHAMPION?
S57 Parabola Arts Centre 7.30 – 8.45pm £12 (£10) Res
Our genetic heritage determines whether we have the right body to become a sporting champion, but raw talent alone is unlikely to win an Olympic gold medal. What are the mental challenges facing elite athletes? How has technology allowed us to swim, cycle and run faster? Former table tennis champion and journalist Matthew Syed, sports engineer Steve Haake and Scott Drawer from Sports UK uncover what makes successful sports stars rise above their competitors.
If you’re wondering about the title, then come along to this performancelecture and all will be explained. With books to his name on everything from Sudoku to Lewis Carroll and Gilbert & Sullivan – as well as maths and music – mathematician Robin Wilson has many passions. He joins the brilliantly communicative pianist, broadcaster and musicologist David Owen Norris to investigate music’s geometrical devices over the centuries – canons and rounds, rotations and reflections, palindromes and primes – with a wide range of musical illustrations.
STARGAZING
S60 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £8 (£7)
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What Makes a Champion?
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FRIDAY 10 JUNE GUEST DIRECTOR
ALAN MOORE Alan Moore is a graphic novelist whose work, including The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Watchmen and V for Vendetta, has made him one of the most influential writers in the history of comics. Jerusalem… I’m working on my second novel, Jerusalem. It’s already half a million words. It is predicated on the idea that we live in a universe with the three spatial dimensions we know and a fourth, which we perceive as time but which is actually a physical dimension like the other three. There are also lots of other things like poverty and economics and race, ghosts, demons and working class angels who play billiards. On science (S76)… Science is the most exquisite tool that humanity ever created to explore and measure the universe around us. Creationists have no right to criticise what science tells us, but I don’t believe that science has the right to intrude on our inner world, our imagination. I believe our worlds inside and outside are both real but in very different ways. On Iain Sinclair (S72)… He is possibly the single biggest influence on my writing over the last 20 or 30 years. He looks at landscape, existence and modern life through a unique lens, reinvesting meaningless streets with a life and vitality. He does it by finding out a lot of wonderful things about them and he derives a kind of poetry from that – a new way of looking at and dealing with the world that is much richer.
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THE ART OF ANATOMY S63 Town Hall 10.30 – 11.30am £7 (£6)
HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?
Producing anatomically correct images is often very difficult when everything under the skin is generally either red or white. Anatomist Alice Roberts and illustrator Rajeev Doshi explore the intertwined history of anatomy and art – from Ancient Greece, through the Renaissance and Enlightenment to the present day – and reveal how they used the latest technological and philosophical developments in anatomical art to create the amazing illustrations in their book The Complete Human Body.
S66 Town Hall 2.30 – 3.30pm £7 (£6)
SAVIOUR SIBLINGS
VEGETATIVE STATE
S64 Town Hall 12.30 – 1.30pm £6 (£5)
S67 Town Hall 2.30 – 3.30pm £7 (£6)
Last year saw the first successful saviour sibling treatment in the UK. A couple selected an embryo that could help cure their seriously ill daughter. A healthy boy was born and saved his sister’s life. Geneticist Ian Frayling reveals how science has enabled this revolutionary procedure and fertility experts Simon Fishel and Robert Winston discuss the ethical and moral considerations of using this kind of treatment.
Disorders of consciousness, including the vegetative state, are some of the least understood and most ethically troublesome conditions in modern medicine. Recent groundbreaking research has revealed signs of brain activity in some of these patients, which could allow them to communicate with people around them. Editor of New Scientist Roger Highfield talks to Adrian Owen about his astonishing research in this area.
Whether you are a gardener at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew or dabble at weekends in your backyard, understanding the science of plants and seeds will help you create a beautiful and fruitful garden. Kew’s Director (CEO and Chief Scientist) Stephen Hopper, and Head of their Millennium Seed Bank, Paul Smith, join The Times gardening writer Stephen Anderton and keen gardener (and amateur scientist!) Ruth Brooks to dig into the science of your garden.
See feature on page 9
TURNING THE TABLES S65 Town Hall 12.30 – 1.30pm Free The Times’ award winning science journalists are here to interview our scientists, but we couldn’t let them get away without going under the spotlight themselves! Today the tables are turned on science editor Mark Henderson: if it has been in the headlines it’s up for discussion.
FIRST MOMENTS OF LIFE S68 Town Hall 2.30 – 3.30pm £8 (£7) How can a single-celled fertilised egg turn into a fully-formed human? By day three one cell has already become eight, and by just one month the baby has a brain, eyes, ears, mouth, kidneys, liver, and a heart pumping blood it has made itself. Robert Winston takes us on the fascinating incredible journey through the first moments of life.
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FRIDAY 10 JUNE CARBON CAPTURE S69 Town Hall 3.45 – 4.45pm £7 (£6) Many of the downsides of using fossil fuels could be avoided if we could just stop all that carbon dioxide escaping into the atmosphere. Meet three engineers whose work does just that: Paul Fennell, Hannah Chalmers and Trevor Drage aim to trap the CO2 escaping from power stations and other sources. Could we even one day remove excess CO2 from the atmosphere using plants as fuel in carbon capturing power stations?
BABY BOOMERS AND THE AGEING REVOLUTION S70 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £8 (£7) Record numbers of baby boomers are turning 65 this year – over 650,000 in the UK alone – but gone are the days when 65 meant ‘old’. Radio 4 presenter Geoff Watts explores the biology of ageing with Linda Partridge and David Barker as they discuss how scientists are learning more about how diet, genetics and other factors can help us live not just longer but healthier lives.
A member of the Society of Biology
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ALTERNATIVE WAYS OF THINKING: EXPLORING THE AUTISTIC MIND S71 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £7 (£6) Project funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award and presented by Arts Catalyst and Shape
The media frequently feature stories about screening for or even ‘curing’ autism, presenting it as an affliction or disease. But people with autism can lead full lives, often excelling at science, art or music. Simon BaronCohen, director of the Autism Research Centre, is joined by artist and geologist Jon Adams, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, and Gabriel HardistryMiller, a non-verbal autistic man who, with artist Ben Connors, runs a music, performance and poetry club. They all discuss the special minds of autistic people and consider whether their so-called ‘impairments’ should be thought of in a different way.
A member of the Society of Biology
URBAN WANDERINGS: ALAN MOORE AND IAIN SINCLAIR S72 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £7 (£6) Humans shape the environment in which they live, but the environment also shapes human mood and emotions. If your environment is grey and dull then you might feel a little bit grey and dull but if, like Iain Sinclair, your urban wanderings come alive with history and myths and stories, you enter a world that is more vibrant and alive. Join him and Guest Director Alan Moore to explore psychogeography.
SCIENCE QUESTION TIME S73 Town Hall 5 – 6pm Free Explore today’s biggest debates, newest discoveries and favourite Festival moments with a selection of the day’s speakers, The Times’ journalists and the Festival team.
Robert Winston
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MOBILE HEALTH S74 Town Hall 5.45 – 6.45pm £6 (£5) Already, mobile phones do much more for doctors than just tell the ambulance how to find a patient. Automated text messages can remind you it’s time to take a tablet, and results uploaded by mobile can help manage diabetes, asthma or hypertension. Lionel Tarassenko, Claire Heffernan and Timothy Gibson unveil the future of mobile medicine, including the electronic nose that could sniff your illness, and novel ways of reaching remote communities in developing countries.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU HEAR S75 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £8 (£7) Have you ever wondered why we evolved to have music? And if we need it, what does it do to us? Harry Witchel, who researches music, pleasure and the brain, unveils why music makes us feel so good – or why the wrong music makes us feel so bad. Music can influence what you think, what you decide to buy, and even how smart you are.
ALAN MOORE: WHERE SCIENCE MEETS FICTION S76 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £8 (£7) On his 40th birthday Alan Moore rashly declared himself a magician and began worshipping a second century snake puppet god called Glycon. But he also considers science “the most exquisite tool humanity has created to explore and measure the world around us”. Could worshipping a snake puppet god be as rational as contemporary physics? The Festival’s Guest Director talks to comedian Robin Ince about what happens when science meets fiction.
FRIDAY 10 JUNE
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ARE WE STILL EVOLVING?
A QUESTION OF SCIENCE S83 Town Hall 8.30 – 10pm £9 (£8)
S77 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £9 (£8) There’s no doubt that we are all a product of millions of years of evolution, but with the advances of modern technology and medicine, does Darwin’s law of survival of the fittest still apply? Looking at ancient human bones, studies of people living in the most inhospitable places on Earth and the frontiers of genetic research, Alice Roberts asks the greatest questions about our species: are we still evolving and where are we heading?
The bar will be open during this event.
Alice Roberts
ALTERNATIVE WAYS OF THINKING: 3D THINKERS IN A 2D WORLD S81 Town Hall 8 – 9pm £10 (£8) Project funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award and presented by Arts Catalyst and Shape
ANY QUESTIONS? S78 Parabola Arts Centre 7 – 9pm Free but ticket required Join Jonathan Dimbleby and guests for this live broadcast of Radio 4’s topical discussion programme. Panellists will be announced during the lead up to the Festival and questions can be submitted in advance. Further details will be released on cheltenhamfestivals.com/science
LAUGHTER WORKSHOP S79 7 – 8.15pm S80 8.45 – 10pm Town Hall £9 (£8) Everyone enjoys a good laugh, and chances are that you feel more energised afterwards. Scientists are now investigating the effect that laughing itself (not hearing or watching something funny) has on our bodies. Join Joe Hoare for one of his legendary laughter workshops, while Priscilla Heard and Chris Alford from UWE use their physiological testing equipment to see how your body responds. It is time to take laughter seriously! In association with the University of the West of England (UWE)
The ability to think in a 3-dimensional, multi-sensory way is a talent that dyslexic people share, but constructing 2-dimensional flattened words can cause the 3D thinker to become disorientated. In a humorous and thought-provoking performance, dyslexic artist Benedict Phillips highlights and examines our presumptions about intelligence, communication and perception, unravelling the numerous misconceptions surrounding dyslexia and presenting the unusual advantages it brings. Everyone can be Dislecksick; you just need to try harder.
YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED: THE MATHS OF DEATH S82 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £10 (£8) A hit at the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe with its irreverent debunking of health scares and jokes about Bayesian probability. If you like graphs, gameshows and good news about your lifespan (it’s going up by 12 minutes an hour), you’ll like this. You have a 0.000043% chance of dying during this show. But stand up mathematician Matt Parker and comedian Timandra Harkness will make sure you die laughing. “Exponentially Funny” (Three Weeks)
It’s the taking part that counts… or that is what teams from The Times, New Scientist and the Festival said last year after they were beaten by an audience member in the first Cheltenham Science Festival Quiz. Delving into the bizarre, unusual, and incredible, quizmaster Quentin Cooper returns this year with a new set of questions to test you all. Use your personal keypads to give your answers.
THE HUMAN MIGRATION STORY S84 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £9 (£8) Around 60,000 years ago, the first humans took to their feet on the beginning of their migratory journey out of Africa and into the rest of the world. Join palaeontologist Chris Stringer to explore how fossils, genetics and archaeology have helped us find our African origins and plot the routes of our ancient ancestors and how climate, geography and other human species impacted on our amazing evolutionary journey.
supported by
STARGAZING S85 Town Hall 9pm – late Free Look to the stars for an evening of stargazing with the Cotswold Astronomical Society. Join them for an introduction to our night sky before a chance to observe the heavens for yourself, with the possibility of seeing Saturn, the second largest planet of our solar system.
See feature on page 7
Matt Parker & Timandra Harkness
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THE MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL DISCOVERY SCIENCE FOR HEALTH From molecular biology and clinical research to population studies, our focus is on funding science that improves human health. From identifying the flu virus to establishing the links between smoking and cancer, our scientists’ research has led to some of the most significant discoveries in medical history and benefited millions of people in the UK and around the world.
We are proud to support the 2011 Cheltenham Science Festival.
To find out more about the MRC go to
www.mrc.ac.uk
SATURDAY 11 JUNE GUEST DIRECTOR
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MEDICAL SCHOOL FOR ON DUMMIES
SECURITY IN THE COMPUTER AGE
S86 10am – 12pm S87 10.45am – 12.45pm S88 11.30am – 1.30pm S89 12.30 – 2.30pm S90 1.15 – 3.15pm S91 2 – 4pm S92 2.45 – 4.45pm Sandford Education Centre £10 (£9) Over 16s only
S94 Town Hall 10 – 11am Free
Please arrive 10 minutes before your allocated time.
TANYA BYRON Tanya is a clinical psychologist, author and broadcaster. She works with and writes about a variety of psychological and emotional issues that affect people of all ages but her particular area of interest is young people. As a mother and a clinical specialist in child and adolescent mental health, I see how young people are often misunderstood by adults, who often view their behaviour as disruptive and corruptive. We are a profoundly ephebiphobic (youth hating) culture. We blame our youth for societal problems and so do not engage with them in a way that is meaningful and empowering. I want to put some science into the issues that preoccupy young people – issues like body image, digital technology and video gaming, alcohol and drug use, selfesteem and self-awareness and sex.
Simulators aren’t just for training airline pilots. Surgeons and other doctors also practise on dummies who can’t complain if beginners don’t get it right first time. And now you can, too. Come along to Sandford Education centre at Cheltenham Hospital and get some hands-on experience, with surgeons, nurses, opthalmologists, and imaging experts on hand to help you get stuck in. In association with Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
ASTEROID ARMAGEDDON S93 Town Hall 10 – 11am £8 (£7) An asteroid on a collision course with Earth could spell disaster for the human race. But is this a serious concern and should the UK be spending more money on looking for these extraterrestrial threats? And if we found something would we even be able to do anything about it? Director of the Armagh Observatory Mark Bailey, astronomer Alan Fitzsimmons and former politician Lembit Öpik discuss how we are looking for near Earth objects, the risks they pose and whether we should really be worried.
I want the science to cut through the negative judgements and explain why we need to change the way we perceive youth culture. We need to move beyond our youth blaming culture and into one that understands and engages with young people and the biological, psychological and social challenges that they face (S96).
Lembit Öpik
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To what extent should you worry about the security of your computer, your online transactions and your children’s use of Facebook? With real case studies, Toby from GCHQ joins us to discuss online security and privacy and gives some useful tips and pointers to keep our children, computers and money safe.
HUMAN EXTINCTION: WILL WE SURVIVE BEYOND THIS CENTURY? S95 Town Hall 12 – 1.15pm £8 (£7) Ecologists have suggested that the Earth is experiencing a mass extinction of species, but what about Homo sapiens? The survival of humankind has been challenged throughout history and, despite our ability to adapt to past changes, nothing is guaranteed. Three Fellows of The Royal Society – biologist Charles Godfray, chemist Judith Howard and palaeontologist Chris Stringer – join author of The Rough Guide to the Future Jon Turney to discuss past and present threats to humanity, the future challenges that we face, and whether we have the capacity to survive.
YOUNG MINDS S96 Town Hall 12 – 1pm £8 (£7) Why do young people think and feel the way they do? In the teen years the brain undergoes enormous development, changing the way it handles information, takes risks and deals with problems. Join Tanya Byron, neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and other guests to put some real science behind the things that matter most, like body image and self-awareness, sex, celebrity and identity, obsession with social networking and technology. How can our adult-oriented society be less judgemental about the challenges teens face and better at understanding and supporting young people and helping them achieve their true potential?
SATURDAY 11 JUNE
Buy tickets at cheltenhamfestivals.com
BRAIN SCAN: LIVE
GREEN CHEMISTRY
S97 Town Hall 2 – 3.15pm £8 (£7)
S102 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £6 (£5)
100,000 times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field, modern MRI scanners can look deep inside the brain to read our thoughts, emotions and even our intentions before we act. But how much can they tell us about how our minds work? With a live link to a volunteer inside a MRI scanner at The Cheltenham Imaging Centre, Mark Lythgoe and Derek Jones explain how we probe the mind.
Buying green is a growing trend on the high street. Behind the scenes, chemists are applying their science to find less polluting and harmful ways of making, processing and cleaning things. Martyn Poliakoff and Samantha Tang discuss why the field of green chemistry is important and how it could help the planet.
In association with Philips Healthcare and The Cobalt Appeal Fund
Brian Cox & Robin Ince
DJ PHYSICS
MAKING MONEY WITH MATHS S98 Town Hall 2 – 3pm £8 (£7) One of world’s leading investment managers, David Harding, explores how code-breaking techniques can be used to decipher patterns in financial markets and predict their rise and fall. This is the story of James Simons, the visionary mathematician who abandoned academia to set up an investment fund with cryptographers and scientists instead of businessmen and traders – a move that would see him make billions and his company thrive in even the toughest economic times. See feature on page 7
S103 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £8 (£7)
THE INFINITE MONKEY CAGE S100 Town Hall 4.15 – 5.45pm £3 Festival fee At last year’s Festival, BBC Radio 4 recorded The Infinite Monkey Cage in front of a live audience for the very first time. We’re delighted to welcome them back this year, as hosts Robin Ince and Brian Cox are joined by special guests for a witty irreverent look at the world through scientists’ eyes. The guests will be confirmed nearer the time, for details check cheltenhamfestivals.com/science You can hear The Infinite Monkey Cage on Mondays at 4.30pm from May 30th or listen again at bbc.co.uk/radio4
TURNING THE TABLES S99 Town Hall 2 – 3pm Free The Times’ award winning science journalists are here to interview our scientists, but we couldn’t let them get away without going under the spotlight themselves! Today the tables are turned on Samantha Weinberg, writer and commissioning editor for Eureka: if it has been in the headlines it’s up for discussion.
this, ✮ IftryyouThelikeSchool for Gifted Children (p34)
RISK IN THE MEDIA S101 Town Hall 4.15 – 5.15pm £8 (£7) Whether it’s using mobile phones, drinking alcohol or eating bacon, we are bombarded with stories of the dangers of everyday activities. Sensational headlines may sell papers but how much do they reflect reality? How do we know what to believe, especially as life has never been safer? Using recent examples Professor of Risk David Spiegelhalter takes us behind the front page and helps us to interpret the real risks.
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Ever wanted to DJ? Did you know physics could help you? Physicist and DJ Martin Archer brings his virtual DJ booth to Cheltenham, taking you on a journey into sound. Whilst spinning the tunes he explains the science behind the cueing, beat matching, blending and EQing that go into his mixes in clubs, and shows some surprising connections to seemingly unrelated, cutting-edge physics research. In association with the Royal Institution
✮ IftryyouYea,likeWhythis,Try Her Raw Wet Hat (p26)
JAMIE’S DREAM SCHOOL: THE REALITY S104 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £7 (£6) For many people, science is just a subject they didn’t, or don’t, understand at school. Yet it covers some of the most fascinating and important ideas that humans have ever had, and it is vital to our prosperity. With clips from the Channel 4 series, Dream School science teacher Robert Winston joins physics teacher and Nuffield Foundation Education Fellow Alom Shaha to discuss what makes a good teacher and how the real wonder of science can be made to shine through.
SATURDAY 11 JUNE
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THE BAD FOOD SHOW S108 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £8 (£7)
Stefan Gates
ROBIN AND JOSIE’S UTTER SHAMBLES S105 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £8 (£7) A small cult with surprisingly big success, Robin Ince and Josie Long’s podcast had over a million downloads last year and for the first time it will be live at the Festival. Not so much an interview more a conversation, expect surprising meandering from dark energy to cannibalism.
DISPOSABLE BRITAIN S106 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £7 (£6) With advances in new technology a 5-year-old laptop is almost a museum piece, and last year’s smartphone is, well, so last year. But does constant innovation have to mean a steady stream of redundant hardware and what does this mean for the planet? Mike Short of O2, Nicola Millard from BT and Julie Hill from Green Alliance discuss the problem of designing for the future. Is it up to manufacturers to change the way they produce, or is the thirst for new and better products a job for social, not electrical, engineering?
THE SCHOOL FOR GIFTED CHILDREN
What does ‘Bad Food’ mean to you? Rotten walrus and lamb’s testicles or fatty food and E numbers? Battery chicken and GM or famine and malnutrition? As the climate changes and population increases we may need to eat foods that look, frankly, horrifying as we try our best to feed the world. Would you eat insect protein or meat grown in a lab? Stefan Gates shows you some of the most gruesome foods on the planet and explores how we feel about bad food, whatever the definition.
S111 Town Hall 8.30 – 11pm £18 (£16) Res
MOULD AND ARROWSMITH IN 3D
GAGARIN
S109 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £7 (£6) How many shows at this year’s Science Festival will be in 3D? Well, all of them! But this is the only one that requires special glasses. In a series of comedy sketches Steve Mould and Gemma Arrowsmith move between live action and 3D videos as they explore the use and relevance of the iPad, converse with God via Twitter and present their own version of Avatar and the next Dr Who.
The bar will be open during the interval.
Robin Ince is back with a fabulous night of comedy, science and music. The Royal Variety Performance meets The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures with guests including Simon Singh, Josie Long, Helen Arney and Amateur Transplants. More guests to be confirmed. Visit cheltenhamfestivals.com/science for full line up.
S112 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £8 (£7) On April 12 1961, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in history to venture into space. Exactly 50 years later, Chris Riley’s film First Orbit, made with astronauts on the International Space Station, shows a new view of Earth from space. He joins Piers Bizony, whose biography of Gagarin tells the fascinating story of a man in turmoil, to celebrate the life of an icon and the birth of an era. First Orbit will be available to download or stream for free on 12 April 2011 at firstorbit.org This event is supported by The Leonora Society
POWERS OF X: FERMAT’S LAST THEOREM S107 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £8 (£7) Fermat’s Last Theorem is the most notorious problem in the history of mathematics. Is there a value for x (and y and z) that fits Fermat’s mischievous equation, or could anyone prove that the equation was insoluble? Simon Singh, who wrote the book Fermat’s Last Theorem and directed the BBC documentary on the same subject, explores the history of the conundrum that baffled generations of the most brilliant mathematical minds.
FAMELAB INTERNATIONAL
SLAM THE ATOM
S110 Town Hall 8.30 – 10.30pm £6 (£5)
S113 Town Hall 9pm - late £7 (£6)
Doing more for international relations than any UN conference, this year’s FameLab competition took place in 16 countries across Europe, Asia and Africa. Hot-footing it to Cheltenham, the winners fight it out in the 2011 Final of Finals hosted, as ever, by the entertainingly diplomatic Quentin Cooper.
X marks the spot to be tonight as XV exuberant exponents of spoken word aim to excite you with exceptional displays of poetic expression and performance excellence. Who will think outside of the Xbox to emerge as the bard with the X factor? MC2 Sara-Jane Arbury and Marcus Moore are your hosts as random judges mark the poetry, delivery and applaudience response. Find out who inspires or expires in an explosive contest that could be X-rated. See you there! x
BOOK ONLINE at cheltenhamfestivals.com 34
My kid can cope with a busy mum. I’m not so sure about a sick one.
Working to change cancer. There’s never a good time to get cancer, and keeping family life as normal as possible is hard. At Pfizer, we’ve been working to improve the health of families in the UK for over 50 years. These days, developing new ways to treat breast, lung, leukaemia and other cancers is our priority – but we’re also determined to improve living with cancer now. That’s why we work closely with a range of UK patient groups, charities, and the NHS, to help support the services they provide for those whose lives have been changed by cancer. See how we’re putting our commitments to work at www.pfizer.co.uk
Working together for a healthier world™ Date of preparation: May 2010 CA808
SUNDAY 12 JUNE PROFILE
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LIFE IN THE COSMOS: FROM BIG BANGS TO BIOSPHERES S114 Town Hall 10 – 11am £10 (£8)
ALICE ROBERTS Alice is an anatomist, author and broadcaster, and a member of the Festival advisory group. She will be here on Friday, taking part in S63 and S77. Nature or Nurture? An ongoing conversation Newton or Einstein? Newton, for the beauty of understanding rainbows. And while I can grasp some basic mechanics, relativity is well beyond my reach. Acute or Obtuse? Acuity. In triangles, thought and vision. Prius or Range Rover? Neither. A bicycle for short trips. But I do hanker after a lovely VW camper van for escaping into the wilderness. Why do you love the Festival? Television is such a fantastic medium, allowing you to reach out to millions of people… but one of the things I really love about Cheltenham is the chance to present science live – and for it to be more of a dialogue. I can talk about the science behind the series I’ve been involved with, and give people the opportunity to ask questions and to tell me what they think.
We can trace cosmic history from some mysterious ‘beginning’ nearly 14 billion years ago. We understand in outline the emergence of atoms, galaxies, stars and planets and how life appeared on Earth, but these answers pose new questions which Astronomer Royal Martin Rees attempts to address. What are the prospects for post-human evolution, here on Earth or far beyond? Is life already widespread in our cosmos? Is physical reality even more extensive than the domain that our telescopes can probe – are we in a multiverse?
ENGINEERING THE HOME OF THE FUTURE S117 Town Hall 11am – 12pm Free From the electric toothbrush that cleans your teeth in the morning to the TV you flake out in front of, you can thank an engineer for almost everything in your house. So what are they working on for tomorrow’s homes? Find out from some young engineers how our lives will be transformed by the technology they’re working on today.
TURNING THE TABLES S118 Town Hall 12.30 – 1.30pm Free
CODE CRACKING CHALLENGE S115 Town Hall 10 – 11am Free Nick from GCHQ has set The Cheltenham Science Festival Code Cracking Challenge for 2011, one of the toughest challenges of its kind – hard for most of us to even understand let alone begin to solve. Join him to find out how the codes are broken. You can try the challenge in advance and win prizes by visiting our website cheltenhamfestivals.com/gchqhardest-challenge
The Times’ award winning science journalists are here to interview our scientists, but we couldn’t let them get away without going under the spotlight themselves! Today the tables are turned on science reporter Hannah Devlin: if it has been in the headlines it’s up for discussion.
WHALES AND DOLPHINS S116 Town Hall 10.15 – 11.30am £8 (£7) Whales and dolphins are social and adaptable and are known for their intelligence. But Hal Whitehead’s recent research reveals they are even more intelligent than we ever imagined. What does his research mean for the way we think about or treat these animals? He is joined by Thomas White, Philippa Brakes and Mark Simmonds to find out how this new information can be used to help protect these fascinating creatures.
With thanks to The Times for answers from Eureka’s Who Are You? feature.
Whales and Dolphins
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SUNDAY 12 JUNE
Buy tickets at cheltenhamfestivals.com
CALL MY SCIENTIFIC BLUFF S119 Town Hall 12.30 – 1.30pm £7 (£6) Welcome to the most gruelling environment on Earth. Marvel at the sub-zero temperaments and gravitasdefying leaps into the unknown. Courageous teams – featuring Robin Ince, Timandra Harkness, Marcus Chown and Robert Winston led by Kathy Sykes and Mark Lythgoe – plunge headlong into the abyss of terminology, there to grapple, squabble and compete ruthlessly for a handful of points. Ageing umpire Marcus Moore tries not to nod off.
Brian Cox
A DECADE IN SCIENCE S123 Town Hall 2 – 3.30pm £7 (£6)
WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE S120 Town Hall 2 – 3pm £12 (£10) Res 13.7 billion years old. 93 billion light years wide. It contains over 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of billions of stars. With magnificent footage and breathtaking images, presenter Brian Cox and the BBC’s Head of Science Andrew Cohen reveal how the most fundamental scientific principles and laws explain not only the story of the Universe, but the story of us all. This event is supported by The Patrons of Cheltenham Festivals
PARANORMALITY – LIVE SÉANCE S121 2 – 3pm S122 3.30 – 4.30pm The Playhouse £10 (£8) Join psychologist Richard Wiseman as he explores the psychology and history of the Victorian fascination with contacting the dead, and stages a live re-creation of a darkroom séance. A few lucky audience members act as sitters, focusing their attention on luminous objects in a pitch black room. Meanwhile, the audience watch the proceedings through an infra-red camera. Will they manage to produce any phenomena? If so, will it be due to genuine contact with the spirits or a trick of the mind? Not for the faint hearted!
Four speakers argue the case for the greatest scientific advances of the last decade, and the next: Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science, takes on the digital revolution; Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, explores what the sequencing of the first human genome in 2001 has meant for genetic research; David King, Director of the Smith School and former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, reflects on our understanding of climate change; and Jim Virdee, Professor of Physics and until recently a spokesperson for CERN makes the case for the Large Hadron Collider. See feature on page 15
HOW WAS IT FOR YOU? S125 Town Hall 2.30 – 3.30pm Free An opportunity to give Festival Directors Kathy Sykes and Mark Lythgoe your views about the 10th Cheltenham Science Festival and contribute your ideas for next year.
MS S126 Town Hall 4 – 5pm £6 (£5) Can your birth month affect your health? George Ebers has recently discovered a higher risk of Multiple Sclerosis in those of us born in May. MS, caused by an overactive immune system which targets nerve cells, affects 100,000 people in the UK and at the moment there isn’t a cure. George is joined by Mark Taylor who lives with the disease and immunologist Sandra Amor to discuss its causes, effects and treatments.
OUR HEALTH AND THE CLIMATE S124 Town Hall 2 – 3pm £7 (£6) Climate change could be the biggest global health threat of the 21st century as we face growing challenges including food shortages, emerging diseases and extreme weather events. But, on the bright side, if we act now to reduce carbon emissions we could see substantial health benefits across the world. Anne Johnson, Sari Kovats and Andy Haines discuss how climate change could affect us and how we can act now to change the prognosis for our future health.
The Oldham Foundation 37
A member of the Society of Biology
OVER-AMBITIOUS DEMO CHALLENGE S127 Town Hall 4.30 – 5:45pm £9 (£8) The competition is on again in the annual Cheltenham Science Festival Demo Challenge. Steve Mould hands over the role of host to Andrea Sella and braves the competition floor, joining Matt Parker, Nic Harrigan and Zoe Laughlin as they all attempt to show the most spectacular, impressive and show-stopping science demo.
SUNDAY 12 JUNE MAPPING THE MIND
Box Office 01242 505 444
THE DAMBUSTERS NOW
The Human Mind
S128 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £8 (£7)
S133 Town Hall 6.45 – 7.45pm £7 (£6)
How do 100 billion brain cells hold a lifetime of memories, skills and personal experience? Advances in brain imaging have enabled researchers to delve deeper into the mind. Festival Director Mark Lythgoe talks to neuroscientists Robert Turner and Geraint Rees about how imaging sheds light on how the brain constantly changes and adapts to new experiences, ultimately reorganising our individuality.
May 1943 was the last time a bouncing bomb blew up a dam. That was true until Hugh Hunt and Hilary Costello stepped onto the scene. For a TV documentary, they recreated the spinning bombs used by the Dambusters and demolished a 10m-high dam! With video clips they explore the many challenges the team faced and the incredible achievements of wartime engineers and airmen.
THE HUMAN MIND: JON RONSON & RICHARD WISEMAN S129 Town Hall 6 – 7pm £8 (£7) Two best-selling authors join forces for one night only to explore the outer reaches of the human mind. Join Jon Ronson to take The Psychopath Test and discover which members of the audience have the potential to be ruthless killers and Richard Wiseman to explore Paranormality, why we are all natural telepaths and why we just feel the need to believe.
INTELLIGENCE OF A LIVING CELL
TOP 10 BONKERS THINGS ABOUT THE UNIVERSE
ROBIN INCE THINKS HE THINKS THEREFORE HE MIGHT BE
S131 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £8 (£7)
S134 Town Hall 8 – 9pm £9 (£8)
Did you know you could fit the entire human race in the volume of a sugar cube? Or that, if the Sun were made of bananas, it wouldn’t make much difference? Or that 98 per cent of the Universe is invisible? Award-winning science writer Marcus Chown invites you to come along and discover how the universe we live in is far stranger than anything we could possibly have invented.
The award-winning comedian and writer and co-host of The Infinite Monkey Cage, worries he might just be a brain in a vat and when that’s not bothering him there’s always the problem of free will, and if he has no free will what is it that always makes him choose the wrong thing at restaurants? Join Robin Ince for a show about consciousness, memory and the struggle to be human.
NANSEN
GEEKS, FREAKS AND EGG HEADS
S130 Town Hall 6 – 7pm £7 (£6)
S132 Town Hall 6.45 – 7.45pm £6 (£5)
Intelligent beings: humans, primates, dolphins… amoeba? We think of animals as being very clever, but single cells show signs of intelligence despite not having a brain. So how do they build homes, make decisions and solve problems? What does this teach us about our own intelligence? Prepare to be amazed as biologist Brian Ford introduces us to a fascinating world of micro organisms that we have never seen before.
Fridtjof Nansen was a Norwegian polar explorer, oceanographer, diplomat, athlete… in fact the range of his accomplishments is quite extraordinary. He proved that the ice drifted across the Arctic Ocean by sealing his ship in the ice and tracking its movement; he trekked across Greenland, burning his boats so that they had no choice but to go on; and he had a deep compassion for his fellow human beings, saving countless thousands through his humanitarian work that won him the Nobel Peace Prize. 150 years after his birth, environmental scientists Mark Brandon and Mark Maslin join Geir Hestmark and John Grue from the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters to celebrate the life of a truly astonishing man. See feature on page 8
Intelligence of a Living Cell
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S135 Town Hall 8.30 – 9.30pm £8 (£7) For all the many ways science has transformed our world, the popular image of scientists has remained largely unchanged – male, white, usually bald, often with glasses, a lab coat, and singed eyebrows from some failed experiment. Why is that? Quentin Cooper asks why this stereotype is so hard to shift, and how we get the media and the wider world to look at scientists, and science, with fresh eyes.
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Science is not belief, but the will to find out. Anon
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THURSDAY 9 JUNE
CHEMISTRY WITH A BANG! SF1 Town Hall 6.30 – 7.30pm £6 Age 7 upwards Back by popular demand, John Kilcoyne, star of hit show Brainiac, brings chemistry to life in a show that sometimes fizzes and sometimes BANGS! With plenty of explosions, flashes, howling noises and spontaneous combustion, it’s chemistry... and fun!
SATURDAY 11 JUNE
STEFAN GATES Festival regular Stefan Gates is a Gastronaut, which means he can fry an egg on a piece of paper and make a flamethrower from custard powder. He is also a broadcaster, journalist and author. His acclaimed BBC food programmes include the Gastronuts and E Numbers: An Edible Adventure and his books include the award-winning Gastronaut. Why do you love the Festival? The sheer excitement of Cheltenham during the Festival sends shivers down my spine. All those people, all those ideas, all that fascination in one place! And I’ve heard that there are shows other than mine going on too. What’s your favourite science fact? The average adult farts about 14 times a day. Oh, yes you do! All farts are different, but will generally contain nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, oxygen and methane (in order of volume). How do you use science? I am a cook, and for years I suspected that cooking was all about love, dreams and sensuality. I now realise that kitchen chemistry, physics and biology are what makes all that love, dreams and sensuality possible. What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten? Igunak (rotten walrus served to me by the Alaskan Inuit) Stefan’s pick for families Library of Secrets (SF23)
ROBERT WINSTON’S SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS SF2 Town Hall 10 –11am £7 Res Age 10 upwards Robert Winston demonstrates exciting hands-on experiments from his new book. From creating balloon rockets and glow in the dark jelly to making metal detectors, his enthusiasm for science is infectious. Do try this at home! this, ✮ IftryyouTenlikePeople You Haven’t Heard of (p42)
WORKSHOP: FOOD EXPLORERS Explore the chemistry of the kitchen and take home your own creation in these interactive workshops. Parents do not need to buy a ticket but must stay in the store during the workshop. SF3 10 – 11am Age 5-8 £6 Waitrose Food Studio Cup cakes for kids... with white chocolate and raspberries and a smooth, creamy icing.
Robert Winston’s Science Experiments
ECHO OF CREATION SF6 Town Hall 10 – 11am £5 Age 8 upwards Billions of years after the birth of the Universe, scientists realised they could tune into an echo of creation itself using nothing more sophisticated than a de-tuned television set. Andrew Pontzen explains the cosmos’ ‘background noise’ with hula hoops, beach balls and amazing telescopic pictures. But hold onto your hats: all is not as it seems with space and time…
WORKSHOP: CREATE A CREATURE HEAD SF7 10 – 11am SF8 11.30am – 12.30pm SF9 1 – 2pm SF10 2.30 – 3.30pm Town Hall £7 All ages Join Lizzie Burns and use your noodle to create a noggin for a new creature. Choose the senses they’ll have, create a brain and build a skull for your new creature. Don’t forget eyes, ears, mouth and nose! Name your unique buddy and take him/her home with you.
SF4 11.30am – 1pm Age 8-11 £8 Waitrose Food Studio Make a summer lunch of savoury tartlets, crisp salad and chocolate chip muffins. SF5 1.30 – 3pm Age 11 upwards £8 Waitrose Food Studio Make a pizza, bake some filled picnic rolls plus scones for tea… and understand the use of different raising agents in everyday cooking. Andrew Pontzen
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FAMILY EVENTS GASES IN AIR SF11 Town Hall 12 – 1pm £6 Age 6 upwards With some spectacular demonstrations, Declan Fleming explores the chemistry behind the gases that make up the air we breathe. How do we use these chemicals and why aren’t they the same as those we find in the atmospheres of other planets? Join him for an atmospheric experience with some dry ice, liquid nitrogen and plenty of explosions!
Buy tickets at cheltenhamfestivals.com
XBOX KINECT™ SF14 Town Hall 4.30 – 5.30pm £6 Age 8 upwards Kinect for Xbox 360 has seen thousands of people leaping around their living rooms using their bodies like game controllers. With a wave of a hand or the sound of a voice, you can control the gaming action. But how does it work? Join Jamie Shotton and Chris Bishop, from Microsoft Research, as they use volunteers to perform dynamic demonstrations and give you a sneak peak at what they are working on next.
ONE TOUGH COOKIE SF12 Town Hall 12 – 1pm £6 All ages What can a biscuit tell us about engineering and the strength of building materials? It turns out quite a lot! Join engineer Amanda Brummitt and materials expert Zoe Laughlin as they use cookie dough, oven temperatures and a recipe for disaster to explain high tech engineering. Test these biscuits to destruction and find out how the cookie crumbles.
STEFAN’S FUTURE FOOD ADVENTURE SF13 Town Hall 2.15 – 3.15pm £6 Res Age 6 upwards The future‘s exciting and it tastes a bit like jellyfish! BBC’s Gastronut Stefan Gates takes you on a wild adventure into his Future Fridge packed with bizarre foods like grasshopper burgers, algae bolognaise, synthetic meatballs, kangaroo tartare, and ‘intelligent’ yoghurt that turns purple when it’s past its sell-by date. Some of it’s already here, and some is still on the drawing board, but as the world’s population grows and the climate changes we need new ideas to feed a hungry world. The question is: are you brave enough to taste it?
SUNDAY 12 JUNE
WORKSHOP: WATER ROCKETS SF15 10 – 11.30am SF16 12 – 1.30pm Cheltenham College Sports Centre £8 Age 8 upwards Have you ever wanted to become a rocket scientist? Now is your chance! With some help from the National Physical Laboratory, come and design your very own water rocket. Test it at our launch site and make modifications to improve its flight. Whose rocket will hit the target?
HOW BIG CAN WE GO, HOW SMALL CAN WE GO? SF18 Town Hall 10 – 11am £6 Age 7 upwards Imagine what the world would look like if you were the size of a bed bug. Even household objects look unrecognisable magnified 300 times their normal size. With our human eyes we can see objects as small as millimetres and as large as kilometres, but how do we see things even smaller and even larger than that? Join engineers Jamie Gallagher and Jen Roberts as they demonstrate some of the science and engineering that allows us to see microscopic objects and gigantic galaxies.
WORKSHOP: FOOD EXPLORERS Explore the chemistry of the kitchen and take home your own creation in these interactive workshops. Parents do not need to buy a ticket but must stay in the store during the workshop. SF19 10.30 – 11.30am Age 5-8 £6 Waitrose Food Studio Cup cakes for kids... with white chocolate and raspberries and a smooth, creamy icing. SF20 12 – 1.30pm Age 8-11 £8 Waitrose Food Studio Make a summer lunch of savoury tartlets, crisp salad and chocolate chip muffins.
TITCHY TINY SCIENCE SF17 Town Hall 10 – 11am £5 Age 4 upwards Back by popular demand, 2007 NESTA FameLab winner Nic Harrigan and Kevin, a cheeky tiny speck of dust, return in a new adventure. Blown away in the wind, Kevin is lost in a place full of strange sounds. How are the sounds being made, and where is he? Only you can help him! But it’s not as simple as it sounds – when a tiny bit of dust like Kevin gets trapped inside things, he sees them from a whole new perspective…
SF21 2 – 3.30pm Age 11 upwards £8 Waitrose Food Studio Make a pizza, bake some filled picnic rolls plus scones for tea… and understand the use of different raising agents in everyday cooking.
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Nic Harrigan
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FAMILY EVENTS
Box Office 01242 505 444
TEN PEOPLE YOU HAVEN’T HEARD OF
WORKSHOP: CANDLES AND COLOUR
SF22 Town Hall 12 – 1pm £6 Age 10 upwards
SF24 1 – 2pm SF25 2.15 – 3.15pm SF26 3.30 – 4.30pm SF27 4.45 – 5.45pm Town Hall £7 All Ages
Do you know who invented computer programming? I doubt it! Did you know that Beatrix Potter, besides being well known for her children’s stories, was a pioneering scientist who helped found a new branch of biology? Just like these, there are other people – people you haven’t heard of – who have made amazing strides all in the name of science. Join the NESTA FameLab 2007 finalists as they drag ten remarkable scientists out of obscurity with lots of delightful demonstrations.
DOES SIZE MATTER? SF28 Town Hall 2.30 – 3.30pm £6 Age 8 upwards
Design and make your own multicoloured candle to take home while exploring the properties of solids, liquids and gases. Using coloured wax, see solids melt and liquids evaporate! Join Laurel Armstrong to create amazing colour effects by mixing wax, the chemical fuel of a burning candle. See wax in a whole new light. Can you take the heat?
Mark Miodownik and the Royal Institution pack up their demonstrations and bring The RI Christmas Lectures to Cheltenham to consider the ultimate question: does size matter? Would you be faster, stronger, smarter and generally have more fun if you were as tiny as an ant? Or would you be better off as big as a planet? The world of materials is really weird and wonderful.
BOOMERANGS, BOUNCING BALLS AND OTHER SPINNING THINGS
LIBRARY OF SECRETS SF23 Town Hall 12 – 1pm £6 Age 8 upwards
SF29 Town Hall 4 – 5pm £5 Age 6 upwards
In the Library of Secrets, a dusty old book tells the tale of scientific pioneers making discoveries in the Dark Ages. Jim Al-Khalili and Andrea Sella reproduce some of the earliest and most mysterious of these chemical experiments, bringing them BANG up to date! Let them take you on a journey back in time, and crack open the shadowy story of a man who took chemistry to the next level.
Spinning things are very strange. How do ice-skaters spin so fast? Why does a boomerang bounce back? What happens when you bounce a spinning ball? And how do things turn around in space when there’s nothing to push against? Get in a spin with Hugh Hunt as he looks at what links all spinning objects with a dizzying amount of live demonstrations. Andrea Sella
BOX OFFICE 01242 505 444 REGENT ARCADE CHELTENHAM
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HSBC CHELTENHAM MUSIC FESTIVAL 29 JUNE – 10 JULY
Members booking opens 4 April Public booking 11 April
THE TIMES CHELTENHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL 7 – 16 OCTOBER
Members booking opens 15 August Public booking 22 August
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EDUCATION
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Education and Principal Partner
SCIENCE FOR SCHOOLS This year’s 10th Science for Schools programme is bigger and better than ever, so bring your pupils for an inspiring day out. With an extra day to play with we’re able to offer a great variety of events, workshops and specially-designed day packages. Plus tickets across the board have been kept at last year’s prices.
FREE EVENTS Not everything comes with a ticket price of course! As well as the ever popular Discover Zone there will be another Discovery Trail and, brand new for 2011, the LEGO® Education Zone – all designed to make your visit to the Festival fun and interactive as well as educational. We’re very pleased to offer a special event, Engineering Explored, for KS3 students on Thursday 9 June. A careers event with a big difference, young apprentice and graduate engineers from a rich variety of disciplines in local engineering companies will be on hand to talk about their job, and how and why their career path developed as it did.
SPECIAL PROGRAMMES For year 6 pupils with a special aptitude for science, you might be interested in the Young Scientists’ Day, ‘Saving Planet Earth’, taking place in the science labs at Cheltenham College Junior School on Friday 10 June. Year 8 girls will enjoy a day of hands on science activities, Girls In Science, presented by The L’Oréal Young Science Centre at the Royal Institution at Cheltenham Ladies’ College on Tuesday 7 June.
WHY SHOULD YOU BRING YOUR PUPILS? In the words of a teacher who brings pupils all the way from Hounslow every year:
“The secret to the success of Cheltenham Science Festival’s Science for Schools programme is that it achieves a delicious balance between serious science and showbiz, which enables the children to enjoy, but not compromise, their learning. In an era of dumbed-down education, this is an oasis of scientific stimulation.” For all the Science for Schools info visit www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/scienceforschools Or contact: E: education@cheltenhamfestivals.com T: 01242 775891/22 With thanks to:
Working in Partnership
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Boo ber n st Mem e t a l e e at th s onlin r e f f o ls.com and festiva m a h n chelte
Discover more with Membership Why not become a Cheltenham Festivals Member and enjoy… • • • • • •
A week’s priority booking for you and a guest Discounted tickets at an unlimited number of events Directors’ Picks previews, advance brochures and live events Exclusive Members’ events at every Festival Great deals and offers from Festival partners £10 voucher when you send in your tickets from all four Festivals
Already a member? Cheltenham Festivals is indebted to people like you. Ticket sales alone only bring in a fraction of what it takes to run four world-class Festivals. Your support is crucial. If you’d like to find out more about supporting Cheltenham Festivals in other ways, perhaps through sponsorship; becoming a patron; with a private donation or by leaving a legacy, please contact Kathryn Honeywill at kathryn.honeywill@cheltenhamfestivals.com or telephone 01242 264136.
Discover more at cheltenhamfestivals.com
Discounted tickets are for Members’ sole use and do not apply on events that include food or drink in the ticket price. Terms and conditions apply.
ARITHMETIC, GEOMETRY, CODE-BREAKING AND TRIGONOMETRY… AT THE MUSIC FESTIVAL
MUSIC We’re exploring…
MATHS
How the number 3 sounds in Bach… how medieval musicians played mathematical games… what trigonometry sounds like in a piano quintet… how composers concealed codes in their music… whether the mathematical brain looks like the musical one… why there are so many music buffs at GCHQ… and how Pythagoras discovered how to tune a guitar. Marcus du Sautoy is joined by Cambridge maths professor Timothy Gowers, Murderous Maths author Kjartan Poskitt, neuroscientist Ray Tallis and musical philosopher Roger Scruton – plus a lot of melodiously mathematical music.
Full programme details available early April cheltenhamfestivals.com/music
PATRONS Invest in our future… become a Cheltenham Festivals Patron. Our Patrons give vital support to Cheltenham Festivals. They make a difference to the quality of the Festival programmes; to the running of our vibrant education projects; and ensure the future of the Festivals. As a Patron you can help us develop so that future generations can be inspired by our work.
We would like to thank current Patrons for their generous support: Life Patron Charles Fisher Graham and Eileen Lockwood The McWilliam Family in loving memory of Ruth McWilliam
Patrons and Legacies 01242 775 857 Dominic Collier in memory of Karen Hood
Sir Michael and Lady McWilliam
Keith Jago
Michael and Angela Cronk
The Helena Oldacre Trust
Lady Elaine Marriott
Jeremy Hitchins
John and Susan Singer
Jonathan and Cassinha Hitchins
Esther and Peter Smedvig
Rosamund and Geoff Marshall
Stephen and Tania Hitchins
Fiona and David Symondson
Mark McKergow and Jenny Clarke
Simon and Emma Keswick
Giles and Michelle Thorley
Mary and Timothy Mitchell
Howard and Jay Milton
Janet and Charles Middleton
Professor Angela Newing
Steve and Eugenia Winwood
Sir David and Lady Pepper
Peter Stormonth Darling Charitable Trust
Peter and Alison Yiangou
Leslie Perrin Maggie Phillips
Gold Patron
Festival Patron Kate Adie
Hugh Poole-Warren
Anonymous
Mark and Maria Bentley
Jonathon Porritt
David and Clare Astor
Stephen and Victoria Bond
Patricia Routledge CBE
Jack and Dora Black
James and Angela Brown
Lavinia Sidgwick
Eleanor Budge
Jonathan and Daphne Carr
Meredithe Stuart-Smith
Charlie Chan
Robert Cawthorne and Catherine White
Sharon Studer and Graham Beckett
Mark and Elizabeth Philip-Sørensen
Clive Coates and Ann Murray
Martin Knight
Robert Padgett
Simon Collings
Jonathan and Gail Taylor
Stuart and Gillian Corbyn
Christopher Dreyfus
Arthur and Ann Webb
Janet and Jean-François Cristau
James Fleming
Professor Lord Winston
Kate Fleming
Anne Wood
Maurice Gran
Michael and Jacqueline Woof
Michael and Felicia Crystal Wallace and Morag Dobbin
Professor A C Grayling
Mr and Mrs George Dowty Peter and Sue Elliott
Huw and Nicki Gwynn-Jones
Corporate Patron
Lord and Lady Hoffmann
Marianne Hinton
Elizabeth Jacobs
Stephen Hodge
Michael and Elizabeth Jones, Silverleys Consulting
Peter and Anne Bond
Sir Peter and Lady Marychurch
Jennifer Bryant-Pearson
Anthony Hoffman and Dr Christine Facer Hoffman
Fiona McLeod
Richard and Peta Hoyle
The Walker Family Platinum Patron Mark and Sue Blanchfield
HSBC
Willans LLP Solicitors
Greenshoots
LEAVE A LEGACY A will is your chance to help the organisations that have been important in your lifetime to grow and continue to be as important to others in the future.
Greenshoots is our project to create a more sustainable Cheltenham Festivals and to reduce our environmental impact. Go to cheltenhamfestivals.com for more info.
A legacy to Cheltenham Festivals would be invaluable in helping us to continue to provide great live events, develop education projects or even commission a new work in your name. For further details please contact Arlene McGlynn in confidence: Arlene McGlynn Patrons and Legacies Manager T 01242 775 857 E arlene.mcglynn@cheltenhamfestivals.com
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If you require a copy of this brochure in large print format please call 01242 774624
PARTNERS
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Associate Partners
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Individual Event & In Kind Partners Cheltenham Borough Council Cheltenham College Diamond Light Source FSTC Glide Media Marketing Mecure Queen’s Hotel National Physical Laboratory Nuffield Bioethics Olympus Key Med Oxford Nanopore Royal College of Pathology Royal Meteorological Society Sharp Laboratories Europe The Daffodil The Montpellier Chapter University of Reading Waitrose Waterstone’s Whale & Dolphin Conservation Society Yiangou Architects
Thank you We would like to thank all those who have been involved in the Cheltenham Science Festival, including Cheltenham Festivals staff and the Science Festival Advisory Group.
Cheltenham Festivals Board Sir Michael McWilliam, KCMG Chair Peter Bond Lewis Carnie Jonathan Carr Dominic Collier Christopher Cook Peter Elliott Prof. Russell Foster Dr. Martin Knight Prof. Averil MacDonald Dr. Gill Samuels, CBE Donna Renney, Chief Executive
Science Festival Advisory Group Mark Lythgoe, Kathy Sykes, Russell Foster, Jim-Al-Khalili, Quentin Cooper, Timandra Harkness, Mark Henderson, Roger Highfield, Averil MacDonald, Mark Maslin, Mark Miodownik, Vivienne Parry, Alice Roberts, Gill Samuels, Andrea Sella, Elaine Snell
Contact To contact us with ideas or feedback please email science@cheltenhamfestivals.com Cheltenham Science Festival is presented by Cheltenham Festivals, a company limited by guarantee.
Registered Office 28 Imperial Square Cheltenham GL50 1RH Registered No. 456573 Charity No. 251765 Vat Registration No. 274184644
Photography Credits Jules Bereford, Conor Cahill, Alexandra Feachem (BBC Radio 4), Adam Lawrence, Rob Lott, Donald Macleod, Ivo Naepflin (ivo.naepflin. com), NASA, Mark Pepperall, David Pyle, Kevin White, Jose Villarrubia. 46
BOOKING EVENTS
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You can book tickets by phone or in person at our new box office in Cheltenham. Unit 77, Regent Arcade Shopping Centre, High Street Cheltenham GL50 1JZ
01242 505 444 At our mobile box office Our mobile box office will open on Imperial Gardens a week before the Festival with the same opening times as the main box office. During the Festival it will open at least half an hour before the first event and close after the start of the last event of the day.
Box office opening hours Extended opening hours Mon 21 March – Mon 2 May 9am – 6pm Mon - Sat 12 – 4pm on Sundays All other times 10am – 5pm Mon - Sat 12 – 4pm on Sundays Please note the box office will be closed on Easter Sunday – 24 April 2011.
Box Office supporter
Refunds The Festival cannot refund money or exchange tickets, except in the case of a cancelled event. If an event is cancelled, please return your tickets to the box office within 30 days for a full refund.
Disabled Patrons & Support Workers/Assistants Disabled patrons are entitled to a free ticket for their support worker/personal assistant. There is limited space available so please make sure you book early. Please be prepared to show relevant ID at the box office or upon admission to events. For information about access, please see our website for venue contact details.
Group Booking Book 10 tickets and get the 10th absolutely free! Cheltenham Festivals reserves the right to offer last minute promotions and discounts.
Free Events Please note for some free events capacity may be limited and entry cannot be guaranteed.
Additional Information for Families Please adhere to the age range specified for family events. Children under 12 years must be accompanied by a responsible person aged 16 or over, approved by the parent/ guardian, and prices are kept as low as possible to allow for this. Any such person can accompany a maximum of 6 children to an event. Cheltenham Festivals maintains a Child Protection Policy, but cannot act in loco parentis or take responsibility for unsupervised children. If your child is disruptive you may be asked to leave the event. Lost children will be taken to the Info Point. Please ensure your children have your mobile phone number; wristbands are available from the Info Point if required.
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For your Sat Nav 1. Town Hall GL50 1QA 2. Sandford Education Centre GL53 7PY 3. Cheltenham College Sports Centre 4. The Playhouse Theatre GL53 7HG 5. Parabola Arts Centre GL50 3AA 6. Waitrose Food Studio GL50 3QW
Getting to Cheltenham Cheltenham Spa is well served by First Great Western and CrossCountry trains, including direct services from many mainline stations. The railway station is located approximately 1 mile from the town centre, and local buses depart into Cheltenham town centre every few minutes. For your Sat Nav, using GL50 1QA will get you to the Town Hall; but if you prefer to use Cheltenham’s Park & Ride service, this is located at Arle Court (GL51 6SY, near M5 Junction 11) and Cheltenham Racecourse (GL50 4SH). For details on Park & Ride, visit cheltenhamfestivals.com/ visitorinformation
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FRI 10 JUNE (P28) THE ART OF ANATOMY
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FIRST MOMENTS OF LIFE
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MAKING MONEY WITH MATHS
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MEDICAL SCHOOL ON DUMMIES - CHECK LISTING FOR EXACT TIMES AND VENUE
SUN 12 JUNE (P36) LIFE IN THE COSMOS: FROM BIG BANGS TO BIOSPHERES
CALL MY SCIENTIFIC BLUFF
WONDERS OF THE UNIVERSE
CODE CRACKING CHALLENGE TOWN HALL EVENTS
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TUE 7 JUNE (P16)
IDIFICATION
WATERCOLOUR WORKSHOP
STEM CELLS
THE SCIENCE OF CANNABIS
LITTLE ATOMS
ENERGY: THE SMART WAY?
APING MANKIND
THE POWER OF STEAM
MICROBES & CLIMATE CHANGE EXPLORING THE PLASMA UNIVERSE THROUGHAM COURT THROUGHAM COURT GARDEN TOUR GARDEN TOUR
THE MATRIX: REALITY OR FICTION?
ENDANGERED ELEMENTS SCIENCE QUESTION TIME - FREE
THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY
WED 8 JUNE (P20) CELLS ABOUT A BOY: A SOLITARY X CHROMOSOME
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SCHIZOPHRENIA
PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR
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A PERFECT PICTURE
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X MARKS THE SPOT BIOENERGY - FREE THE SHIVER
THU 9 JUNE (P24) TOMORROW’S WORLD NEVER COMES
NDING EXCESS VOLCANOES
GENDER: MORE THAN X VS Y HUNGRY?
FLU VACCINES
WAS THE UNIVERSE CREATED?
IT’S A FAIR GAME
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GAIA: THE CABARET
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SAT 11 JUNE (P32) THE INFINITE MONKEY CAGE
JAMIE’S DREAM SCHOOL: THE REALITY ROBIN AND JOSIE’S UTTER SHAMBLES
GREEN CHEMISTRY
DISPOSABLE BRITAIN
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POWERS OF X: FERMAT’S LAST THEOREM
RISK IN THE MEDIA
MOULD AND ARROWSMITH IN 3D FAMELAB INTERNATIONAL THE SCHOOL FOR GIFTED CHILDREN GAGARIN
THE BAD FOOD SHOW
SLAM THE ATOM
SUN 12 JUNE (P36)
MS MAPPING THE MIND OVER-AMBITIOUS DEMO CHALLENGE
INTELLIGENCE OF THE LIVING CELL THE HUMAN MIND: JON RONSON & RICHARD WISEMAN TOP 10 BONKERS THINGS ABOUT THE UNIVERSE
ROBIN INCE THINKS HE THINKS THEREFORE HE MIGHT BE
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