A quick note - sorry for the delay in posting this final edition! Technical issues have been numerous but hopefully this will be worth the wait...

Episode 4 - A new hope

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... Ok, fine, last week in Bradford, we brought you the final edition of the x-change! The programme included nuclear physics, astrobiology and bees - but don't take my word for it, have a listen and re-live the fun!

the x-change - day 4 by scienceinsociety

The X-Change Day 4 – 14/09/2011

Guest blogger - Madelon Foard

What. A. Week! During the past four days, we have been sprinting around the British Science Festival to find and book the cream of the speaker crop. This culminated tonight in our final show in which we had a heady mix of photography, nuclear physics, women in science, honey bees, and astrobiology - something for everyone!

But first, we started off with a little competition. Our host, Richard Hollingham, invited the audience to come up with their favourite science joke during the show. These would be read out and judged at the end, with a prize going to both the best and the worst.

While the audience mused this over for a while, the first guests took to the stage. Sally Hoben and Jon Wood from Aston University presented us with the story of a grand photography cover-up. With the help of a – rather nervous looking – volunteer holding up a Victorian camera from 1889, Jon and Sally took us through the history of this scandal. It is thought that photography was not first invented in 1826 by Joseph Niepce, but in fact much sooner than that by members a Birmingham-based lunar society. There is evidence to suggest that members of this society were taking photographs as early as the late 18^th Century. In particular, one photograph – which was handed around to the audience to see – showed Soho House as a two storey building. This doesn’t seem to be of much significance, until you learn that the house underwent renovations to turn it into a three storey building…in 1789! This means that the photography must have been taken before that date – a full 37 years before Niepce is supposed to have “invented” photography.

So why cover up such a revolutionary technique? It was the efforts of portrait painters to stop them from losing business. They petitioned to have the development of photography stopped, and even got figures such as the Earl of Dartmouth involved in the protest.

Overall this was a very entertaining account of a great Victorian cover-up. Hopefully further research will be able to uncover more evidence, and perhaps soon the history books will undergo a renovation themselves!

Next up was something completely different – Dr. Lewis Dartnell from the Centre for Planetary Sciences at UCL took to the stage to give us a brief overview of life beyond our planet. Lewis took us on a dizzying journey through the solar system, stopping off at different planet s and moons along the way, to explore their potential for harbouring life. Unfortunately for any E.T fans, life in this case is very unlikely to be bug-eyed aliens. In fact, life on other planets will probably be in the form of tiny photosynthetic cells.

First up: Mars. Since the environment here is far too harsh to support life, astrobiologists are looking for clues that life did once exist using probes and rovers. Beyond Mars, Saturn’s moon Titan is looking more promising. Fluid has been found on this moon, but it is liquid mercury, not water. This means that if any life was found it would have to be methane-based, and we don’t even know if this is possible. Working with mercury in a lab is very difficult since it is a very bad solvent, and has a tendency to blow up in your face! However, there is a chance that there is also water on Titan – frozen because the moon is so cold. A core of molten ice would enable water-based life deep within Titan – this could mean a biosphere that is methane-based on top, and water based underneath. Exciting as this is, it is still merely speculation. Finally, there are two other possibilities – Enceladus and Europa, two more of Saturn’s moons. Enceladus has been found to have salty geysers that could be originating from a large sub-surface sea, whilst Europa has also been found to have a salty liquid water ocean.

Questions from the audience raised issue of whether all the searches are for carbon-based life. Lewis confirmed that they are, mainly due to the fact that we know carbon-based life definitely works. Although silicon is just underneath carbon in the periodic table, silicon-based life seems to simply fall apart.

Finally, we were all left feeling slightly insignificant by the point raised by a member of the audience that perhaps we are looking for life in the wrong scale. Life could be so small that we would never be able to locate it, but it could also be much, much bigger than we imagined. All together, this was a hugely fascinating talk. Lewis truly baffled us all with the possibility that we might not be the only living organisms in our universe.

Next, we welcomed renowned physicist Professor Jim Al-Khalili  to the stage. Jim gave us a brief overview of his views on nuclear physics before Professor Bob Cywinski joined him. He stated that the problem with nuclear power is that there is a difference between what scientists think and what members of the public feel. Despite this, there was a positive response by the public to a recent survey, with 41% of respondents strongly in favour of nuclear power. In Jim’s opinion, this surprising result is due in part to people favouring security over safety – in brief, members of the public want to be sure that when they flick a switch, a light will come on. It seems that people are coming to terms with the fact that the future of our environment and national security is reliant on having nuclear power as part of the mix.

Bob then joined Jim on stage to speak about the benefits of thorium for nuclear power. This method of producing power was sidelined due to the fact that it doesn’t produce enough plutonium to meet military demand. Thorium is four times more plentiful than uranium and there is enough in existence to last us for 10, 000 years. The major disadvantage is that thorium is fertile rather than fissile and needs a seed to start the reaction. However, the major advantage is that it produces much lower amounts of toxic waste thanks to it lasting much longer than uranium.

This discussion was hugely interesting, and gave the audience faith that the future of our energy production was in competent hands. It is important to remember that there are risks involved with all methods of producing power, and nuclear is no exception. However, it will be refreshing when the stigma attached to nuclear power becomes less pronounced, and it can be viewed in a more balanced way.

Our next speaker was Dr. Nazira Karodia, who had been part of an “Inspiring women in Science” event earlier in the week. She gave an entertaining account of her career, and how being a woman affected her choices. This was an inspiring story that highlighted the challenges that women may face in a scientific career, and how determination can help to overcome them.

Our final speakers - Dr Riddhi Shukla and Professor Anant Paradkar  - gave a short presentational about the health benefits of propolis, a sealant made by honey bees and used to secure their hives. This is hugely important in protecting the hives, which is actually very important for us too; as Riddhi pointed out, without bees the human race could only survive for around 4 years. This substance also has antiseptic, antibacterial and analgesics properties (to name but a few) so is very valuable in medical research. Despite propolis being insoluble and – to be frank – quite smelly, in the lab it can be made in products such as mouth ulcer gel.  This was a very enlightening talk that showed the audience just how clever these stripy insects are.

After an entertaining and varied show, it was time to end. But not before the results of the joke competition were revealed. The prize for the worst joke went to:  “A man walks into a bar and orders a pint of energy. Here you go, said the barman. That’ll be ATP.” Say it out loud: groan-worthy indeed!

The grand prize for the best joke went to a truly nerdy joke: “There are 10 groups of people in the world; those who understand binary, and those that don’t.” Lost on me, but luckily our audience was full of binary connoisseurs who found the joke wildly amusing.

And then that was it – the end of this year’s X-Change. The team had a really fantastic time, and had the honour of meeting many inspirational speakers.

A massive thanks goes to the National Media Museum for providing the venue and ridiculously helpful staff, and also to the British Science Festival for providing a feast of events from which we could pick our speakers. Finally, a big thanks to the all of the team:  thanks to Toby, Amy and Alice for looking after us all; to Richard for being a charismatic and witty host; and to my fellow X-Changers; Jack, Hayley, Naomi and Jenni for making it a great week. See you all next year!

By Guest Blogger Hayley Frend

Tueday- 13^th Sep- The Penultimate X-Change!

The penultimate X-Change was again a massive success. Thanks go to the brave speakers and  audience members who braved a hurricane to get there! We had a packed line up so it was great to see so many people make an effort to attend.

Spoken Nerd’s Steve Mould found time in his flying visit of the festival to kick things off for us. Among many whirlwind demos Steve explained why wheels are round (yes really!)He used a little model of a Lego man on some wooden circles to show us that the circle has to have constant width- and this allows the Lego man to have a smooth ride. There are other shapes that have constant width. He produced a tetrahedron with rounded edges and explained that this is a solid with constant width. After a nervous chat about health and safety he decided to put this theory to the test. He donned his best Lego man outfit and used a series of these shapes as ball bearings and placed a wooden board on them. Richard our presenter gave the nervous looking Steve a push and he set off on his wobbly surf across the floor. No speakers were harmed during the making of this stunt!

Next it was time to glimpse into the future. Dr. Prashant Pillai joined us with his gang of robots. This included the scary looking ‘Spidee’ which stalked its way across the stage on its 6 legs (yes, yes we know that makes its name scientifically inaccurate!) Prashant controlled Spidee using his smart phone but explained that these robots can be autonomous. This could be incredibly useful if you wanted to send Spidee into a natural disaster zone to crawl through the rubble and look for survivors or take measurements. For example you could send it into a burnt out building to measure co² levels without risking the lives of the firemen. Prashant is also developing an eye-controlled wheelchair that will give disabled people further freedom and independence.

From the future to CSI X-Change then explored the world of forensic geology with Dr. Laurence Donnelly.  The first question was “what is a forensic geologist??” He explained that geologists can help the police to solve crimes. There are two main areas of forensic geology- trace evidence and search. He explained that every object leaves a trace and a geologist can look at soil particles on clothing or shoes and put an offender at the crime scene. He explained if our presenter Richard were to carry out a crime on the campus of Bradford University (disclaimer- Richard is a law abiding member of society!!) and then walked to town, by analysing the trace they can tell where he was and the route he took to town! The search technique can be used if a suspect has buried evidence in the ground. Macro and micro techniques can be used to locate the site.

We then had a speaker from Sense about Science, Victoria Murphy. She explained the Sense about Science is an organisation that gives people the tools to understand science. Often this is made difficult by advertising campaigns featuring glamorous celebs claiming the latest beauty products are clinically proven or have scientific evidence. Sense encourages people to challenge these claims and ask for the evidence. This led to a lively debate in the audience about what can be done to reclaim the word ‘science’ led by Professor Paul Hardacre, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, who was a member of the audience.

Next up was Peter Naish a psychologist and hypnotist. He first explained how hypnotism can be a method for exploring the science of consciousness. As both hypnotism and schizophrenia are underlined by a disconnect between our conscious brain and the rest of our brain. Interestingly those people that are very hypnotisable share similarities with those suffering from schizophrenia. Scientists are interested in why the disconnect causes schizophrenia in some people and a receptiveness to hypnotism in others. He then hypnotised the audience and made our hand get light and feel a fly on our faces!!

So all in all, a very varied but definitely entertaining night at the X-Change. Looking forward to our finale tomorrow night featuring Jim Al-khalili!

Monday’s X-change blog by Jack Haley

For the event we had six speakers providing a variety of light science, comical science and some ‘meaty’ science. We had a great start to the day, having already confirmed Andrew Pontzen (a musical cosmologist) and Jamie Gallagher (a materials scientist).  The other speakers trickled in throughout the day and we had everyone confirmed by 3.30pm, in time for Richard’s Radio interview promoting the X-change.

We had roughly 35 people in our audience, less than our Sunday event, but still a good crowd. We moved the stage in response to some of the feedback from Sunday’s event regarding visibility, and also moved the speakers to improve acoustics.

The evening kicked off with the Kelvin Award winning cosmologist, Andrew Pontzen. Andrew was also part of the fantastic ‘Elemental comedy’ from Saturday night, and the ‘Festival of the spoken Nerd’ which took place after our X-change event. Andrew explained how scientists often quote mind boggling numbers to their audiences in order to communicate a scale for the universe, but how do we know these numbers aren’t just made up? He then went on to explain how the number of stars in our galaxy is a great example of this. In order to get the frequently quoted 100 billion stars in our galaxy, we need to guess a lot of things, and then plug these guesses into equations, which make assumptions we assume are valid, and then chuck in some more guessed numbers to get the very accurate figure of 100 billion stars. Another great example was the number of planets in the cosmos which can host life, which he concluded was somewhere between 1 and lots. Andrew then went on to sing us a song he’d written about relationships as an astronomer, and their insignificance compared to the universe.

Our next speaker was Husan Ugail of the University of Bradford (check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14900800), who was doing a talk on Tuesday about his groundbreaking research into lie detection. Our presenter Richard interviewed Husan about his work and how his lie detecting machine worked. Husan uses a combination of infrared imagery to monitor blood flow in the face, and other subtle behaviour invisible to the naked eye, in order to work out whether the subject is lying. Each subject is ‘calibrated’ by asking normal, easy questions in a relaxed environment, and recording their truthful behaviour. Then the lie detection can begin! Husan tells us the eye is very good at revealing a lie, as well as asymmetric facial expressions, slip of the tongue, frequent swallowing and many more. Apparently there are only 46 facial expressions that a typical person can do.  Husan says his methods are 70% reliable, although a test on some journalists recently had a 100% success rate!

We also had some questions from the audience for Husan. One audience member asked whether it is more difficult to detect a practiced lie, to which Husan told us that the revealing features of a face will still be seen and so his machine should not have a problem with practiced lies.  Another question was whether someone struggling to remember a fact would cloud the lie detection process. Husan told us how this can be a problem, and it is an area of his research that is still experimental.

Following Husan we had Sheila Dargan, a Physiology lecturer at Bristol university. She spoke about her work with brain imagery and memory formation in brain cells. Using a couple of giant brain cells made from string, balloons and straws, she demonstrated how brain cells communicate by generating a stream of ions to pass an electrical signal into another cell. Sheila has used electrical physiology and 2-photon microscopy to observe brain cell communication. These techniques involve replacing the solution found in the cells with a laboratory made solution. This allows the cells to be seen and their behaviour recorded for different scenarios, like epileptic fits. Using these methods, Shelia has discovered new proteins forming during memory formation in the Hippocampus (the spatial memory part of the brain).

Alan McClelland spoke next about a subject he is clearly very passionate about. A very enthusiastic and engaging speaker, he told us about the rare metals found in mobile phones. Mobile phones have a variety of rare metals doing very specific jobs. Although they are in tiny quantities in each mobile phone, Alan tells us that there are roughly 5.5 billion mobile phones in use today, and that we need to consider harvesting these metals or the components they are used in. But what is the energy cost of extracting these metals compared with the energy cost of extracting them from ore? Alan talks about the environmental impact, the revolutionary ‘iphone apps’, desktop mobiles and ends by revealing what happens today, that old mobile phones frequently end up in India and China where children melt the metals off themselves. This is clearly not the solution, and we must endeavour to solve this problem.

We then heard from Jamie Gallagher who did a kids talk on Sunday about how big and how small science can go. For us, he spoke about his research at Glasgow University where he has been developing and improving thermoelectric power sources. He demonstrated to us how a simple dc motor can be powered using a glass of ice and a warm hand. He explained to us that the difference in temperature between the warm hand and cold ice is used to create a potential difference across a p-n junction (an electrical diode), which is enough to power the small motor. This technology has huge potential for recovering frequently lost energy. For example, a car loses 70% of its energy through heat. A thermoelectric system could be integrated into a car in order to recover some of this energy to charge a battery. He tells us that if such thermoelectric were placed in the chimneys of power stations, it might be possible to extract hundreds of watts of power. He even suggests in the future that our ipod could be charged simply from the temperature difference between a person’s body and the air. Cool stuff!

We ended the evening with music from Helen Arney. Helen is a part of the ‘Festival of the Spoken Nerd’, for which she plays her ukulele and sings a few excellent songs. Thoroughly entertaining, she was a perfect end to the X-change singing about how she would like to cryogenically freeze her boyfriend and live a party life in the 35th century.  We wish her the best of luck with that.

Day 2 of the the x-change coming straight from the National Media Museum to your web browser... Featuring science, music and comedy. Listen now!

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Guest Blogger: Naomi Asantewa-Sechereh

Speakers:

Simon Watt (aka Dr Death)

Dr Alex Braithwaite, University College London

Professor Paul Rogers, University of Bradford

Deepesh Patel and Raghd Rostom, Canopy to Cures

Matt Parker, Queen Mary, University of London

Host:

Richard Hollingham

The first day of the X-change at the British Science Festival 2011 got off to a great start! The X-change picks the best speakers of the day, giving visitors a chance to see it all in a one hour show in an informal location. This year we’re at the National Media Museum from 18.15 to 19.30, Sunday 11th to Wednesday 14th. We started with a varied programme ranging from medicine in the Middle Ages, mathematical magic and comedy to a discussion on the threat of terrorism and reflection on the war on terror 10 years on. 

The evening started with Simon Watt (aka Dr Death), host of the Medi-evil travelling show. Dr Death took the audience on a comical voyage through the history and science of medicine in the Middle Ages. This voyage revealed that in those days, medicine didn’t really work (hence the name Dr Death..eek!). Anything from using dried frog pills to treat a sore throat and other random techniques were attempted. Dr Death demonstrated that for almost 2000 years bleeding patients with leeches was the most common cure for all illnesses – it was even used to treat bleeding! Questions from the audience lead onto a discussion on the ridiculous treatments, such as the various techniques for proving that someone is dead. This included tying a bell to the person and seeing if you could hear ringing, which could be where the phrase ‘saved by the bell’ comes from.

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 was marked by two lectures at the British Science Festival today. At the X-change we held a discussion between Dr Alex Braithwaite explaining his research which looks at measuring the threat of terrorism, and Professor Paul Rogers who looked at the political decisions which he felt to a certain degree led to the US failed war on terror. Both speakers felt that this shouldn’t be seen as a military thing and more focus needs to be placed on developing an understanding of why people are doing this. 75% of people polled in Alex’s research expect a terrorist attack in the UK in 2011. Alex explained that the likelihood of this is in fact much, much smaller when terrorist activity is looked at in the last 40 years. This high percentage might be due to the fact that they are being polled on terrorism.

Two budding scientists were next on at the X-change. Deepesh Patel (currently at Durham University) and Raghd Rostom (about to start at Cambridge University later this year) run Canopy to Cures, which researches the medicinal properties of plants in the rainforests. Facts of the talk included 25% of medicines are derived from the rainforest and that almost two thirds of cancer drugs are derived from plants. Deepesh recently accompanied a team of researchers on an expedition in Amazon rainforest, from which he came away with a greater desire to get scientists interacting with the indigenous peoples of the rainforests. Not only will this improve communication with scientists, but also the indigenous peoples are the experts of the rainforests in knowing which plant remedies work. Deepesh and Raghd ended their talk with a nice demonstration on the detection of vitamin C in plants, which involved audience participation. The juices of an orange and strawberries were collected and the indicator DCPIP was used to detect vitamin c.

Maths teacher by day and ‘numbers ninja’ by night, Matt Parker ended the night with his maths comedy act. Matt uses magic tricks to engage the public with maths and how it impacts on our daily lives without us really realising. We found out that drinking alcohol can be represented by a linear graph of happiness, but drinkers beware of the ‘X’ of the graph, as after that it’s all downhill! Matt’s abilities included correctly guessing which two-digit number audience members had chosen and cubed. This was all done by the memorisation of a simple algorithm.

The X-change is running for the rest of the British Science Festival until Wednesday evening. Same time, same place and it’s FREE!! We look forward to seeing you there and have even more science, magic, comedy, discussion and debate lined up for you. Follow us @thexchangeteam.

The X-change, 11th – 14th September, National Media Museum, Bradford

Our friends over at the University of Bradford blog have posted this awesome snippet from last night's x-change - Professor Paul Rogers from the University of Bradford's Peace Studies department joined by Lister Award-winning lecturer Dr Alex Braithwaite from UCL. Their talk examines the state of the war on terror on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Check it out on YouTube

Here it is! The first day of the x-change in all its glory!

Missed out on the x-change or just want to re-live it? Now is your chance!

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It's all happening at the British Science Festival here in sunny Bradford!

Last night, team x-change went to the amazing Elemental Comedy at the National Media Museum for an amazing night of comedy, music and extremely loud bangs. A huge range of speakers including Matt Parker, Viv Parry, Marty Jopson, the entire Bang Goes the Theory team, Andrea Sella and many, many more held a packed theatre captive... with science! The night included a chemically-accurate version of 'Diamonds are a girl's best friend', toxic humbugs and molecular dancing. And a LOT of dodgy science puns. Fabulous fun was had by all and a brilliant way to kick off the Festival.

There's so much more happening over the weekend and especially THE X-CHANGE! Our first session will be kicking off at 18.15 at the Media Museum so grab a drink and relax with a selection of the finest sciencey folks.

Keep an eye on @BritishSciFest on Twitter for what's hot today and @thexchangeteam for breaking news from us.

Don't forget to come back here tomorrow for the first x-change podcast!

Hello! And welcome to the x-change podcast channel.

When the British Science Festival kicks off from the 10th September in Bradford, this will be the place to find the x-change podcast and blog. In the meantime, you can catch up with the pre-Festival excitement around the web:

• Book tickets and find out more at the British Science Festival website: www.britishsciencefestival.org
• Find out more about the x-change team and Science in Society: www.britishscienceassociation.org/scienceinsociety
• Follow us on Twitter: @thexchangeteam and @BritishSciFest