Cambridge Science Festival

Saturday 17 March, 9:45AM - 10:15AM CHaOS student volunteers are running a series of talks filled with exciting demonstrations! You'll find more crashes, bangs, and squelches here if you find that our hands on events are full, or if you want even more CHaOS at the Science Festival!

Saturday 17 March, 10:00AM - 11:00AM This exciting new show by science junkies Huw James and Greg Foot uncovers the physiology and sports engineering that make an athelete a champion. Live on stage, we'll use sensors attached to exercise machines to see what happens as you start to sweat and struggle to get enough oxygen into your muscles.

Saturday 17 March, 10:00AM - 4:00PM Join Christopher Lloyd on a whistle-stop tour through the history of life on Earth using a coat of many pockets and a giant wallbook with more than 1,000 species on a four billion year timeline!

Saturday 17 March, 10:30AM - 11:30AM Dr Andrew Murray will explore the physiology behind the extraordinary feats of survival that took Scott to the South Pole, Hillary to the summit of Everest and Armstrong to the Moon, and he asks if you could achieve the same with your own remarkable body.

Saturday 17 March, 10:45AM - 11:15AM CHaOS student volunteers are running a series of talks filled with exciting demonstrations! You'll find more crashes, bangs, and squelches here if you find that our hands on events are full, or if you want even more CHaOS at the Science Festival!

Saturday 17 March, 11:00AM - 11:45AM Join Christopher Lloyd on a whistle-stop tour through the history of life on Earth using a coat of many pockets and a giant wallbook with more than 1,000 species on a four billion year timeline!

Saturday 17 March, 11:00AM - 12:00PM Dr Luke Clark discusses recent advances in the science of gambling.

Saturday 17 March, 11:00AM - 3:00PM On 17 March NGOs and social enterprises will present problems in international health and development, giving teams of students and researchers a week to find an innovative, viable solution. On 24 March teams will present their solutions to a panel of judges.

Saturday 17 March, 11:00AM - 4:00PM How fast do bats fly? What’s the fastest animal on earth? Discover answers to these and loads more amazing ‘animal athlete’ questions. Plus: see snake strike speed, slimy snail strategy, rodent recall and ‘itchy insects – to infinity and beyond’! Junior education team representatives will be on hand with more fun facts.

Saturday 17 March, 11:00AM - 8:00PM ThinkCon is back for 2012 a day of talks aim at adults and older teens covering the science and the arts, all the talks are free and open to anyone at the Cambridge Science Festival. Please feel free to pick and choose what interests you. If you do want to come for the day we offer a ticket for £6 which covers the cost of a light lunch and tea.

Saturday 17 March, 11:30AM - 12:30PM What happens when you make molecules really really long? They do crazy things and act in unexpected ways. The weird properties of polymers put them at the cutting edge of technology and make them a magician's best friend.

Saturday 17 March, 11:45AM - 12:15PM CHaOS student volunteers are running a series of talks filled with exciting demonstrations! You'll find more crashes, bangs, and squelches here if you find that our hands on events are full, or if you want even more CHaOS at the Science Festival!

Saturday 17 March, 12:00PM - 1:00PM Space plasma physicist and 'Kiss FM' DJ Martin Archer takes you on a journey into sound with his virtual DJ booth, covering waves, frequency and other principles.

Saturday 17 March, 12:00PM - 1:00PM Join philosopher, author, publisher and campaigner, Dr Ben Irvine, for a whistle-stop tour of some of the major objections to, and misreadings of, the theory of natural selection – and discover how understanding Darwinism better can help us all to achieve well-being.

Saturday 17 March, 12:30PM - 1:30PM Something is causing dramatic drainage of surface lakes on the Greenland ice sheet - what's the secret? With Dr Ian Willis.

Saturday 17 March, 1:00PM - 1:30PM CHaOS student volunteers are running a series of talks filled with exciting demonstrations! You'll find more crashes, bangs, and squelches here if you find that our hands on events are full, or if you want even more CHaOS at the Science Festival!

Saturday 17 March, 1:00PM - 1:45PM Join Christopher Lloyd on a whistle-stop tour through the history of life on Earth using a coat of many pockets and a giant wallbook with more than 1,000 species on a four billion year timeline!

Saturday 17 March, 1:00PM - 2:00PM No-one's ever seen dark matter. So why do astronomers insist that it's all around us? And why might LHC physicists be so excited about it? Tackle Dr Andrew Pontzen (astronomer) and Dr Tom Whyntie (particle physicist) as they attempt to convince you that they're not utterly bonkers.

Saturday 17 March, 1:30PM - 2:30PM Beware - trees are on the move - find out how, where and why. With Dr Gareth Rees.

Saturday 17 March, 1:30PM - 2:30PM With the electromagnetic dance and fame of 'watt costs what' (a new take on the 'Price is Right'), Nij Lal explores the science of electricity and gets our brains ticking about the electrical future...

Saturday 17 March, 2:00PM - 2:30PM CHaOS student volunteers are running a series of talks filled with exciting demonstrations! You'll find more crashes, bangs, and squelches here if you find that our hands on events are full, or if you want even more CHaOS at the Science Festival!

Saturday 17 March, 2:00PM - 3:00PM Dr Elinor Shaffer, who has just finished co-editing the third of the three-volume 'The Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe', discusses how European responses to Darwin have shed new light on the works of Samuel Butler.

Saturday 17 March, 2:00PM - 3:00PM What happens when you cool materials too close to absolute zero? We explore the weird behaviour of superconductors, the ultra-cold materials which drive the Large Hadron Collider and could be the future of electricity transport.

Saturday 17 March, 2:00PM - 3:00PM Ever wondered why smokers crave a cigarette after a meal? Or why you drink more in a pub than a restaurant? Speaker: Dr Amy Milton

Saturday 17 March, 2:00PM - 3:15PM Robin Ince questions a panel of the religious and non-religious, including Mohammed Ansar, the Reverend Richard Coles and more, on whether there really is a battle between religion and science as portrayed in the mass media or if the two can survive happily side by side.

Saturday 17 March, 2:30PM - 3:30PM The Naked Scientists take you on a whistle-stop tour of the world of waves, gases and chemistry. They detonate bombs, electrocute vegetables, turn air into a liquid, reveal the secrets of sun cream, use chemicals to produce bright lights, and launch hydrogen-powered rockets. Definitely not for the faint of heart!

Saturday 17 March, 2:30PM - 4:00PM A panel event chaired by Dr Denis Alexander, Director of The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion.

Saturday 17 March, 2:30PM - 4:00PM Will we find signs of life in a sub-glacial lake, buried beneath 3km of ice and untouched for up to half a million years? A member of the Lake Ellsworth Mission team gives an insider's view of the project.

Saturday 17 March, 2:45PM - 3:45PM We all need to breathe constantly to stay alive - as little as three minutes without oxygen can kill a human. Yet some whales can hold their breath for over an hour whilst diving.

Saturday 17 March, 3:00PM - 3:30PM CHaOS student volunteers are running a series of talks filled with exciting demonstrations! You'll find more crashes, bangs, and squelches here if you find that our hands on events are full, or if you want even more CHaOS at the Science Festival!

Saturday 17 March, 3:00PM - 3:45PM Join Christopher Lloyd on a whistle-stop tour through the history of life on Earth using a coat of many pockets and a giant wallbook with more than 1,000 species on a four billion year timeline!

Saturday 17 March, 3:30PM - 4:30PM Alison Pearn, Associate Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project, looks at the letters exchanged by Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler, and charts the disintegration of their relationship from a shared spirit of intellectual enquiry to a state of personal and public conflict.

Saturday 17 March, 4:00PM - 4:30PM CHaOS student volunteers are running a series of talks filled with exciting demonstrations! You'll find more crashes, bangs, and squelches here if you find that our hands on events are full, or if you want even more CHaOS at the Science Festival!

Saturday 17 March, 4:00PM - 5:00PM Featuring authors Katherine Orr and Adam Marek and scientist, Dr Simon Stott. Chair: Ra Page (editor). Is research always fully aware of its consequences? Does science need to grow a conscience? Or are we in danger of being too distrustful of science? Of demonising it even? Supported by the Wellcome Trust.

Saturday 17 March, 4:00PM - 5:00PM One of the UK’s finest and most imaginative writers, Alan Moore, discusses the meeting of science and fiction, his own inspirations from the world of scientific discovery and whether there is room for the mystical in a rational world. With Robin Ince. Of course, a man of so many ideas may well go off on quite a different tangent and none of the above may be applicable.

Saturday 17 March, 4:00PM - 5:00PM Join Hannah Critchlow from the Naked Scientists on an exploration of the brain with mind-boggling live experiments and demonstrations. A not to be missed science theatrical stage show for all the family. Definately not for the faint of thought!

Saturday 17 March, 4:00PM - 5:00PM This talk looks under the microscope at some of the amazing structures produced in the natural world, from ants' feet and spider silk to carnivorous pitcher plants. Can we mimic them to make high-performance man-made materials? Nature has had a two-billion year head start, but can we catch up?

Saturday 17 March, 4:30PM - 5:30PM Following on from the demonstration lecture, we will take a journey along a nerve from formation of the electrical signal to its final output.