Sunday 19 December 2010

Manchester Science Festival day 5

Day 5, Wednesday 27th October. I was at MOSI all day mostly participating in busking in the upstairs lobby.Late afternoon I evaluated an event called 'seeing is believing' and I went and had a go myself before they cleared everything away. It was weird but amazing! Organised by the British Science Association, this was a combination of art and science allowing us to look at the science behind out of body experiences. I placed by right hand on the table underneath a wooden box where I couldn't see it. On top of this box is a hand made from a rubbery flexible material which simulates my own hand. The lady kept stroking, massaging and rubbing the fake hand. I felt nothing........at first! After a while my actual hand felt as though it was being stroked and manipulated. So it is possible to trick your mind even though I could clearly see the lady playing with the fake on. Oooooh creepy! A sad note was that this was Zena's last day of the fesival, sniff! I had worked with her a fair bit and she was full of fun and a very lovely person. I was sad to see her go as was one of the STEM managers who happened to be around. We hugged and got emotional. I managed to snap this smiley pic of her before she left and was sorry she couldn't make our xmas meal.

After going home to get changed I came back to MOSI, as a member of the audience.Therw was an awesome event happening this evening which concluded the RSC's 350th anniversary celebrations. Four reknowned speakers were invited along to talk about the latest developments in their fields. See photos ;) These research fellows were Prf Andrew Sharrocks discussing biomedicine (cancer research), Prof. Barbara Maher from Lancaster University discussing climate change and enviromental pollution (magnetite particles). The third speaker was Dr. Alexander Oh discussing particle physics. The fourth speaker was from Manchester University and was this years joint Nobel prize winner for physics! Both nobels work at the materials department here and won it for their discovery of graphene in 2004. Dr Konstantine Novoselov spoke about this and he was very funny. Alas Prof. Andre Gheim couldn't be with us this evening. Each talk was very interesting and at the end they formed a panel at the front and answered questions. A most enjoyable evening. Fellow STEM Ambassador and award winner lol Claire was also there.



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