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Booking is now open for the 2018 Cambridge Science Festival, and the Intellectual Forum at °µÍø½ûÇø is delighted to be hosting five Festival events led by College Fellows. 

Tickets for events in College are free and are booked on a first come, first served basis. 

How Science Really Works - The Secret Life of Science

with Professor Jeremy Baumberg

Monday 12 March, 7.30pm to 8.30pm, Frankopan Hall, West Court, Jesus Lane -

Is the scientific enterprise truly as healthy as we tend to think? How does the system itself shape what scientists do? "The Secret Life of Science" takes a clear-eyed and provocative look at the current state of global science, shedding light on a cutthroat and tightly tensioned enterprise that even scientists themselves often don’t fully understand. This dispatch from the front lines of modern science paints a startling picture of a complex scientific ecosystem that has become the most competitive free market environment on the planet. It reveals how big this ecosystem really is, what motivates its participants, and who reaps the rewards.

"Hot topics" in bioscience I wished I knew more about ...

with Dr Rachael Bashford-Rogers, Dr Sybil Stacpoole, Dr Jenny Hirst, Dr Emily Camm and Dr Tessa Sinnige. It will be chaired by Dr Julian Huppert, Director of the Intellectual Forum
Tuesday 13 March, 7.30pm to 9pm, Frankopan Hall, West Court, Jesus Lane -

What is gene editing and why should I care? Can we cure Alzheimer's disease? What can I do with a stem cell? How does what happens when we are in the womb affect our adult health? Come and hear our expert panel answer these questions and any more that you may have about biosciences, for anyone from 15 to 115, no previous expertise required!

Fashion and the Circular Economy: Engineering Biology for Textile Dyeing

with Dr Jim Ajioka
Saturday 17 March, 11am to 12.30pm, Frankopan Hall, West Court, Jesus Lane -

The textile industry is a global environmental disaster. Everything from the production of both natural and synthetic fibres to making finished garments carry a negative environmental impact. Explore the current dyeing process and how, through engagement with fashion houses, Dr Ajioka hopes to bring the dyeing industry into the 21st Century by engineering biology. He will explore how processes using engineered microbes to combine the production, deposition, and fixation, of pigments onto fibres and fabrics, holds the promise of virtually eliminating the use of toxic chemicals with a big reduction in water and energy use. 

Using Materials to Think Workshop

with 
Saturday 17 March , 2.30pm to 4pm, Webb Library, West Court, Jesus Lane -

Advances in science provide the means to probe matter on increasingly minute and vast scales, expanding human senses and calling into question what it means to know and perceive. In this interactive workshop you will create three dimensional drawings using a process of thinking with objects. Join sculptor Melissa Pierce Murray to explore questions and example relating to how artists and scientists develop conceptual and physical metaphors to make sense of the world. The workshop also includes a discussion of Murray’s collaborative work with artists and scientists, showing how her sculptures draw on the disciplines of physics, poetry and art.

Creating the coolest objects in the Universe...

with Dr Ulrich Schneider
Tuesday 20 March, 7.30pm to 8.30pm, Frankopan Hall, West Court, Jesus Lane -

How cold can you make things in a lab? And how would you do it? Does something interesting happen? And why should we care? This talk will explore how you can make things colder than anything in outer space. Dr Schneider will detail how we, surprisingly, use lasers, and suggests "yes, certainly interesting things happen" as the particles, for instance, can lose their individual identity and form part of one giant matterwave (called Bose-Einstein Condensation). Through live demonstrations this event suggests we can learn a lot about what happens in advanced materials, such as superconductors or the magnets in a hard disk.