Its almost the end of term and you feel like your brain is about to implode. You can’t bear to submit another piece of supervision work and you’re starting to get sick of learning. But wait! Just before you go home and sink into your bed for a week, it’s worth checking out the Science Festival, beginning on Monday 7th March. With more than 350 events crammed into two weeks (yes, you read that right), it would be a downright shame to miss it. Activities range from talks to exhibitions to performances to hands-on activities that are simple, yet engaging and unashamedly fun. I understand that choosing which ones to go to from a booklet that’s 88 pages long may be too mentally straining at this time of year, so never fear – I’ve done the work for you. Book fast!

Artificial Intelligence

Will artificial intelligence be superior to the human brain? (7th March)

This year’s theme is Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, and this talk will serve as a great introduction to the power of AI. More jobs are being taken over by AI, but will AI ever be superior to the human brain? How can it benefit our society without causing the downfall of mankind, if that is even possible? AI experts and neuroscientists go head to head in this discussion. Replicating the human brain with all its complexities is quite possibly the hardest feat in neuroscience, so it should be interesting to see how AI strives to solve that puzzle.

Designing the Future: Digital Twins (9th March)

Unless you haven’t been on Facebook for a while, we’ve all seen Zuckerberg’s photo of every member of a Samsung conference wearing the Oculus Rift Headgear set. He, among many others, has advocated for virtual reality as the next medium for communication in which we can immerse ourselves into any experience we wish. This talk, presented with Siemens Industry Software Limited, introduces the year 2020 as the age of the digital twin. All the latest technology, such as supersonic cars and spaceships, has been cloned in a virtual world. It aims to explore how digital twins will help us create, improve, and simulate their real-world counterparts.

Turing’s imitation game (10th March)

Continuing the theme of the power of AI, Professor Kevin Warwick will demonstrate how hard it can be to tell the difference between human and machine using the Turing test. In conversation, it can be very easy to confuse machine for human and even vice versa. You can even try the test for yourself – you’ll finally find out whether you’re secretly a robot.

 

Healthcare

Stem cells: Big data and personalised medicine (10th March)

If the mysteries of biology are more your thing, this talk co-hosted by the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, The Gurdon Institute (founded by the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK), and The Babraham Institute promises to be a discussion you won’t see anywhere else. A panel of biomedical research experts will respond to questions on the complexities of personalised medicine and stem cell research, as well as the use of big data for diagnostics and drug development.

How big data analysis is changing how we understand the living world (15th March) 

“Data has never been easier, or cheaper, to collect or store”, says Dr Clare Dyer-Smith of Cambridge Big Data. Big Data has the potential to be accessible to all of us, one day. Currently, anyone can monitor and measure themselves using fitness apps on iPhones (and Apple Watches for the richer among us). Genome sequencing is more accessible than ever to those who are curious about their ancestry, and the ‘100,000 Genomes Project’, led by the NHS, aims to create a database filled with the genomes of 100,000 people so that rare diseases and untreatable diseases can be diagnosed early and treated. Portable DNA sequencers were used to track the Ebola virus in western Africa. Ewan Birney FRS, Director of the EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute, explores the opportunities and challenges of big data in healthcare, from genomics to high-resolution imaging.

 

Miscellaneous & Quirky

Eating less meat for planetary and population health: Government policy or your choice? (9th March)

A strange, but interesting question.Meat production is predicted to double by 2050, despite the rise of vegan culture, and the panel will explore the role that policies could (and should) play in changing what people eat for our own benefit.

Beyond Images (7th-19th March)

This exhibition consists entirely of images produced by conservation technologies, such as 3D scanning systems, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), electron-microscopy, aerial drones and GPS tracking. It should be interesting to see how these foreign ‘cold’ terms can be translated into something appealing to the eye. An interesting collaboration between the arts and sciences for pragmatists and dreamers alike. (There’s also the chance to meet the conservationists who employ these techniques on a daily basis.)

More science pranks (14th March)

Steve Mould from BBC One’s Britain’s Brightest will do plenty of science experiments that will amaze you – or at least amuse you if you’re a know-it-all undergraduate. Check out his YouTube channel if you don’t believe me: he does a whole array of stuff and is quite the charmer.

Brain, body and mind: New directions in the neuroscience and philosophy of consciousness (16th March)

The definition of consciousness is a classic question that never gets old. Is (insert animal here) conscious? Can robots become conscious? Philosopher Professor Tim Crane and neuroscientist Dr Srivas Chennu will strive to make the answer as thought-provoking and unreachable as possible. (I only kid…but not really.)

The science of out-of-body experiences (19th March)

Dr Jane Aspell from the Department of Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University will use neuroscience to explain out-of-body experiences, in terms of how the brain creates the experience of one’s self inhabiting a body. Even if you’re not convinced, isn’t it enough to intrigue you to go anyway?

The scientific secrets of Doctor Who (19th March)

Yup, there’s something even for the die-hard Whovians. Using clips from the TV series, Dr Marek Kukula and Simon Guerrier will show how Doctor Who uses science to tell its complex stories of space and time-travel. (But they probably won’t be able to explain what made Clara Oswald “the Impossible Girl”. Too timey-wimey.) They claim to show how close it has come to predicting future scientific discoveries – it’s up to you to find out whether that’s such a far-fetched idea. Don’t blink, or you just might miss it.