Author: News

The expectations for “Is this the real life?” were high – it was the first sold out event for Pint of Science 2017 in Edinburgh. With a fascinating set of speakers and an interactive neuroscience & arts display by Edinburgh FUSION, the event fully lived up to its expectations. The first talk of the night…

Attending a conference where the majority of guests are aspiring female scientists is not a common occurrence. The Interconnect Student Network Conference organised by EQUATE Scotland is not your usual conference. It’s a celebration of female students in STEM subjects, and an opportunity to network with female STEM professionals and employers and learn new things.…

The brain is a complex and mysterious entity. We desperately try to make sense of it by mapping its regions and dividing hemispheres into functional units. Yet, the distinct divisions remain elusive, measurements are approximations and “right-left” specialisation is closer to myth than reality. A Pint of Science evening dedicated to the brain aimed not…

Last Wednesday night, at the cosy downstairs space of the Safari Lounge, we watched the presentations of two passionate scientists discussing their work on how machines can learn to talk like humans, and how robots can learn to behave like humans. We played games and won prizes for the best questions and tweets. All this…

Scientific advancements are gaining pace and continuously offering us new ways of dealing with a multitude of diseases. These innovations range from very big, such as big data, to very small, such as nanotechnologies. As a part of Pint of Science, a varied mix of enthusiastic members of the public gathered in The Safari Lounge,…

“This windowless, stuffy room under the earth is actually my worst nightmare”, Professor Ward-Thompson starts off the first talk of the night. And she is right, the room is sweaty – the event is sold out and people are getting cosy, eager to see the screen. We soon find out why Prof. Catharine Ward-Thompson from…

As I headed downstairs to the basement bar of Canons’ Gait, I wondered what on earth Olympic athletes and astronauts could have in common with intensive care and cancer patients. As it turns out, a startling amount. When we think of astronauts and athletes, we think of their victories and their superhuman fitness. We forget…

When most people think of scientists, a certain image of a scruffy bespectacled person in a white lab coat commonly springs to mind. Whilst this stereotype exists for a reason, a new revolutionary paradigm for the way science is conducted may prove to be the antidote to this outdated trope. This idea is citizen science.…

  As I descend the stairs into the Canon’s Gait pub to attend an Edinburgh Pint of Science talk, one of a series of events aimed at communicating science to the public in a relaxed and fun environment (with the added incentive of beer), I can’t help but think about something that apparently, as a…