By Natasha Tian
The first x-change of the BA Festival of Science, a daily evening event highlighting "the best of the fest", kicked off yesterday. The session was chaired by Radio 4 broadcaster Quentin Cooper and began with brief talks by young scientists advertising their 'perspectives' posters, aiming to explain how research ranging from computers to depression is relevant to our daily lives.
Afterwards, scientist-turned-artist Dr Lizzie Burns challenged two teams to build brains out of plasticine. Ultimately, the artistic brain with a light bulb attached won.
The audience's eyes were deceived by visual illusions shown by Dr Penny Fidler, an independent consultant, who said "everything we see is created in our brain." She demonstrated how a mask held inside-out appears as though the face is sticking out after gazing at it for a while. Penny explained that we are used to seeing faces that stick out and so our brain assumes the same is true for the mask.
James Piercy reported back on his Guinness World record attempt on Sunday to enclose the greatest number of people inside a soap bubble. James managed to fit 25 people inside a large bubble with an 8 metre circumference but declined to say whether he had successfully broken the record.
Quentin Cooper threw in some quotes from the Festival, including: "95 per cent of cells in the human body are faecal matter," which drew gasps of disgust.
The discussion moved from body to soul when Professor Bruce Hood from Bristol University talked about 'The origins of magical beliefs' and how we are all programmed from childhood to believe in supernatural phenomena. The number of volunteers who would wear a second-hand cardigan for £10 dropped from twenty to one when Prof Hood revealed that the cardigan once belonged to murderer Fred West.
Claire Davis highlighted that advances in materials technology have enhanced athletic performance but stressed that couch potatoes cannot be miraculously transformed into Olympic athletes.
Comedian Mark Stevenson provided light relief with some witty lines - namely that people perform better at public speaking after sex, which explained his poor performance over the last thirteen months. Also, he thought it funny that cannabis has recently been accepted as a treatment for arthritic pain, suggesting that: "patients will go to their doctor asking for better joints."
Inevitably a discussion of beer science culminated in beer-tasting and Anne Edwards revealed the fact and fiction behind hangover cures - bananas, eggs and water are good but forget hair-of-dog and fry-ups.
Quentin wrapped up the x-change on a sombre note with a toast to Aussie science presenter Steve Irwin, who had died in a diving accident that day.