“Boffins now believe” it doesn’t get better than Cheltenham

Perhaps I’m experiencing a bit of the post-festival blues. I’m sitting on the train itching to check my festival programme and see what talk I’m signed up to next, whether I’ve got time to dash into the discover zone or the book tent, but sadly the whole thing has already flown by.

Cheltenham Science Festival has been an inspiring week. It has given me the chance to get out of my niche and look at issues across the whole spectrum of science, not just from a researcher’s perspective but from that of the general public. And it definitely takes all types.

It was heartening to see so many members of the public with little science background, young and old, coming to events simply out of interest, and often viewing things from a less detached perspective.

Often there was a personal investment involved: in ‘The Depressed Brain’, many of the audience asked questions and shared stories about their own experiences with depression, not without a little controversy (I had to take issue with Ruby Wax’s assertion that a man who was able to exercise couldn’t be depressed, but disagreement sparks discussion…)

And a good few moments passed where I wanted to say “Tell this to your doctor, not the speaker and hundreds-strong audience!”

But in all seriousness, the interaction and openness of the talks, and the festival in general, have been one of the best aspects. The speakers were always receptive to people coming up and starting a discussion afterwards, no matter their background or the nature of their questions.

The other scientists and researchers that I met really helped to shape the festival. It’s easy to think of yourself as relatively alone in research, labouring in a niche that interests few; but to hear the stories of so many others striving towards similar goals is a great motivational tool.

It’s also been an exercise in explaining my own research in understandable and interesting terms to anyone, be it other biologists all the way through to the interested layperson. If the public are to view science as important, opportunities to communicate why it matters are invaluable.

And of course communicating interesting and accurate science to the public is one of the festival’s main aims. One very entertaining talk was Marcus Brigstocke’s Early Edition, which looked at the presentation of science stories in the newspapers. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the anecdotal scare stories, “top boffins now believe” statements and dodgy equations on offer (“What’s the SI unit for childhood summer memories?” asked UCL’s Andrea Sella).

I was always running into someone different and having unexpected conversations. In a session for trying out diagnoses and medical procedures, a participant found out I was a geneticist and I wound up trying to explain to him why evolution hadn’t selected out acne from the human population.

Not to mention other undeniably important discussions, such as the complicated mathematics of who would progress from group B of Euro 2012. (The diagnosis session, by the way, was great. I particularly enjoyed operating on an eye using virtual reality tools, but was a little concerned about my final score of 0/100.)

While, of course, I’ve learnt a lot about areas I was previously interested in, new and interesting information seemed to pop up in the strangest places.

I never expected to learn, for example, that a Celebrations-size Malteser is an excellent tool for gauging the size of an 8ml testicle. I’m sure it won’t stop here. I have a large list of people whose work I want to look up and a fair few books to get through (I’m starting with Jim Al-Khalili’s Paradox).

So what’s next? I’m going to make an effort to get out of my comfort zone, to be open to learning about new areas of science and to think hard about how I can convince them to send me to Cheltenham next year…