19 October 2019 | New Scientist | 31Views Aperture
Having a blast at New Scientist Live 2019
Photographers Jonny Donovan,
David Stock, James Winspear
THERE were jellyfish, there were
robots, there was a banana piano –
plus astronaut Tim Peake. This
was New Scientist Live 2019, which
welcomed more than 40,000
science enthusiasts of all ages to
ExCeL London for a four-day
celebration of ideas and discovery.
The festival opened on
10 October with engineer Sam
Rogers flying his jet suit around
the dusty ExCeL car park (pictured
above). It was a truly multisensory
experience, according to one
spectator, who ended up with
grit in his socks and smelling
of kerosene.
The next day, another visitor
had a more immersive outing
than most after joining
neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow
on the Humans Stage, one of six
stages offering a programme of
more than 120 talks over the four
days. An electric current was
applied to her ulnar nerve, making
her hand and fingers twitch.
With 2019 marking half a
century since the Apollo 11mission, the moon was bound to
be a big theme at this year’s show.
Artist Luke Jerram’s huge model
of the moon hung above a lunar
surface exhibit on the show’s main
floor. Visitors even had the chance
to smell the moon, which has an
earthy, smoky scent, it turns out,
not a cheesy one. “I would love to
be the first woman to walk on the
moon,” said space scientist Maggie
Aderin-Pocock on 12 October as
she wowed the Main Stage. “I’m
definitely working on it!”
Later on, palaeoanthropologist
Lee Berger enthralled his audiencewith the story of how his team
discovered many skeletons of
Homo naledi, an ancient hominin
species, in a cave chamber he was
too big to access himself.
Other popular talks included
Gina Rippon on the myth of
male and female brains, Michele
Bannister on interstellar objects
and Val Curran on medical
cannabis. When it comes to gut
health, “a little bit of flatulence is
a good thing,” Megan Rossi told a
rapt crowd. “It’s a sign of a healthy
microbiome.”
For the first time, the show >