The Curiosity Carousel Knowledge Fair

FUTURES: A FESTIVAL OF DISCOVERY WHERE YOU CAN EXPLORE THE PAST, CREATE THE PRESENT AND IMAGINE THE FUTURE.Back for another year, FUTURES promises to bigger and better than ever before! Across Bath, Bristol, Exeter and Plymouth, this festival of discovery will be taking place in September and October 2025.For FUTURES we are working right across the South West, with researchers from the University of Bath, Bath Spa University, University of Bristol, University of Exeter and University of Plymouth joining us.Some events are ticketed, some are drop in and all are completely FREE.You can find out more about FUTURES here:https://futuresnight.co.ukFUTURES: a festival of discovery is funded by UK Research and Innovation.

FUTURES

Our very special Research Fair! Join our team of researchers as we host a carousel of exciting events designed to intrigue and amaze.

FUTURES - A Festival of Discovery 2024

BACK FOR 2024!

FUTURES is a FREE festival of discovery, funded by UKRI and taking place in the South West across venues in Bath, Bristol, Devon, Exeter, Plymouth and online this Autumn.

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Roll up roll up, to our very special FUTURES 2020 Research Fair. Join our team of researchers as we host a carousel of exciting events designed to intrigue and amaze.At the Curiosity Carousel you can hear from and talk to a variety of researchers, and a special video presentation from the SS Great Britain will show you aspects of the ship that you don’t get to see on a typical visit!The Carousel will feature researchers working on all sorts of topics and problems. A full list is below, but they include:Can computers help us feel better about our bodies?How do you get a chick from an egg?How can artificial intelligence gives clues about links between hip shape and arthritis?Fantastic bacteria and how to fight themHow can data tell us what’s good for us?How can we use Virtual Reality technology?How can you generate electrical pulses with your finger?How the Carousel work?In our virtual conference hall, you can “take a seat” at a researcher’s table. The researchers will share their research in various ways: they will talk with you, show you demonstrations or videos, run a mini-quiz, and answer your questions. You’ll be able to see and talk to the researcher/s and the other members of the public who are around the same table.About every ten minutes we’ll ask everyone to “stand up” and move around to another table and meet a different researcher (that’s the carousel part). The presentation from the SS Great Britain will be broadcast from the “main stage” to the whole hall at once, so no matter how busy you are interacting with researchers you won’t miss it! And afterwards the carousel will continue.Research tables at the Curiosity CarouselChickens and eggs – an old question and a new problemRute Garcia da NoivaAt my table, we are going to have a chat about how you get a chick from an egg, about how we have been doing that for thousands of years, and how different (or not) the process is in our modern world. We will bring up old problems and new concerns and ask some interesting questions about what feeding the world looks like todayWhat is your hip shape and does that matter?Ben FaberWhen we get older lots of people suffer from arthritis in their hips causing hip pain. We want to know if that’s because their hip shape puts them at greater risk of arthritis. Our research involves looking at people’s genes and measuring their hip shape to look for clues if this is true. To do this we are using artificial intelligence to analyse hip scans in over 40,000 people. Hopefully this research will help us stop people from getting arthritis in the future.Fantastic Bacteria And How To Fight ThemDora Bonini and Aim SatapoominWe will show you some agar plates with bacteria on them and then have a mini-quiz about infections and treatments. There will be a choice of topics to explore in depth: how bacteria cause disease, how the infection is treated with antibiotics or how bacteria develop resistance to them. We will explain why it matters to us to do research in this area and ask your thoughts on the importance of the topic.Future Foods– What will be on our plates?Anil de SequeiraThe world will host 9 billion people by 2050. Insects, fake meat, seaweed and 3D-printed food all have the potential to address malnutrition, but could we stomach it?What we put in our shopping trolleys as we steer them down the aisles of our supermarkets will help decide the future.Virtual Reality and academic researchKirsten Cater, Esther Eidinow, Stuart Gray, Chris Bevan.Visit our table to discuss Virtual Reality projects covering documentary, ethics and historical recreation with leading academics in this field.ConCERNed: Linking particle physics and rap musicSudarshan Paramesvaran and ConsensusParticle physics and music combine to help us learn more about the origin of the universe.The Dodo QuizDelphine AngstWhat do you know about the famous iconic dodo bird? Come to check your knowledge and learn about this bird.Brexit and Global Talent Mobility in London FinTech SectorYllka HysajHow are Fintech firms finding the right people for the right positions? Learn more about how talent sourcing activities help firms achieve their strategic goals.And....Action! Exploring people&#x27;s interactions with urban nature through films made on phonesSarah Hobbs, Ian Thornhill, Paula NovoWe share our research exploring how people living in Bristol interact with blue-spaces (ponds, lakes, rivers and streams) through a process called Participatory Video. This is an approach which enables local people to learn about film making whilst sharing their own perspectives in their own ways. The results are diverse to say the least!How can data tell us what’s good for us?Annie Herbert and David CarslakeLarge health datasets can guide us towards choices that give us happier, healthier lives. Their analysis, however, is not as straightforward as it might seem. Numerous pitfalls can trap the unwary analyst and bring us to misleading conclusions. Join two epidemiologists to discuss how we can make useful conclusions from health data.Please note: some of the research we carry out involves unhealthy romantic relationships and their effects on health. If anyone feels this is inappropriate or may be distressing for them/any of their group, please send a private message once at the table and we can tailor discussions to not include this specific research.Can computer-based training tasks improve the way we feel about our bodies?Thea HouseMany of us experience negative feelings towards our bodies. For some people, feelings of body dissatisfaction can increase the risk of a person developing eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. Interestingly, research shows that people who report high levels of body dissatisfaction direct more attention towards people who have their ideal body size. This attentional bias is thought to be both be caused by, and contribute to, feelings of body dissatisfaction. I will show how we measure attentional bias in the laboratory. I will also discuss how we are developing computer-based attention training tasks to improve the way people feel about their bodies.Imaging Volcanic Ash Plumes from SpaceCharlie Leach, Will Proud, Callum McDonnel and Mark SchenkCome to our stall to learn about the CubeSat, what it does, the justifications for sending it into space, and to ask us questions!  PROVE (Pointable Radiometer for Observation of Volcanic Emissions) is a small multispectral IR satellite to map volcanic ash in 3D. Many different disciplines collaborate within this project, and so do experienced researchers and the next generation of researchers - undergraduate students in Aerospace and Electrical Engineering and within student societies. Knowledge of ash cloud properties, such as ash concentration, will improve forecasting of ash dispersion and make flying safer.Composite Materials: The Everyday to the ExtraordinaryJoe Surmon, Chris Grace, C Brewster, Chantal Lewis, Athina Kontopoulou, Callum McInenes and Alex Moss.We will explain what Composite Materials are, why they are worth researching and what makes them so useful. Composite materials cover a very broad range from carbon fibre to molecular gas storage, and the researchers at this table cover a range of specialisms, with different team members taking a seat at the table over the course of the evening. “Piezo”- NightArathyram Ramachandra Kurup SasikalaDid you know some crystals convert mechanical energy into electrical energy and vice versa? This is called piezoelectricity! It is being used around the globe for varied purposes, often for creative energy harvesting methods. Piezoelectric Nanogenerators can convert wide range of vibrations, starting from human movement and even breathing or blood flow, to high energy vibrations such as tides, wind, flowing water to produce electrical energy. Come to this table to learn more!Boosting the immune system to shrink tumoursCarissa WongKey cancer-killing cells of the immune system are called &#x27;T-cells&#x27;. However, in tumours (lumps of cancer cells), cancer cells stop T-cells from being able to destroy the cancer; my research figures out how we can switch the cancer-killing potential of T-cells back on within tumours. I use a microscope (essentially a fancy magnifying glass) to take pictures and videos of T-cells as they interact with mini-tumours. The work hopes to uncover new ways to improve therapies for cancer patients.How cancer avoids immune surveillanceJiahe LuAt this table you can find out about how our immune cells kill cancer cells, why they might fail, and how we can rescue our immune cell&#x27;s cancer-killing ability.What sounds sayLucy Dougill, Nikolay Pilashev, and Nick MikolajHow can we use sound waves? We can show you that they are more useful than you might ever have thought. We&#x27;ll show you an experiment you can perform at home and also explain why sound waves can be useful for Non-Destructive Evaluation, testing structures like the Clifton Suspension Bridge.The SS Great BritainNicola Grahamslaw, Ship&#x27;s conservation engineer, will be available to answer your questions after the video tour of the SS Great Britain at 7pm.
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