E I
S F
You’d be hard pushed to fi nd something as predictable
as a periodic table or a Bunsen burner in Edinburgh International Science Festival’s 2016 programme.
Rowena McIntosh fi nds insightful discussions, technology workshops, club nights and family activities that explore
the wonders of science
P H O T O © C H R S S C O T T
I
DINO DAY Play with robotic dinosaurs, join a dinosaur egg hunt, discover fossils, meet Velma the Velociraptor and dig up the newest species of ’saur yourself. Summerhall, Sat 26 Mar.
SLIPPING THE MIND Guardian writer and neurologist Jules Montague hosts a discussion on human memory, examining how it’s stored, how it’s affected by technology and the role of nostalgia in making us who we are. National Museum of Scotland, Thu 31 Mar.
WEARABLE CIRCUITS WORKSHOP A tech and textile workshop will create a circuit which attaches to clothing, a l ag or a banner. Learn some basic electronics and design a circuit using LED lights, buzzers and switches. Summerhall, Thu 31 Mar.
FEEDING TIME AT THE ZOO Hear from the keepers and nutrition experts about Edinburgh Zoo’s initiatives around sustainable food production, visiting the penguins for canapés and the chimpanzees for starters along the way. Edinburgh Zoo, Fri 1 Apr.
BIG BANG BASH Houston, we have a party. Enjoy themed cocktails, spacesuit seli es, a portable planetarium, roving scientists performing experiments, a science ceilidh and a DJ. National Museum of Scotland, Fri 1 Apr.
FOOD WASTE MEAL Scottish households throw away 566,000 tonnes of food every year. Sample dishes made from scran
that might have been binned and get tips from food experts on how to be less wasteful. Summerhall, Tue 5 Apr.
NEXT GENERATION MINDFULNESS Part talk, part experience, this event looks at the integration of meditation with technologies to help us engage with both the real and digital world, as well as how mindfulness can promote better health. Summerhall, Tue 5 Apr.
LOST AT SEA Catherine Wheels present a playful show for ages 8–12 exploring how 28,800 bath toys accidentally helped scientists map the sea’s currents. See preview, page 67. Summerhall, Tue 5-Thu 7 Apr.
FULL SPECTRUM Music meets tech wizards in this sell-out science festival club night by EISF and promoter / DJ Astrojazz. It promises top DJs, live algorithm-inspired visuals and audience-responsive rave aids. Summerhall, Fri 8 Apr.
EDINBURGH MINI MAKER FAIRE A chance for the whole family to check out the technology that creative makers are developing across the country. There are gadgets and gizmos aplenty with software, hardware and food. Summerhall, Sun 10 Apr.
■ Edinburgh International Science Festival, various venues, Edinburgh, Sat 26 Mar–Sun 10 Apr. Full programme launched on Tue 9 Feb.
excitable over graphs on enzyme activity, and ‘the complex stuff going on at a molecular level when curds form’. If it sounds dry, it isn’t; this is cheese we’re talking about after all, and Thomas breaks it down for the layperson, contextualising his expertise into every day life. And though he’s a bofi n, his passion is for artisan and farmhouse cheeses; the little guys, threatened by industry and policy. This is good, as one of his many roles is as a consultant for the Food Standards Agency, training environmental health ofi cers on what poses a risk in cheesemaking and what doesn’t. ‘They start off often really not having any idea of where the hazards lie. But we get their hands into the milk and actually get them to produce a cheese which they then take home, and they end up feeling really clued up about the process.’ One of the EHO’s on the programme was so inspired, they enrolled in the professional cheesemaking course that Thomas teaches at the School of Artisan Food at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire.
So, can you boil cheese down to biochemistry? Do our cheeses taste the way they do because of science, or is there something ineffable going on? Thomas explains that ‘with the right conditions, you can make any cheese anywhere in the world’. Caerphilly from Philly, brie from Bury – all it takes is the right sort of milk and an understanding of how temperature, moisture, acidity and salinity interact with microbes to produce crumbliness or sweetness or, well, cheesiness. Cheeseology is a chance to pick up some of that understanding and start to get under the rind of this ancient food that we still haven’t quite i gured out. Bottom line, it’s the science of how we perceive one of mankind’s greatest achievements, so really it’s pretty essential knowledge. Why don’t they teach this stuff in schools?
Cheeseology, Summerhall, Edinburgh, Sat 2 Apr. 34 THE LIST 4 Feb–7 Apr 2016