Mine’s a pint…. Of science

Pint of Science is a national hit, and now a local event is being organised by scientists at the University of Exeter who want to ensure some of the institution’s world-class research is publically accessible in a fun and informal environment.

Everyone is welcome to attend the evening sessions, held in some of the city’s best-loved pubs between May 18 and 20. As well as hearing first-hand about a wide range of cutting-edge research over a drink, the events will offer informal discussions concerning the questions that really matter.

Organiser Jay Young, a Postdoc researcher at the University of Exeter Medical School, hopes this month’s event will be the first of many. She said: “We’re really keen to share some of the fascinating research taking place at Exeter with the wider public in a way that is easy to understand, interesting, fun and interactive.”

The Pint of Science teams in Exeter have organised a range of talks around the themes of:

• Our Bodies
• Beautiful Minds
• Atoms to Galaxies.

Events cost just £3 entry and address topics such as: why incidences of diabetes are increasing and how we can reverse the trend, how we can help ourselves resist temptation, how understanding our own weather may help us contact aliens, cellulose as a nanomaterial, how we can listen to bacterial conversations (and why we would want to!?!), as well as looking at how our brains are wired to understand politics.

The pubs involved are the Rusty Bike, the Ship and Oddfellows, all in central Exeter and easily accessible. Full details of these and all the other talks, as well as how to buy tickets, can be found at: http://pintofscience.co.uk/organisations/exeter/. Ticket sales are purely to cover costs of running the festival as Pint Of Science is a not for profit organization completely run by volunteers.