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The world’s largest festival of public science returned to 91ֱ�� last month, with members from the Neuroscience Institute sharing their scientific discoveries across the city’s pubs and venues.

Pint of Science is an annual worldwide science festival which helps researchers to share their scientific discoveries with the general public - no prior knowledge required.

The festival brought four of 91ֱ��'s neuroscience scientists out of the lab and into pubs, cafes and community halls for a unique line up of talks, demonstrations and live experiments held in relaxed and informal environments around the city.

Here’s how members of the Neuroscience Institute engaged with this year’s festival.

Songbirds go to school

Just as when children learn to speak, young songbirds learn to sing by trying to copy the adults around them. Their songs are like sentences, consisting of vocabulary and following certain grammar. Dr Hazem Toutounji shared insight on his research which is trying to understand how the young of a species of songbirds called the zebra finch learn their song vocabulary, using clever experiments and computer models.

Cracking the ageing code: discovering the science of ageing

Alicja Olejnik and Dr Naomi Hartopp are researching what happens in your cells as you get older. It’s often simple to identify the symptoms of increasing age, but Alicja and Naomi are trying to understand what causes this at a cellular level. They produced a Jeopardy style quiz on getting older and what that actually means. They also discussed how they are investigating ageing and testing ways to improve healthy ageing.

Speaking about her involvement in the festival, Alicja said:

“As a PhD student, investigating the effect of ageing on cellular mechanisms, my goal was to inspire curiosity into this fascinating field. Along with my colleague and mentor, Dr Naomi Hartopp, we aimed to deliver an engaging demonstration of complex ageing processes and their consequences in an accessible format. Through our presentation, I hope we encouraged informed discussion about the intricacy of this research topic.

Our audience of science enthusiasts and community members brought a lot of unique perspectives through their participation. They were widely interactive and engaging, which certainly helped with the nerves, but most importantly it highlighted the importance of knowledge exchange and making science more approachable. The atmosphere and high spirits of the whole event were also provided by the organisers, who expertly coordinated it and facilitated a sense of unity between us and the audience.”

Neurodegeneration is hiding in plain ‘cyte’ 

Dr Órlaith O'Shaughnessy and Nikolas Stefanidis shared insight into how scientists preserve the mind. They discussed the different brain conditions studied at The Neuroscience Institute, what sets them apart and their common denominators. 

Speaking about his involvement in the festival, Nikolas Stefandis, said:

"I love it when a scientific concept, that I do not understand, is explained to me in the simplest and fastest way possible! Pint of Science offers me the opportunity to be the one doing the explaining. After all, inspired by Einstein's words, If I can't explain it, I don't really understand it either!

Explaining fundamental concepts in the world of proteins and how scientists get to visualise proteins under the microscope was delightful. Hopefully, the attendees left the room with plenty more insight into the workings of life and the workings of scientists that work hard to stop devastating diseases."

Speaking about her involvement in the festival, Dr Órlaith O'Shaughnessy, said:

"Informing the public about the research Niko and I do at SITraN was very enjoyable. Explaining neurodegenerative conditions and immunocytochemistry in a simple way was a challenge but was very rewarding. 

It was great to get so many interesting questions from the audience. Public engagement is really important for scientists to make it clear that money donated for research is put to good use and to keep the public informed about the latest developments in scientific research."

Engineering the body: from the bones to the brain 

Dr Caroline Taylor research looks at ways to grow and replace spare tissues. She discussed the field of tissue engineering from the bones, nerves and skin, right up to the brain.

Speaking about her involvement in the festival, Dr Caroline Taylor, said:

“I love being a part of Pint of Science and highlighting the research we do in the labs to the general public. I was part of the Tech me out Healthy Bodies of the Future Theme and spoke alongside another colleague from the Kroto Research Institute. 

The audience were great and really enjoyed handling different medical devices that were passed around. From nerve guide conduits and vascular grafts, to hip implants. Pint of science is a great event to improve as a science communicator, and to get your research out to a vast wide audience.”