Cheltenham Science Festival 2009

3 - 7 June 2009, Cheltenham Town Hall and other venues

The guest director of Cheltenham Science Festival for 2009 is Carol Vorderman and she will be putting together a unique collection of events for you to savour. To stir up a good discussion, the festival theme for 2009 is heresy. 2009 is also 200th Anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin which is also reflected in this year’s festival events schedule. 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, marking 400 years since Galileo first pointed his telescope at the sky.

As every year Cheltenham Science Festival will feature free Discover Zone, offering interactive science for all ages from 10am to 5pm every day of the festival at Cheltenham Town Hall, there will be also adults-only session on Saturday 6 June, 7pm – 8pm. Family Fun Days on Saturday 6 June and Sunday 7 June at Imperial Gardens are also free to join. There will be lots of interactive activities and live science experiments on both days from 11am.

And what are the highlights of this year’s festival? On Wednesday, 3 June at 6.15pm Olympic winner Sebastian Coe will reveal what it takes to have winning mind. Robert Winston will examine whether science can make you happy on Thursday, 4 June, at 4.30pm and retrace the steps of Charles Darwin on Sunday, 7 June at 10am. Richard Hammond is back in Cheltenham, this time with his Blast Lab to perform some crazy experiments on Friday, 5 June, from 12.30pm. Also on Friday you’ll be able to taste local beer from Battledown Brewery at 9pm. On Saturday, 6 June, at 2pm, you can join Dr. Alice Roberts, the presenter of the BBC series, when she’s retracing the The Incredible Human Journey, and at 4pm meet Evan Davis, BBC’s Dragon’s Den presenter, who will present his Beginner’s Guide to Economy. At 6.45 Cheltenham’s own science panel show begins with the comedian Dara O’Briain, Robert Ince and others competing for points.

PROGRAMME

Wednesday, 3 June
12.15pm Testing Times
2pm Susan Greenfield: An Individual
2.30pm Can we Solve the Climate Change Conundrum?
4pm The Impact! Debate
4.15pm Ten Zen Questions
4.30pm Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery
5pm Science Café
5pm Powering the UK
6.15pm Sebastian Coe: The Winning Mind
6.30pm Alzheimer’s
6.30pm Robot Surgeons
7.30pm Hero or Heretic?
8.30pm Walk the Talk
8.30pm Playing God – Risk in Surgery
8.30pm The Science of Curry
9.30pm Festival Star Party

Thursday, 4 June
10.15am The Big Bang and Beyond
12.15pm Rutherford
2pm Copernicus: Revolutionary or Plagiarist?
2.15pm The Future for Stem Cells
4pm Making the Planet Better
4.30pm Darwin’s Sacred Cause
4.30pm Can Science Make you Happy?
5pm Science Café: Interior Traces
5pm Supersense
6pm Alien Evolution
6.30pm Beyond Animal Research
7pm When to Listen to Heretics
8pm Shaping Nature
8.45pm Faith in Evolution
9pm Penisology
9pm Slam the Atom
9.30pm Festival Star Party

Friday, 5 June
10.15am Flood Defence
12.30pm Climate Change: Whose Responsibility?
2pm The Green Resurgent
2.30pm Good Bugs, Bad Bugs
2.30pm The Value of Land
4.30pm Greener Homes
4.30pm Synthetic Biology
4.30pm NESTA FameLab Grand Final
5pm Best of the Fest
5pm Quicksilver
6.30pm Water, Water Everywhere?
6.45pm Pandemics: The Threat
7.30pm Blazing Science
8.30pm Pandemics: Outbreak
9pm Beer

Saturday, 6 June
10am A Lifetime of Intelligence
12pm Computers of the Future
12pm Obsessive Compulsive
2pm The Incredible Human Journey
2pm Facing Disfigurement
4pm Cape Farewell
4pm Evan Davis: A Beginner’s Guide to Economics
5pm Best of the Fest
6pm Heresy – The Heart of Science
6.30pm FameLab International
6.45pm Not Rocket Science
6.45pm The Times Debate: Your Genetic Future
8pm Pain
9pm The Pleasure of Cars
9pm Apollo Mysteries
9pm The School for Gifted Children

Sunday, 7 June
10.15am Engineering Apollo
12pm Shop Tactics
12.15pm Bloodhound
1.15, 2.30, 3.45pm Anatomy Workshop
2.15pm Call My Scientific Bluff
3.30pm How was it for you?
4pm Animal Autopsy
4pm Heresy and Bad Science
4.15pm Digital Footprints: The Science
6pm Digital Footprints: The Ethics
6pm Weather Watch
6.15pm Hairy
7pm Andrea & Steve’s Over-ambitious Demo Challenge
8pm James Cracknell & Ben Fogle: Race to the Pole
8.15pm Clem Burke Drumming Project

Tickets are available at Cheltenham Town Hall box office, tel. 01242 227979 or online at http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/.

For more information about this and other Cheltenham events please visit our Cheltenham events guide.