Friday 29 March 2024

Science in the City, not just for Kids

Malta’s Science and Arts festival, Science in the City, being held in Valletta on Friday 29th September between 6pm and midnight, is known as a family friendly event with interactive activities, science shows and games. But there is more. This year’s festival is focusing on a range of events designed for adults from debates to the Sci-Fi series Black Mirror.

Start the evening with a relaxed stroll through Republic Street and look for lit up tables. These glowing tables will be manned by Malta’s best and brightest researchers wearing colourful T-shirts. Make sure not to miss the opportunity to talk to the real deal and have your questions answered by experts in fields ranging from our ever-expanding universe to the use of drones in Archaeology.

After Republic Street, stop at St. James Cavalier in the cinema room for the best talks of Malta Cafe Sci in 2017. Dr Stefano Gualeni will tackle the Chicken and Egg dilemma by guiding you on a thought experiment redefining what word ‘soup’ might mean. Dr Sebastiano D’Amico will delve into the Earth’s geology. While, Dr Alessio Magro and Dr Andre’ De Macro will talk about the world’s largest experiment still up and coming in South Africa and Australia that involves Malta; it will help discover the secrets of our galaxies.

For a breathe of fresh air, visit Hasting Gardens for THINKtalks, a new initiative by Think magazine to meet the writers behind the articles. Figure out how to solve Malta’s fresh-water supply, discover Malta’s leading role in developing a technology used by a world-leading sports manufacturer and how green roofs could green up the islands. The student organisations Insite, GHSL, Hybrid and MHSA are organising science debates around cybercrime, organ donation, marijuana, surrogacy and robots.

Back near City Gate, on the stairs near Parliament CineXjenza are showing a few episodes of the popular Sci-Fi series Black Mirror followed by discussions on augmented reality, machines simulating human behaviour and the possibility to permanently block that pesky lover—discussions led by Prof. Alexiei Dingli and Prof. Georgios Yannakakis whose research inspired one of the episodes.

The Science in the City—European Researchers’ Night festival, is organised by the University of Malta, the Research Trust of the University of Malta and the Malta Chamber of Scientists together with a large number of partners. It is funded by the European Commission’s Research and Innovation Framework Programme Horizon 2020 (H2020, 2014–2020) by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions and recognised as a Festival by Europe for Festivals and Festivals for Europe (EFFE). It is supported by Ministry for Education and Employment, Parliamentary Secretary for Financial Services, Digital Economy and Innovation, BPC International and a number of corporate sponsors.

Full programme: www.scienceinthecity.org.mt or on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ScienceInTheCityMalta.

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