What makes magic mushrooms magic and other talks from the 2013 Imperial Festival

Filmed lectures from this year's Imperial Festival showcase researchers covering everything from bladder control to hallucinogenic mushrooms.

The programme of talks at this year’s Imperial Festival covered everything from bladder control to hallucinogenic mushrooms, reflecting the breadth of research carried out at the College. Audiences packed into lecture theatres over the 3 and 4 of May to hear some of Imperial’s foremost academics present their cutting-edge research.

Students on Imperial’s Masters programme in Science Communication were also given the opportunity to present their final projects, which examine the way science is perceived in contemporary society. Over the course of the presentation, an audience of all ages was introduced to street art inspired by Sir Francis Bacon, the work of Imperial’s last remaining scientific glassblower, and artwork exploring the so-called Brian Cox Effect.

Assistant Professor Mirjam Tuk

Mirjam Tuk, Assistant Professor in Marketing at the Imperial Business School, was joint recipient of the 2011 IgNobel prize for physiology. At the same time as parodying the prestigious Nobel prizes, these awards also seek to reward research that ‘first makes you laugh, and then makes you think’. Her research into how bladder control can lead to better financial decisions helped her audience do both.

What happens inside a musician’s brain when they improvise? The question is a fascinating one for artists and scientists alike. Mathematician Professor Henrik Jensen has collaborated with some of the country’s leading musical educators in an attempt to reach an answer.

The term ‘psychedelic’ is often used as shorthand for the colourful abstract iconography of the 1960s, but the term has a much deeper meaning. Derived from the Greek for ‘mind expander’, Dr Robin Carhart-Harris believes that psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin have the potential to teach us valuable secrets about the origins of consciousness.

A lot of column inches have been written about the role our Sun has on the Earth’s climate. In this lecture, Professor Joanna Haigh, Atmospheric Physicist and Head of the Department of Physics, separates fact from rumour and presents the results of her own research into this field.

Dr Moustafa Ghanem of Imperial’s Institute for Security Science and Technology teamed up with cyber-security consultant Jay Abbott to talk about the role of Web 2.0 in today’s world. In this insightful talk, Ghanem and Abbott present a brief history of social media, and show the importance of such networking in the context of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Studying the way our bodies move can reveal a lot about the way our brains operate. Dr Aldo Faisal applies methods from computing, physics and engineering in order to better understand the relationship between brain and body, and to find out what happens when the brain starts behaving badly.