What does science have to say about heaven and hell?

Mutant Genes With Solar Flares

Part demonstration, part practical workshop, this looks at how chemistry, physics and psychology can be combined to revisit the hows and whys of cooking, as well as how a knowledge of the underlying science can help create amazing new dishes.

Participate at your own risk!

Location: Fan Lounge

Create a kit out of everyday items and workshop defending the hotel.

Participate at your own risk!

Location: Fan Lounge

Come join the panelist as we look down memory lane through various clips of 40 years of landing on the moon, films, TV, the events and music that shaped the year of 1969.

What's achievable versus what's in the books.

Postponed due to lack of panellists.

Who writes about it well? What are the theories? Why can't I kill my grandmother? What are the Trousers of Time? (diagrams required)

We should go to the stars... or should we, how are we going to make that work?

In July 1969 Neil Armstrong took his first legendary step onto the moon. Forty years later, and the international space race looks to be coming back in a big way. A look at the USA's historic Apollo space program, what it achieved, what went wrong and what the future holds for the Earth's closest neighbour. With new space programs developing in China, Russia,...

A look at human powered speed records from the sprint which recently claimed the .deciMach prize to the hour to the truly long distance events like Race Across America.

A discussion lead by Michael O'Brien about what the future might hold for the male. What does it mean to be male and how do we define a male in the current age, and what could it mean to be male in the future? A look at the sacred and emotional world of men, initiation, individuation, and an invitation to explore a positive and integrated way forward.

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Retroviruses acting like giant evolutionary computers; genetically engineered super soldiers; languages which allow you to see through time; downloading into different bodies and the strange psychology of the immortal: we discuss the wonderful places science fiction can go when it remembers that there's more to science than physics and computers.

Societies can collapse in a number of different ways for different reasons. Which ones are most likely to apply to us? What sort of collapse might we be in for?

Jared Diamond's non-fiction work accessibly covers the entire of human history - the evolution of humans and human sexuality (The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee and Why is Sex Fun?), the evolution of agriculture and different cultures (Guns, Germs and Steel) through to an assessment of how societies choose to survive or fail (Collapse). Come and find ...

In the last decade, the discovery of hundreds of extrasolar planets firmly pinned down our understanding of planet formation, and led to the conclusion that planets are extremely common. At the same time, the study of Archeabacteria 'extremophiles' has widened our horizons for the conditions where life can survive, including extremes of heat, cold, acidita...

Will we hit an ecotastrophe before we hit an information explosion?

Can we hold off the global warming "collapse" long enough to have the explosion of technologies that would come with the spike around to fix it. (I am specifically thinking about nanotech as a "fix" solution, since it is so useful as a "carbon squestering" ...

Good science fiction is not just about gadgets and technology, but how technology changes people and society. Technology has a life-cycle from emerging to established, and show-don't-tell writing can reveal how far along a technology has come. How has society has been altered? Who has it? Who can afford it? How has the technology affected crime, romance, ...

July 2009 is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. In preparation for increased media coverage and renewed speculation, Paul Talbot will make a presentation on the various claims that the mission was a hoax.

From Orac to HAL to Skynet, come and discuss the various visions of computers in SF. Past, present and whatever they may hold in the future.

A discussion about the possible economic collapse of the USA and other major Western economies, and what it might be like to live in a society where the institutions we have relied on all our lives suddenly disappear. How to survive when everything breaks down. With reference to the work of Dmitri Orlov and comparisons to what it was like to live through the ...