Festival gets to heart of science

Children can learn about the human body

The Edinburgh International Science Festival is letting young and old try their hand at being ER surgeons, design a robot or climb into an artery.

Over the next two weeks there will be 200 events at 35 venues, which seek to bring the best of popular science to the city.

The City Art Centre plays host to much of the family programme.

It includes an emergency room where children can become virtual doctors and nurses.

Future is yeast

It also has Blood Bar where youngsters can make their own scabs, mix up a blood milkshake and touch a real heart.

Other events include Lucy Hawking, daughter of physicist Stephen Hawking, talking about her collaboration with her father on her book George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt.

For teenagers, Marty Jopson will be creating a unique tasting session for his audience in Bread, Booze and Bioremediation, The Future Is Yeast.

This is part of a new series of Sessions, which also includes Hi Energy with TV science presenters Brian Cox, Jim Al-Khalili and Tara Shears.

Marcus du Sautay will be predicting the future using numbers and maths and Richard Wiseman will explore the Psychology of Comedy with Fringe favourite Robin Ince.

Youngsters can get hands-on experience of an emergency room

Jim Al-Khalili will take his audience on a journey through the hidden story of the great Islamist scientists of the medieval period, while Professor James Ironside asks what should happen to our brains after we die.

Renowned wildlife photographer Steve Bloom, whose Spirit of the Wild exhibition is showing in St Andrew Square, will be in Edinburgh to do two events on Friday 9 April at the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Dr Simon Gage, director of the science festival, said: "Whether you're participating in Raj Persaud's psychology experiment or Richard Wiseman's Seven Deadly Sins event, finding out about the techniques behind DNA fingerprinting with Sir Alec Jeffreys or meeting new friends at the City Art Centre Singles Evening, you'll have fun and learn something about yourself and the world we live in."