At the Galway Science Festival, we held three stands:
Science of ageing with tiny worms: Visitors observed the behaviour of young and old C. elegans worms under the microscope. A visual “swimming test” showed how fitness changes with age, letting participants compare activity levels between life stages.
The robotic hand: Visitors learned how muscle contraction controls a robotic claw, how differences in muscle signals are recorded and translated, and how a human-human interface can use one person’s arm contraction to stimulate and move another person’s arm.
RNA – from cell function to vaccines: We described base pairing in DNA/RNA, explained cell differentiation, and showed how RNA can be used to drive a cell’s fate.
