World Science Festival Enthusiasts Amass in the Big Apple
A sure-fire way to get the synapses firing this summer is to attend the World Science Festival, June 1 – 5 in New York City. This amazing convergence of science’s Who’s Who presents an opportunity for regular Joes to rub elbows with some of today’s most brilliant minds. The event’s website bills it as “the world’s largest gathering of science enthusiasts”, and based on the bios of the presenters involved, I’m pretty sure attendees can gain IQ points simply by being in a room with these folks and inhaling the secondhand brainpower.
Something for Everyone
The World Science Festival programs include lectures, discussions, performance art and various other formats. Included are several brand-new creations from internationally acclaimed XVIVO Scientific Animation, which will visually introduce each of the six topics being featured: Cancer, Longevity, Memory, Sleep/Dreams, Smell, and Sexuality.
This is a great fit, since XVIVO animations help laypeople understand complex scientific concepts, and the World Science Festival aims to demystify science. For the Cancer program specifically, titled Cancer’s Last Stand? The Genome Solution, XVIVO animation will be part of the presentation to visually accompany discussions surrounding genome and cancer breakthroughs. I’m visualizing Cancer dressed up as General Custer and an army of genome warriors led by Crazy Horse, but that’s not the kind of animation we’re talking about.
We recently interviewed Michael Astrachan from XVIVO Scientific Animation.
Beautiful minds
Columbia University physicist Brian Greene and his wife, Emmy Award-winning television journalist Tracy Day, founded the World Science Festival in 2008. Inspired by a similar festival in Italy where Greene had been invited to speak, Greene and Day thought a similar festival in New York City could bring science to the wider public. They thought right: the first event was attended by over 120,000 people.
Some of the festival’s success is surely due to scientific heavyweight backers such as Columbia University, New York University and Rockefeller University, as well as cultural institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art.
Wouldn’t it be great if each year, the World Science Festival set a goal to solve one of the world’s most pressing problems by the end of the festival? I know, I know - it doesn’t work like that. But still, the potential of all of that intellectual capacity and creativity gathered in one place is truly incredible.
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