The dramatic news was that Dustin the Turkey was lost somewhere in space, and E screens on Friday, but lost aboard a some mysterious rocket, hundreds of young people gathered at the Burlington Hotel as desperate efforts were made to find him. Forbairt, which was hosting the opening event of Science Week 1997, had expertise on board if needed - John Wellman, NASA's experiment operations team chief for the Mars Pathfinder Project, in Dublin to brief tomorrow's scientists on the search for life on Mars.
But it was Dustin's good buddy, Ray D'Arcy, who brought him back to earth at a day of pure and occasionally whacky Irish science entitled "Bugs, drugs and Exploding Custard".The custard came courtesy of Ian Russell, a British science communicator who promotes "science with attitude". His excursion through kitchen table science crams more than 30 experiments into an hour - one involved standing on raw eggs, which only sometimes crack on good carpets.
For Forbairt's Peter Coyle, executive director responsible for science and innovation, the day meant money well spent. The number of young people going into science and technology in Europe has been declining for the past 10 years, and catching them young is vital to arresting that trend.
