British Association for the Advancement of Science Festival:The annual festival of science, which takes place this week, is one of the world's largest and most influential public forums, writes Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor, in York British Association for the Advancement of Science festival
Why do we put salt in our food and what did our ancient ancestors eat?
What can we do about climate change and if the world's thermostat continues to rise will it trigger other calamities? And what is it about chocolate we find so appealing?
These and hundreds of questions you never considered will be answered over the coming week in York at the British Association for the Advancement of Science's (BA) annual festival of science.
Now 175 years old, the festival is one of the world's largest public understanding of science events of its kind. Each year it attracts thousands of adults and students who come to listen to leading scientists describe their work.
More than 350 of the world's top scientists will be in attendance to talk about their discoveries and explain their import to society in general.
This year's festival includes some 250 public events and meetings, all taking place in York with the focus on the University of York campus.
The theme of this year's event is Energy and Human Progressand many presentations and talks will pick up on this from a variety of angles. For example there are talks on the potential for developing our energy requirements, how past changes in climate affected humanity and whether monkeys swung from the trees of Britain, or Ireland for that matter, during past periods of climate warming.
While the science is real it is anything but po-faced. There are sessions on measuring greenhouse gas emissions but also exciting tales of the search for "island-hopping" shrimp on the ocean's floor.
There is a session on taking more care with pesticide application to reduce the environmental impact, and also one on why yawning is so contagious and what this reveals to us about how the brain works.
The presentations cover the sciences, engineering and mathematics. But there are also sessions on psychology, economics and the social sciences.
There will be a presentation on whether fathers matter any more when it comes to influencing children in the family and another on the mystery of consciousness. There will also be talks on identity, mistaken identity and identity theft in our new surveillance society.
The festival will hear the results of a UK national web-based personality survey devised by Newcastle University's Prof Daniel Nettle.
It assessed five dimensions of personality, extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness.
While it is now too late to be included in the survey, a visit to the BA's web site at www.the-ba.netwill allow you to take the test and determine whether you are a worrier, a wander, a poet or a control freak.
From today The Irish Timeswill provide daily coverage from the BA festival, reporting on the most interesting sessions and keeping tabs on the proceedings.
The Festival runs from today until Friday 14th September.