Why don’t naked mole-rats feel some kinds of pain and what does this mean for human medicine? 

Simone Eizagirre Barker talks to Ewan St John about his work studying pain and the extraordinary biology of naked mole-rats which is helping us learn about all sorts of human diseases and uncover potential cures or forms of symptom management.  

Find out more about naked mole-rats and watch an animation about them here:  https://www.phar.cam.ac.uk/research/NMRI 

Music by Coby O'Brien
Produced by Rebekah King 

What is a herbarium and why is it important?  

Gregory Miller visits Dr Lauren Gardiner and Dr Edwin Rose at the Cambridge University Herbarium to learn more about this fascinating library of plants, who collected them, and why they are so crucial to the study of more than just the natural world.

Event link here: https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/events/exploring-cambridge-university-herbarium-its-historical-context 

Music by Coby O'Brien Produced by Rebekah King 

How does nuclear energy work and is it the best way forward for powering out future? 

Beth King talks to Susannah Lea, Michael Salvini and Hugh Dorward, three members of the CDT PhD team behind the event ‘the Nuclear Energy Futures Fair: an Insight into the Energy of Tomorrow.’  

Event link here: https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/events/nuclear-energy-futures-fair-insight-energy-tomorrow 

Music by Coby O'Brien

Produced by Rebekah King 

When we say that money is power, what exactly do we mean? 

Anna Mahtani talks to numismatist and former curator of coins at the British Museum Joe Cribb about the past and future of money. From ancient Chinese coins to cryptocurrencies, what does the study of money tell us about our world and who has power within it?  

Music by Coby O'Brien
Produced by Rebekah King 

Who owns the past and does antiquity really ‘belong’ to anyone? Ella O’Loughlin speaks to Prof Tim Whitmarsh about an event at the Faculty of Classics which will discuss how the classical past is understood and who feels a sense of ownership over it.    

Find out more about the event here: https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/events/past-tense-who-does-greek-and-roman-antiquity-belong 

Music by Coby O'Brien
Produced by Rebekah King 

Why did a female saint rise from her tomb and slap a bellringer across the face?  Ella O’Loughlin speaks to Prof Rosalind Love about her recent Cambridge Festival event on female saints and hears some of the vivid stories told about their unique kind of power.  

Music by Coby O'Brien

Produced by Rebekah King 

Who was the Roman Emperor who rejected Christianity?

Amelia Platt speaks to Dr Lea Niccolai from the Faculty of Classics about her talk on Julian the Apostate, an emperor who was raised Christian but rejected the faith and returned to the worship of the Roman gods.

Find out more at the Cambridge Festival 2023

https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/events/last-pagan-emperor-understanding-julian-apostate

Music by Coby O'Brien

Produced by Rebekah King

How can poetry explore and share academic research with the public?

Rebekah King speaks with David Cain and researchers at the University of Cambridge about their participation in the Creative Encounters Words programme.

Listen to researchers Dr Catherine Merrick (Senior Lecturer Pathology, Biological Sciences), accompanying music by Jonathan Windsor, Anne Thomas (Newnham College & Plant Sciences)
Mona Jebril (Research Fellow, Centre for Business Research) read their poems and talk about how poetry has enabled them to think differently about the research.

The Words programme set out to look at and share research through poetry. Together with the poetry and public engagement professional, David Cain, the researchers explored the vast world of poetry, its different formats to bring out the poetry that lay behind their research for performance and for publication.

You can discover more about the Words programme, and read all the poems from 2022, at the Words website.

www.cam.ac.uk/public-engagement/…022/creative-words

David's book Truth Street was shortlisted for the Forward Prizes for Poetry in 2019.

www.forwardartsfoundation.org/forward-pr…avid-cain/

Music by Coby O’Brien

Produced by Rebekah King

To find out more about the Festival, please visit: https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/