(One of my slides. Drawn at 1am less than 48 hrs before my talk)

This weekend I was at Electric Picnic not stalking Beck, sadly, but participating in the Science Gallery's Ignite talks. If you are unfamiliar with Ignite talks, they are a bit like Creative Mornings...except they're faster, scarier, and aren't limited to the morning time. Each talk is 5 minutes long with 20 slides on a PowerPoint presentation rotating every 15 seconds. If you mess up, you have to keep going, because those slides aren't stopping for no one!

As expected, my talk was "5 Facts you didn't know about sex," but I really enjoyed microbiologist Patrick Tuffey's talk about STI's and the shame surrounding them, as well as Brendan O'Dowd's statistical analysis of soap opera deaths. Spoiler alert: If you're living on Coronation Street, MOVE NOW!

Also in the Science Gallery tent, I got to be a guest on my favourite radio programme, Newstalk's Futureproof, to describe my synaesthesia. Also on the show was my mate Colm O'Regan providing the funnies as per usual, and neurogeneticist Kevin Mitchell, who explained some of the different types of synaesthesia and why they are so interesting. If you missed seeing us live, fret not, you can still listen to the programme this coming Saturday at 10am on Newstalk. In the mean time, check out this great mini-doc of synaesthetes describing what they see and feel.