Science Slams - how do they work?

Recently I was standing on a stage in Dortmund, Germany. The setting was fabulous, the Stahlhalle of the DASA, the German research organization for safety in industrial work places. I know, it sounds tax-office-kind-of boring, but imagine an arched 10m high ceiling, huge defunct steel production devices around the stage in professional bluish-pink lighting, an intermediate level overlooking the hall with a small jazz band, 300 people in the audience and a lively bar in the back. Deep-breath-kind-of Wow!

It was 2 days after the Champions League final in Wembley and you might have expected the town to be a bit blue. But everybody I spoke to was proud of their Borussia*. But even more they were excited to hear about science. We were ready to launch into a Science Slam. Poetry Slams, started in Chicago in 1986, were the original format. People had 10 minutes to recite their poetry, typically in a bar or a small theatre, and whoever was most loudly applauded won.

Science Slams were started by the Poetry Slammer Alex Dreppec in Darmstadt, Germany 7 years ago and since 2008 it has become quite widespread. Our host LUUPS has been organizing Science Slams since 2010 and have since put on about 60 Slams. LUUPS make their money through the sales of their art and cultural city guides. The Science Slams mainly fund themselves through the entrance fee but also as hired events.

In a Science Slams typically Ph.D. students or postdocs talk for 10 minutes about their research and again the audience votes or claps for their favourite. So the challenge is to go on stage, try to get something about your research across and yet keep them laughing and entertained. This is not something we grow up with in the nerd environment and it can be pretty scary.

I was invited to my first slam in Bonn in October 2011. I have been putting on physics shows in Bonn for over 10 years and LUUPS invited me to be the featured scientist, at their upcoming slam in Bonn. It turns out this meant they considered me too old to be subjected to the possible humiliation of defeat; fair enough. I was to start the slam, kind of set the stage, and run outside the competition. Since March, 2011, I had been giving public talks about the Fukushima nuclear accident and thought it was the obvious topic. It was clear it would be of interest, but not really a laughing matter. I had a breakthrough riding home on my bike. I decided not to use slides, and instead to take you right into the heart of the reactor, highlighting the physics principles of the accident through simple reenactment. I represented the fuel rods myself, with a lab coat as the zirc alloy encasing. The audience helped me with water pistols (cooling mechanism), a pea shooter (neutrons for the chain reaction) and a tea kettle with a toy pinwheel for the generated steam and turbines. My main goal was to bring across the distinction between the nuclear chain reaction and radioactive decays. The latter unavoidably still continue even when you turn the reactor off properly. I had drawings on two flip charts at opposite ends of the stage. I moved to the nuclear decay side, once the control rods (pillows) had been inserted to absorb the neutrons
(peas). The cooling (second water pistol) was still working. Then the tsunami came: a jug of water poured by one audience member over the other with the water pistol. The subsequent hydrogen explosion which destroyed parts of the reactor building was represented by popping helium balloons.

I give you all these details, because I found it fun and extremely challenging to translate important and interesting science issues onto the stage. All the same, I was incredibly nervous beforehand, dry mouth and all. I had done some theatre in secondary school and of course given many talks and lectures. But this was very different. In the end, it seemed to go very well and was definitely my most exciting stage moment ever: I was hooked.

I have done four slams since. In January, in Aachen we were in what seemed like a punk bar. The toilets were quite revolting, and the hall had standing room only: 200 students pressing up against the stage, which featured an original shredded sofa for no apparent reason. Not what you imagined when you started studying physics, but here we were with science in the thick of the urban culture. I had changed topics to the ''Higgs field and the Higgs boson'', and was again ''featured''. The winner was a biologist from Rostock who did a rap-slam to a well known German song (Leider Geil) changing the lyrics to explain her research on bycatch in industrial fishing.

So here we were in Dortmund, a decidedly classy venue in a vibrant city. At last I felt relaxed enough to enjoy the atmosphere, and the company of the other slammers. ''Back-stage'' (in the cleaning people's room) we had sandwiches, cake, and drinks on the house. We talked about our research and about the thrill of slamming. Everybody seemed to be in it for the fun and genuinely wanted to get the excitement of their research across. I most enjoyed Sylvain's presentation, a French researcher working in Germany. He had recently sailed across the Atlantic with a friend in a small yacht, decidedly disliked American food (hah, he should have tried Britain!) and had a great accent. He related the Lehman Brothers bust to his cancer research. He did this by discussing economics in a smurf village: how do you get rid of the bad guys, without wiping out the good guys, just what you want to do in cancer treatment. It was very informative and entertaining. The winner was Lydia who is researching anteaters in the Brazilian rain forest. She is actually in it for the money, as she was financing the last stage of her Ph.D. through 'crowd funding'. Anteaters are decidedly 2-dimensional, i.e. from the front you hardly see them, and they have a very low IQ. Her recent main finding was that at night male anteaters climb up tree trunks and rub their bellies against the trunk. The females later come and smell who climbed the highest, thus choosing an appropriate mate. Probably would have suited me better than prancing through a disco, years ago.

A science slam is an exciting format to convey and, I found, also to learn about science. You get to meet mostly young people who are actually doing the research. If you are lucky, you might learn something about life: practice your climbing skills and flash your belly to set up that next date.

* Of course the true Borussia is in Mönchengladbach.