Five unmissable things to catch at New Scientist Live 2022

With technology one of the four main themes of the event, there are plenty of opportunities to experience the bleeding edge first-hand. Salford University’s GameLab will reveal next-generation VR capabilities while aerospace and defence giant Thales will offer demonstrations of the Royal Navy’s latest gadgetry. The Henry Royce Institute is providing interactive showcases of pioneering high-tech materials, and you’ll even get a look inside our future’s potential energy source: the core of an artificial star.

Across 30+ exhibitors, there is a dizzying amount of hands-on fun available to attendees. Birmingham City University will recruit enthusiasts for a giant game of Operation, while Staffordshore University will require the help of the hawk-eyed amateur detectives in solving their mock crime scene. Moving stall-by-stall from the near future to the distant past, other interactive activities include Wessex Archaeology’s virtual drone, and the ancient craft zone’s resurrection of humanity’s oldest technologies.

Heading back to the future, the University of Sussex’s INTERACT Lab will be on hand to give you a teaser of how we will engage with the computers of tomorrow. Acoustic levitation, mid-air touch feedback technology and space-age materials that can manipulate sound waves—here is tangible proof that the only limit is the human imagination.

If the centre of a synthetic star isn’t enough to satisfy would-be astronauts, New Scientist Discovery Tours offer the chance to smell space itself—a rare privilege, as it’s considered somewhat risky for actual astronauts on the job. From there, you can wander into the pop-up planetarium to take in an immersive documentary on the historic Apollo program.

With an eye turned to the future of human health, Alzheimer’s Research UK will be at New Scientist Live to present groundbreaking wearable technology which aims to help detect dementia early. A disease that affects one in six people over 80, the latest advances on display here emphasise the importance of applied technology in developing future medical aid that will alter our species for the better.