A Pint of Science, please, barman

How about a dash of volcanology with your real ale? Or even a splash of Higgs Boson with a glass of wine?. That is exactly what a group of young scientists at the University of Glasgow are offering in an innovative public science festival next week. The "Pint of Science" project is run by a group of volunteer PhD students and postdoctoral researchers who are fired up by the idea of communicating cutting-edge science to the general public in an informal setting - namely, the pub. Over the three nights between May 19-21, some of the best science communicators from the University of Glasgow and other higher education institutions will host scientific discussions in four pubs close to the University. They will talk for 15-30 minutes, with the remainder of the evening devoted to questions and answers, and general discussion. The festival was started up last year in Oxford and Cambridge, but this year has spread to a further 19 cities across six countries -USA, France, Australia, Switzerland, Ireland and the UK - although Glasgow is the only university in Scotland to participate. Scott Smith, the Glasgow co-ordinator, is a second-year PhD student in the Material and Condensed Matter Physics group in the School of Physics and Astronomy - or put more simply, he is researching how electrons travel through materials.