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“A Night of Illusions”, a hit at the Sydney Science Festival this year, is coming to the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) from 6 to 10pm on Saturday night.
A brilliant troupe of illusion scientists – in their day jobs, brain and animal scientists – will amaze the punters with tricks that perplex, bamboozle, and enchant.
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“We want people to know a little bit more about the sorts of research we do, but also that science can be really creative and fun,” UNE neuroscientist Dr Deborah Apthorp said. “It’s not just people sitting in ivory towers going to meetings, giving lectures, and writing papers.”
Her exhibit is a virtual reality rollercoaster. Strap on the goggles, and you’re whizzed through the tombs of the Pharaohs, past statues of falcon-headed Horus and jackal-faced Anubis, to do a spectacular loop-the-loop over the pointed peaks of the Pyramids.
“People really love this!” Dr Apthorp said. "We had a pair of identical twins who came back twice because they thought it was so much fun. That was a bit confusing!”
It’s more than fun, though; this research can help to make lives better.
The rollercoaster demonstration measures postural sway, and the illusion relies on a phenomenon called vection. You feel your body is moving, even though you’re staying still.
"It makes you feel like you're tumbling over, when you're not actually moving at all,” Dr Apthorp said. “Your visual system is really powerful in terms of telling you when you're moving, and where."
Testing postural sway could be a way of finding early warnings of serious diseases.
“People with Parkinson's disease, even in the early stages, sway quite a bit more,” Dr Apthorp explained. “It's interesting using that to see if I can predict disease progression. People with schizophrenia, and even people with schizotypal personality disorder, also sway more than controls. What's this telling us about our brain? We don't really quite know yet, but we think this is something to do with the parts of our brain involved with controlling movement."
Dr Apthorp began studying postural sway when she did her post-doctorate research on vection (the illusion of self-motion). She wants to use sway measurements to track Parkinson’s disease back earlier.
“By the time Parkinson’s disease is diagnosed, people have already lost 90 per cent of the cells that produce a chemical called dopamine in the brain, which then leads to loss of movement control. If we could get to it earlier, maybe we could slow that loss.”
James O’Hanlon, an insect ecologist at UNE, will show how animals survive using illusions, disguise, and masquerade. The other scientists come from the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales, and Macquarie University.
Organiser Kim Ransley is looking forward to sharing the event with Armidale.
“It’s exciting to bring A Night of Illusions to a regional audience,” she said. “If this goes well, we will look to bring this popular program to more regional venues next year.
“The illusions are first and foremost heaps of fun. Each experience demonstrates an important aspect of brain science. When you bundle these together as we do in A Night of Illusions, you start to get a real sense of just how much impact these different brain processes must have on our day-to-day experience.”
The event is free, and open to all ages – and some youngsters might be inspired to follow a career in science.
“We were particularly excited when we were in Sydney to see kids, especially the girls, getting excited about science,” Dr Apthorp said. “One of our aims is to get the public excited about science, and wanting to know more – even if it's not particularly about our type of science, just to know: Wow, this is really cool, and it can be fun!”
A Night of Illusions, Saturday August 25, 6pm to 10pm, at the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM). Book online at Eventbrite, or at the door. For more information, visit Science Week’s event page.