The attendees of January's open mic night agreed that it was a great social experience so we've decided to make them a regular occurrence. Anyone who wishes to do so will be able to give a talk of up to ten minutes followed by a short time for questions and conversation. Last time the talks sparked some very interesting conversations and we have no reason to think that won't be the case this time, so please come along even if you don't want to give a presentation yourself!

There is common perception that robots are set to take over the world, and humans somehow will be made to work for a new metallic master. The lines between fact and fiction are often blurred in many areas, robotics is no exception. In this talk, Jon will discuss the limits of what robots are able to do, either when they work on their own or as they work as a "swarm". He will discuss work ranging from robots detecting strange chemical substances, to robots working together as a swarm to perform tasks that individual robots can not do, to swarms of robots attempting to repair themselves. However, whilst significant advances have been made in robotics, Jon will also discuss why we should not fear the "Terminator" robot for quite some time. In fact, sometimes they can not even manage to stay on a table, let alone direct the next revolution.

Jon Timmis is Professor of Natural Computation and holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Computer Science and Electronics at the University of York. He holds a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award, a senior research fellowship, for his work in self-healing swarm robotic systems. HIs work is highly interdisciplinary and Jon works a great deal with immunologists, developing computer models of immune system function to aid understanding of various diseases and then translating ideas from immunology into engineering to develop reliable robotic systems. Details of his research can be found at http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/jtimmis/

Ash Pryce of the Edinburgh Skeptics Society presents a fully interactive demonstration of various tricks that psychics have used over the years.

From the Fox Sisters through to Uri Geller, psychics have been claiming to be able to do things beyond our understanding, but Ash Pryce knows better. Nearly all of the major claims of psychics and mediums can easily be re-created and tonight Ash will be reproducing such famous feats as Uri Geller’s Telekinesis, Filipino Psychic Surgery, the Remote Viewing experiments of America’s “Stargate” program (The 70s CIA shenanigans and not the inter dimensional, Goa’uld busting kind) and much more – including an attempt to beat the odds of the Randi Million.

A fun, entertaining and magic filled evening that also takes a look at the history of psychic trickery and how it has become such a popular phenomenon. Warning to those on the front row – there will be blood!