On Monday 25th November, a group of 40 Upper Fifth scientists went to the Bridgewater Hall to attend this year's GCSE Science Live!

The first speaker was Professor Lord Robert Winston of Fertility Studies at Imperial College London, a key pioneer of IVF treatment and renowned communicator of Science. On the day he spoke to us about his ground breaking research in IVF and shared with us his knowledge on whether it would be possible for women to extend their fertility life.

We were then fortunate to have the AQA Chief Examiner talk to us about how to improve our examination and revision skills, as well as how to approach different styles of questions.

Our next speaker was Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who obtained both her degree in Physics and her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London. Dr Aderin-Pocock debated passionately her plan of emigrating to Mars for her retirement.

The first lecture after our lunch break was delivered by Professor Andrea Sellor, who is an organic chemist at UCL. He spoke about ‘How the zebra got its stripes' and explained this by demonstrating a series of experiments of oscillating reactions.

This was then followed by a talk from Professor Bruce Hood, a Professor of Development Psychology in Society in the School of Experimental Psychology at the University of Bristol, who gave a lecture on the 3lb lump of tissue in our heads that is more sophisticated than any machine that can be built today: the human brain.

Our final speaker was Professor Jim Al-Khalili, a well-recognised Physicist from the University of Surrey. The Professor delivered a speech entitled Time travel: fact or fiction? He explained that amazingly there is no need to rule out the idea of time travel as it is theoretically possible.

All the talks were extremely interesting and showed examples of the numerous opportunities and careers available in Science.

We were given the opportunity to raise issues with Britain's top scientists all working at the cutting edge of their specialisms, and discover why they are all so passionate about their work. We were shown how Science does not have to be set apart from culture, but how it is an essential component of it.

With the motto of 2013 being ‘inspire a generation', we feel that Science Live really did achieve this as we all walked away truly inspired, awe-struck and eager to learn more!

By Julia and Rishem, Upper Fifth