Science for everyone: Great curiosity and no fear of failure

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“Oh God, what’s that?” asks an older woman, looking rather horrified at the screen in front of her. Magnified to 40 times its size, a caddisfly larva is crawling around in a water-filled petri dish, burrowing through tiny stones and bits of plant matter. “It’s wonderful,” says LMU student Nico Höppner. “That’s a matter of opinion,” says the woman. But then Höppner starts to get enthusiastic. He explains that plankton can be almost anything: animals, plants, bacteria, viruses, fungi, caddisfly larvae – as long as it floats underwater, unable to move against the current. “Then maybe I count as plankton too,” the woman replies, now clearly intrigued.

Höppner is a molecular cell biologist. He knows how important plankton is to humanity: Half of the world’s oxygen only exists because these tiny aquatic organisms produce it for us. After this day, and this is what’s so wonderful, Höppner is no longer the only person who’s aware of this fact. On a weekend in late June, nearly 400 square meters in the middle of Ludwigstraße in the center of Munich are set aside for researchers and students, including representatives from LMU. At the Zamanand Festival, they show just how much fun science can be when it is explained in a way that makes it easy to understand: Welcome to the AHA Super Science Summer Club.

LMU at the Zamanand Festival: DNA from blueberries, solar energy at the puppet show

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“It’s not as dusty as people think,” says Theresa Baumann from the Department of Arts. Together with her colleagues Natalia Drescher and Sophie Gröte, she is overseeing the “Dahoam” knowledge island. Visitors can use VR headsets to explore Baroque ceiling paintings and places from a bygone era. Alongside this, Andreas Brachmann from the Faculty of Biology is handing out blueberries before extracting their DNA. “Do I mash them up now?” shouts a small boy in a baseball cap after placing two blueberries in a resealable plastic bag. “Not yet,” says Brachmann, adding a mixture of water, dishwashing liquid, and salt to the bag. Cell membranes consist mainly of lipids, so fats. The dishwashing liquid dissolves the cell and nuclear membranes, releasing the DNA molecules, while the salt helps them clump together. The mixture is then poured into a glass and the final ingredient is added: rubbing alcohol. Suddenly, white strands emerge from the liquid: The DNA is revealed. “Magic,” says the boy’s mother. “Science,” says Brachmann.

“We want to show that science plays a role in all aspects of life,” says Christopher Egle, Scientific Director of the AHA Science Communication Hub. Even in a puppet show. Not because scientists are all puppets, explains Silke Mayerl-Kink from the Deutsches Museum and the e-conversion Cluster of Excellence on stage, but because both puppets and scientists have a superpower: “Great curiosity and no fear of failure.” And with that, the puppet show begins. Together with Ms. Photon, the puppet then explains to the children in the audience how solar energy works and that light is so fast it takes only a second to orbit the Earth seven and a half times.

New level reached: Tic-tac-toe in the quantum universe

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A few meters away, Elena Geimer and Kashish Singh from the MCQST Cluster of Excellence have transformed the game tic-tac-toe into a brief journey through the quantum universe. In addition to the familiar Xs and Os, their version also features what are known as superposition particles, which have a very particular property of quantum systems: They can be in different states at the same time. For a round of tic-tac-toe, this means that two symbols are placed in different positions at the same time. At the end, a die decides which position is the true one and remains on the board. “The outcome is random, which makes strategy difficult,” says Geimer. And suddenly, the power of quantum mechanics comes to life.

“Curiosity is where all science begins,” says moderator Andrea Lauterbach. This is precisely why it’s so important to offer accessible formats like this. “Here, everyone has an opportunity to engage with topics they might otherwise never have experienced.”

Back on stage, Lauterbach then introduces the next guest. Harald Lesch, Professor of Astrophysics at LMU Munich, talks about future energy sources. He discusses how important it is for science and all the findings it produces to be taken really seriously – in politics, but also elsewhere. Munich and the surrounding region especially are home to lots of prestigious institutions, including LMU. All people have to do is ask questions, he says. “We’re always very happy to answer.”