Gender reassignment, puppet brains and ‘Science Burlesque’ in quaint Cheltenham

Over summer music, theatre and comedy all have their festivals, but so does science. At the Times Cheltenham Science Festival, tents cover the Imperial Gardens for five days in June.

The sun was shining, there wasn't a single drop of rain and I was there for the FameLab International Final, supporting Malta's winner Dr Owen Falzon. The perfect excuse to see some of the 150 events running throughout the fest: it was time to have fun.

As I stepped into the 100-year-old Town Hall, I wanted to be nine again. I wanted to build wind turbines, reassemble fossils, learn about evolution, touch screens with anatomical eyes, compete on energy converting bikes, do the science experiments, learn how superheroes and physics combine, and a lot more. In the morning and early afternoon, the beautifully decorated main room was filled with kids screaming and enjoying themselves. I walked around, played with a couple exhibits when the kids weren't looking, then went to get my tickets.

The first few days were mostly talks with panel discussions. Intense focus was placed on audience questions, and everyone had a chance to speak their mind... and most people did.

'Is it a boy or a girl?' was a gripping talk. Over 40,000 people in the UK have conditions leading to ambiguous sexualities. Pretty shocking images of genitalia made the issue glaringly obvious. The problem is what to do about their gender, take a baby with no testicles, a very small penis, and a vulva: is it a boy or a girl? Genetically, he has XY chromosomes. In the past, surgeons used to surgically assign the baby to a certain sex, nowadays that's illegal but it's still very hard to legally change a person's sex after 60 days. Do we need a third sex, or should we just accept gender spectrums? Pediatric psychologists and surgeons debated whether gender and identity is based on nurture or nature. While the majority of gender assignments seem to stick, toy and playmate choice seem hard wired in our genes.

Other panel discussions tried to get 'Inside the Criminal Mind' or raise some awareness about the problems with disturbed sleep. Lack of a good sleep raises your blood pressure, increases heart risk, and could even cost you your job - remedies are simple and even mobile apps can do a decent diagnosis. Some types of sleep disorders even predict Parkinson's disease.

On most nights and over the weekend, the fun factor was injected deeply into the festival. Comedian Dara O. Briain cracked maths jokes with his School of Hard Sums and Science Club, comedian Robin Ince with 'The Importance of Being Interested', while science singer-songwriter Helen Arney plucked her ukulele with a host of other science musicians. At the FameLab final, Dr Mark Lewney stunned us with 'Bohmian Rhapsody', his rendition of Queen's song, filled with Schrödinger's cat and other geeky lyrics, all to a fantastic electric guitar set.

Things got really nutty at the theatre/comedy 'Albert Einstein: Relativitively Speaking'. John Hinton played the famous genius, acting, dancing, and singing through his life and greatest scientific milestones. The science was beautifully explained with audience participation and the fabric of space-time simulated with a couple, their child and a bed sheet. Brilliantly, Hinton ended the show with a puppet brain of Albert Einstein, a song about the surgeon Thomas Harvey who plucked out Einstein's brain posthumously without really asking anyone.

Science Burlesque was my favourite show. Hosted by a leather-clad writer/performer Timandra Harkness who whipped and intimidated many top science performers (slight exaggeration). Prof. Andrea Seller burnt absinthe on stage making it change colour, with other explosive experiments. Andrew Pontazen played an electric piano singing the woes of physics funding and our sun. Science communicator Jamie Gallagher sang and stripped down to his kilt to a wolf-whistling crowd. The show even managed to throw in some magic tricks. It really didn't have much burlesque, but it did have a fantastic audience with a corset-wearing hen party.

This science festival is one of the largest in Europe and attracts the heavy hitters of the science world. If you're not a science lover I wouldn't recommend you spend longer than two days at the fest and a half day to walk around the gorgeous town of Cheltenham. I loved the experience. I learnt and laughed, and I'm sure that so would you.

Edward Duca has a PhD in Genetics, is the editor of THINK magazine (UoM) and project manager of the science and art festival Science in the City.