It’s a memory that refuses to fade: the mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins being punted down a river in an elven gown, singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. It was a surreal Sunday morning. But then at in the UK you learn to expect the unexpected, right down to the fluorescent pink sheep grazing next to the river.

Latitude has its fair share of rock and folk bands (this year including Goldfrapp and Lisa Hannigan), but there’s also opera, dance, art, literature, poetry and science. It’s a true culturefest. Now in its 12th year, the gathering happens close to the east coast in rolling parkland near Southwold, Suffolk. For five days a year, it turns into a tent city, home to more than 30,000 hedonists.

Squashed between the theatre and the , the Wellcome Trust Arena showcased most of the science. To be honest, “arena” was overdoing it a bit, it was actually a tent with seats for about 40 people and floor space for as many again. Here, festivalgoers were treated to talks on mindfulness, autism, gut flora, a plethora of psychological topics – and the obligatory discussion about AI making humans redundant.

And for me the most unexpected event of the whole festival took place in the arena during a session on the immune system.

Flood of immune cells

The session was kicked off by from the University of Surrey, who took on the mind-body link. We’ve all heard of the fight-or-flight response to fear: adrenaline makes the heart pump faster, getting us ready for action. Less well known, said Riddell, is that the immune system also reacts by increasing the number of immune cells in the blood, ready to repel any threat.

This ability to adapt to external stimuli is ever-present. During the day, the immune system focuses on surveillance. At night, it switches to tissue repair. Riddell’s current focus is how ageing affects immunity, since older people tend to have more neurological conditions, cancers, infections and inflammatory disorders, such as heart disease. “All have an immune component and we need to understand how to keep the immune system strong and working,” she said.

The activity and regulation of our immune system tend to diminish with age. Studies have also found that the immune system’s performance correlates closely with social support. “Isolated people have reduced immune function,” said Riddell. Curiously, giving people t’ai chi or mindfulness classes has been found to boost immunity. It’s not clear if the benefits arise from the disciplines themselves or the added social contact that comes with them, but the good news is that a little extra care can increase protection.

The biggest buzz about the immune system recently has been around the fight against cancer. We are slowly eliminating the need for highly toxic chemotherapy by inducing the immune system to kill cancer itself. Yet many of these therapies work for only 20 per cent of people with cancer, said the second speaker at the event, from the University of Manchester. “The task now is to figure out how to make them work for the rest.”

Toxic granules

Davis has played a part in understanding this battle against cancer. A type of white blood cell called a natural killer cell scours the body for “suspicious” cells. When it finds one, it latches on and, if it detects cancer, releases toxic granules to kill the deviant.

Davis specialises in using “super resolution” microscopes to watch the immune system in action. He found that when a natural killer cell detects disease, the scaffolding that holds it together – its cytoskeleton – opens up to allow the granules to reach the cancerous cell.

This fundamental finding is invaluable. is a drug used to treat multiple myeloma, though nobody knew how it worked. Davis and his colleagues showed that it opens up the cytoskeleton even more, increasing the stopping power of natural killer cells.

In his latest research, Davis found that the natural killer cells of children with Chédiak-Higashi syndrome produce larger-than-normal toxic granules that are tricky to release. These children tend to die tragically young because they cannot kill diseased cells quickly enough. Giving them lenalidomide should allow more of the granules to reach their target. “By understanding how a cancer drug works, we then had an idea that we could use that same cancer drug to help children maybe that have this very difficult genetic disease,” Davis said.

To hear such new and significant scientific results at a music festival is a big surprise – especially since they hadn’t yet been published.

Could festivals offer a new way of bringing the taxpayers who largely pay for science in the UK closer to the cutting edge? That would be a really unexpected twist.

What things stand out from your trip to the ISS?

During the launch, when the nose fairing blows off and you see the atmosphere turning from blue to black. Those kinds of experiences you try and cement in your mind. They are very special. And going out the door for the first time on a spacewalk; despite what people have told you, you don’t know if you’re going to feel vertigo or be gripping on for dear life.

So what was the spacewalk like?

I was relaxed the moment the airlock opened. IĚýhad prepared and done the training, and on the space station I’d gone to the cupola window and looked out, thinking: “I’m going to be out there in a few days. What’s it going to feel like?” Then Tim Kopra and I were in the airlock, and the moment he opened the hatch and sunlight flooded in I realised: “We’re here. This is the vacuum of space. Just pop out now and let’s get to work.”

What did it feel like?

It felt wonderful. No sense of vertigo. And I think I was used to floating inside the space station, so to be floating outside wasn’t that alien a feeling. It wasn’t just looking down on Earth that was interesting, but when I turned round 180 degrees I looked straight up into the blackness of space, which is really quite intimidating and eerie. It was just amazing.

What was the most gratifying part of the mission?

Talking about the spacewalk, it was a big deal to replace the sequential shunt unit, which had failed and should have been carrying an eighth of the space station’s power. We didn’t know it was going to work. Previous crews had had problems replacing it. But we got word from Houston while we were still outside: “Hey guys, we’ve got power back.” That was very gratifying. The other moment was capturing the Dragon spacecraft with a robotic arm. You’ve got this entire team at Space X, NASA, mission controllers all around the world. But ultimately it’s one astronaut with a pair of hand controllers and a TV screen, and you have to drive this robotic arm and capture a floating vehicle. That was hugely demanding and a lot of pressure.

You did a lot of research on your mission. Have you always been interested in science?

It’s something I’ve always done. I’ve probably studied an awful lot harder since leaving school than I did at school. As a young pilot I loved learning about aerodynamics. Suddenly those things that I learned at school had a focus and a purpose, and I had a reason for learning maths. I could actually apply it.

Which experiments interested you?

We had plenty of variety. One of my first tasks was to install an electrostatic furnace in the Japanese module. There’s some very interesting materials science going on there. The European lab has the electromagnetic levitator which lets you melt metals to create alloys. I carried out flame combustion experiments and grew protein crystals.

You also did a lot of biomedical research on yourself. Did you learn anything new?

Some things are instantaneous. The moment you put on a blood pressure monitor in space, you see your heart rate and blood pressure are much lower than on Earth. You can feel puffiness in your face. You know fluid has shifted. You feel these changes when you go up and their reverse when you come back: my vestibular system, learning how to balance again, learning how to walk. It’s definitely harder coming down than it is going up.

Where do you stand on the debate about whether we should send people or robots into space?

Obviously, a robot couldn’t have done many of the experiments I did because they were about the human body. The medical experiments we’re doing – learning about cancer treatments, diabetes and muscular dystrophy, about respiration and asthma – these are exciting areas that we’re learning a lot about from being in microgravity. In terms of what else we do, the complexity of the tasks is such that it would probably be 100 years before we have robots and artificial intelligence good enough to do them. And it’s not just about what we can do with robots: it’s about sending a human to the moon and to Mars. It’s important that we have humans working in space.

How did you get on with your fellow astronauts? Was there any friction?

We’re all great crewmates and get on extremely well. We know each other so well from training. And you’re not living on top of each other. The space station’s a big place, and if you want your own space and time you can just go to your crew quarter. There are always places you can find for a quiet moment, a bit of privacy or making phone calls to friends and family. So there are never any problems on board.

Has your time in space given you any fresh insights into space, life, yourself?

I do appreciate our planet in a different way, how fragile it is – and the atmosphere. When you see the planet, how isolated it is in the blackness of space, you suddenly realise we are tanking through the universe as one little speck where life can survive.

Would you volunteer to go to Mars?

Yes, but it would have to be the right time of my life. The only thing that would stop me right now is being a father to two young boys.

What if it meant you wouldn’t be coming back?

I’ve never been a fan of the “no-return mission”. A return mission is within our technological capabilities. Getting somebody there and back safely is my idea of mission success.

What will you talk about at żěè¶ĚĘÓƵ Live?

I’d like to give as much of a personal impression of the mission as I can, the things I felt were important, the things I enjoyed, the things that excited me. And I’m sure the audience will have plenty of questions…

Ěý

runs from 22 to 25 September. Tim Peake will be speaking on 22 September.

here or if you are in the UK call our hotline on 0844 581 1295

Ěý

Ěý

Freely available information has the power to make and save money and enhance our daily life, says Nigel Shadbolt of the Open Data Institute

Editorial: “Don’t let internet firms hoard the wealth of big data“

Organisations making their data available to all seems “nice”, but does it have real value?
It has real social and economic value. Big firms are realising they don’t employ all the world’s smart people, and small, agile companies are using open data to create services that people really want.

Why did you set up the ?
and I wanted to support, encourage and build the demand for open data, to show people the potential for innovating with it.

The institute is a year old. How is it doing?
We’re leading the world. We are launching 10 international nodes – the idea is to franchise institutes that sign up to a set of principles and standards. We also develop training and data standards, help organisations publish better open data and have launched a data-quality certificate. And we are incubating 10 start-up companies.

What kind of things do these start-ups do?
Our first success was with data analytics company Mastadon C, which used public information to look at doctors’ prescribing habits for cholesterol-lowering drugs. They found that by switching from brand names to generic drugs, doctors could save the NHS more than £200 million a year.

Have you looked at other public resources?
Another start-up, , is unifying timetables and live departure and disruption information for UK bus, rail, underground, ferry and tram services. It uses feeds from many organisations to provide an app for travellers and services for local authorities. A recent in London – where Transport for London has made lots of its data open – showed that millions of journeys are being altered to avoid disruptions on the basis of this information. Time savings alone add up to £58 million a year.

Is there a danger of creating more big companies that will turn into monopolies?
We want companies that use open data to make money, and they will try to defend their patches. But if we leave the data open, others can exploit it too. Nobody can own or monopolise the data. I think we can make more money and create more benefit by making data open, and I’m sure we will even dislodge a few monopolies along the way.

How would that work?
For example, Dun & Bradstreet is a world leader in selling corporate intelligence. The information mostly comes from public databases. Our start-up has created an open database of 49 million companies and the links between them. It is an amazing resource, and it’s free.

How much impact can open data have?
We’re at an inflection point. Data once guarded for assumed but untested reasons is now open, and we’re seeing benefits. We know where peer-to-peer lenders are putting their money, and from police data we are learning which crimes happen where. Organisations get efficiency gains and more innovation, and transparency builds trust. Open data represents a major change, but in many areas it could become the new default.

Read more: “Open data projects are life-savers in developing countries“

This article appeared in print under the headline “Time to let it all out”