Science

Three brilliant speakers, all with something completely different to say. Enjoy the range and variety of Hay Festival packaged into one entertaining session. This evening, space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock says her destiny was always written in the stars, journalist Simon Jenkins asks whether America can survive Trump, and best-selling author Elif Shafak talks about the power of fiction to connect us all. Chaired by the BBC’s international editor, Jeremy Bowen.

Two daring, record-holding adventurers celebrate the human spirit and discuss staying resilient in the face of physical and mental crises.

Mark Agnew was part of the first team to ever kayak the north-west passage, spending 103 days in the Arctic, after two previous failed expeditions. Strained to the limit, he experienced a mental health crisis and almost abandoned the water forever. In his book There Will Be Headwinds, Agnew charts an inspirational journey from failure to world record breaker.

Mollie Hughes has explored some of the wildest environments on earth. Aged 29, she skied more than 700 miles across Antarctica, through storm-force winds and temperatures as low as minus 45 degrees Celsius. Drawing from her book Breathe, she uses her extreme experiences and psychological research to share lessons that can be applied to more everyday challenges.

YouTube sensation Fred Mills takes us on a journey through the most important industry in the world: construction. From the homes we wake up in to the transport infrastructure we use and the hospitals we rely on, construction has an impact on us all.

Mills, who founded the largest and most subscribed-to construction channel in the world with over 3.9 million subscribers on YouTube, charts the story of 10 mega projects reshaping our modern world in his book Mega Builds. This is an entertaining and fascinating front row seat to amazing feats of engineering, showing what will inform the future of the man-made world.

How much power is too much power? Step into the heart of the Big Tech debate with Tim Wu, Columbia Law School Professor of Law, Science and Technology, and Sarah Wynn-Williams, former Facebook Director of Global Public Policy, in conversation with investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr, the reporter who exposed the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

This candid discussion pulls back the curtain on the unprecedented influence of social media, the hidden forces shaping our online lives, and the urgent questions about democracy, privacy and accountability in the digital age. A rare opportunity to hear from the people who understand Big Tech from the inside – and to confront the forces shaping the future of society.

Will AI change the art of storytelling? Or has it already? In this essential conversation, three writing and publishing experts explore how the business of books is adapting to the new and revolutionary technology.

Editor of The Bookseller Philip Jones joins acclaimed writer and translator Daniel Hahn and leading literary agent Cathryn Summerhayes of Curtis Brown to explore what makes a book break through in a rapidly changing industry. From data and discoverability to voice, originality and global reach, they ask what AI can write, what remains uniquely human and what the future may be for artists working alongside AI.

Secrets hidden in plain sight reveal the fall of an Empire – and the rise of another. Academic, author and broadcaster Professor Alice Roberts takes us on a gripping investigative journey to reveal how the Roman Empire fell, and how Christianity seamlessly took its place. Unearthing archaeological clues and challenging long-established histories, Roberts tells a remarkable story of how power survives.