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Benjamin Franklin pouring oil on Derwent Water in the Lake District. The theatrical department store demonstrations that sold thousands of iconic Kenwood Chef mixers. The African American inventor who lived in Lewisham and worked with Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. And Ganzflicker - the online experiment that depending on your neural pathways might make you see animals, fairies, and monsters – or nothing at all. Catherine Fletcher meets the academics behind just four of the many public events taking place around the country this month as part of the Being Human Festival of the Humanities.

Her guests are cultural historian Christopher Donaldson from Lancaster University, design historian Alice Naylor from the University of Portsmouth and the British Science Museum, Ayshah Johnston from the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton and the University of Surrey, and cognitive neuroscientist Reshanne Reeder from Edge Hill University in Ormskirk.

‘Benjamin Franklin’s Scientific Adventures in the English Lakes’ takes place on 19th November at Keswick Museum at 11am.

‘Putting on a Show with the Kenwood Chef’ is at The Spring Arts & Heritage Centre in Havant on 11th November at 1.30pm and 18th November at 10am.

‘A Lightbulb Idea: Lewis Latimer's Scientific Breakthroughs’ is at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton on the 12th and 19th November from 11am and 1pm.

‘Ganzflicker: art, science, and psychedelic experience’ is on at The Atkinson in Southport on November 11th at 5pm, 12th at 4pm, 18th at 7pm, and 19th at 6pm.

Producer in Salford: Ruth Thomson

You can find a host of conversations showcasing New Research in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website and available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts /programmes/p03zws90