June 15, 2019 | 17:00-24:00  | Max-Delbrück-Centrum Campus Berlin-Buch

Hot or cold? We answer this question every day when choosing which clothes to wear for the day, when warming up our lunch, or whether we would like our coffee iced. Simply put, we want to understand how thermal information is encoded by the brain! At the Long Night of the Sciences at MDC in Buch we developed two hands on activities related to temperature sensing. First, future scientists were invited to enjoy an ice cold popsicle and then view the temperature change on their hands and tongues using our thermal camera. Then, all participants were welcome to feel the thermal grill illusion. In this illusion, interlaced warm and cool bars elicit a burning sensation. I think the most common reaction we heard to this was how strange it felt!

Featured cover image left to right: Clarissa Whitmire, Charlene Memler, Janett König and Svenja Steinfelder. Standing in front of the custom human thermal grill illusion built by the MDC workshop. (Colorful thermal camera image here, show hands of a participant after touching thermal grill, Courtesy A05.)