Dara Ó Briain at the launch of Dublin City of Science 2012. Image: Dublin City of Science

While Dara Ó Briain is best known for his humorous contributions to shows like The Panel, QI and Have I Got News For You, he also co-hosts Stargazing Live on BBC Two with Professor Brian Cox.

Dara’s love of the stars was sparked in his teens when he was asked to bring out the rubbish one night and he spotted the constellation, The Plough.

He is a passionate advocate for science and studied physics and mathematics at University College Dublin, so we thought we’d post up some of his most memorable quotes on the subject.

On science

“The intellectual thing is hugely overstated. I get an unseemly amount of credit on shows like QI for the fact that, at the age of 22, I was very good at mathematics. It’s the equivalent of someone carrying a photograph in their wallet of this gorgeous woman and saying, ‘That’s my college girlfriend.’ You can’t trade on it that long.”

“Evidence isn’t much to ask for, is it? Aren’t we all getting tired of ‘well, I know a woman and she had a terrible headache, and then she rubbed a cat on her head, do you know, two days later her headache was gone!’ Evidence kills this nonsense. Evidence scares away the charlatans, and protects the unsuspecting: basically, evidence kills fairy tales, and aren’t we all a little old for fairy tales?”

On physics and astronomy

“ ‘Well science doesn’t know everything…’ Well, science knows it doesn’t know everything. Otherwise it would stop.”

“‘Physics rocks’ is a really naff, geeky, nerdy title. Physics doesn’t rock. It doesn’t have to rock. Physics underpins the very nature of the universe and our understanding of where we are – tiny little bits of flotsam floating in a much bigger picture – and physics is cool.”

“Physics allows us to write with a piece of chalk on a blackboard the very structure of the universe and the shape of it. I mean… What’s not to love?”

“Astronomy sparks the imagination. One of the great universal sources of wonder is just to tilt your head back and gawp at this incredible show unfolding above you.”

On IT and gaming

“I find the whole internet industry very exciting and very interesting, not least the job title. Webmaster is my favourite of all those. Walking around the office going ‘I… am a webmaster! I am master of the web! Feel the power of my firewall!’”

“I genuinely don’t see why this notion persists, that gaming alone in a room is somehow bizarre. Someone made the point that video games are unhealthy. Reading is sitting in a room, and no-one’s saying that about reading. I’m not slamming reading, by the way. But a lot of good things happen in a room. Why video gaming gets a bad rap, I have no idea.”

“I love video games. I enjoy saying that because, as I said, half the room are looking at me, going, ‘Ah jaysus, you’re 38.’ Right? Isn’t that a bit stupid, right? You’re not supposed to like video games, right? It’s the largest entertainment industry in the world, and we’re supposed to not enjoy it, right? This is one of the weirdest things for me. I am a gamer and I’m very proud to be a gamer.”

“I love video games for this reason over all other art forms. They do a thing which no other art form does, right? You cannot be bad at watching a movie. You cannot be bad at listening to an album. But you can be bad at playing a video game and the video game will punish you and deny you access to the rest of the video game. No other art form does this. You’ve never read a book and three chapters in, the book has gone, ‘What are the major themes of the book so far?’ You’ve never been listening to an album and after three songs the album has gone, ‘Dance for me. Show me how good your dancing is.’ ”

In this video, Dara takes a humorous look at our fear of exposure to bacteria (please note, the bacteria bit is at the start – after that, it’s about ASBOs and hoodies).

She will give a public lecture in Trinity College Dublin on 13 February at 8pm and will discuss the history and design of the technology used in space exploration as well as the challenges involved in managing this technology remotely.

Tickets are €7 (or €5 for members of Astronomy Ireland). Visit Astronomy Ireland for more information.

They’ve developed a smartphone-optimised website that gives you access to the most recent images of the Sun from cutting-edge solar observatories such as the NASA’s SOHO and STEREO satellites.

Following activity on the Sun enables you to determine when cosmic effects such as the aurora borealis, which is caused by solar wind, are likely to be visible in our skies.

Visit www.solarmonitor.org to see the latest images of the Sun.

Programme of events

18.00-20.00 – Cosmic Christmas Workshops : How to find the Star of Bethlehem

Four half-hour family friendly workshops. These will be lead by Nick Addey who has dedicated years to unravelling the mystery of star and constellation names.

20.00 -21.00 – The Star of Bethlehem: an astronomical detective story with Tony O’Hanlon

Tony O’Hanlon will give a lecture entitled “The Star of Bethlehem: an astronomical detective story”.  He will explore this phenomenon, relying on documented archaeology and the cultural, social, religious and astronomical practices of the peoples in the region we now call the Middle East.

18.00- 21.00 – Stargazing (weather dependent)

The Cork Astronomy Club will be on hand to help spot the first quarter moon.

More information

Visit the Blackrock Castle Observatory’s website for more details

Friday 18 November

Met Éireann is celebrating its 75th birthday with a weather exhibition at the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin which runs from 9am-5pm this Friday. Admission is free. For more information visit the Irish Met Society.

Kevin Nolan of the Irish Planetary Society will be hosting a lecture at Blackrock Castle Observatory in Cork. Kevin will discuss the forthcoming launch of the Mars “Curiosity” Mission on 25 November which aims to search for signs of life on Mars.

Kevin will also present 3-D images from a range of spacecraft that operate on or around Mars. Admission to the lecture is free. Visit Blackrock Castle Observatory for more information.

Saturday 19 November

The Dublin Children’s Museum, Imaginosity, will be hosting a “Kitchen Chemistry” event from 19-20 November. Children can learn about chemistry in a series of demonstrations and workshops. Learn more at Imaginosity.

The free FrogBlog art competition runs until 20 November and it’s open to Junior Cert students across Ireland. Students are invited to submit an art piece depicting science, nature, discovery  or space. You can photograph or scan your piece and email it to art-comp[at]frogblog[dot]ie. Winners receive a €50 iTunes voucher. Visit TheFrogBlog for more details.

Dr O’Raifeartaigh will be addressing the experiment conducted by CERN physicists which recently disproved Einstein’s famous theory of relativity. The experiment seems to have verified that there are particles in existence that have the potential to travel faster than the speed of light – once considered impossible.

Astro-Expo runs from 12pm to 6pm in SNIAM Building in Trinity College Dublin. Dr O’Raifeartaigh’s talk will be at 3pm. Passes for the entire Astro-Expo event cost €18, or €10 per lecture.

Visit Astronomy Ireland or call (01) 890 11 11 for more information.

In the “Births, Lives and Deaths of Stars” lecture, Dr Murphy will explore how stars work and the role that the Sun plays in facilitating human life on Earth. While many of us can’t see what’s happening inside a star, it undergoes dramatic changes over the course of its long life.

Dr Murphy will explain the future of our own Sun as a red giant and how bigger stars can become black holes when they die.

The lecture will take place in the Fitzgerald Building in Trinity College at 8pm. Tickets cost €7 (or €5 if you’re a member of Astronomy Ireland) and can be booked online at astronomy.ie or by calling (01) 890 11 11.

Mission to Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) “Curiosity” mission, due to launch on 25 November, is among the most advanced space probes ever launched, and it will be looking for evidence of past or present life on Mars.

A series of public talks in Dublin, Galway and Cork will be giving the latest updates on the mission. The media-rich events will include 3D images from the eight spacecraft operating on and around the planet.

The Planetary Society is organising the talks, titled “Mars Science Laboratory – In Search of Origins”, in association with NUI Galway’s School of Physics, Galway Astronomical Club and CIT/Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork.

Admission is free, with places allocated on a first-come first-served basis – simply turn up on the night.

The events will take place during 2011 Science Week, and will be presented by Kevin Nolan, Coordinator to Ireland for the Planetary Society and author of the book “Mars, A Cosmic Stepping Stone”.

• Dublin talk: 8pm, Monday 14 November 2011,  Mansion House, Dawson Street, D2
• Galway talk: 8pm, Wednesday 16 November 2011, O’Tuathail Theatre, NUI Galway
• Cork talk: 8pm, Friday 18 November 2011, Blackrock Castle Observatory

For more details, check out the Planetary.ie website.

While sound does not travel in space, radio waves do, and by using radio receivers on Earth we can listen to the whistling noises of the Northern Lights, ocean-like crashes from the Sun, and booms from storms on Jupiter. We can even listen to the eerie “knocking” sounds of exotic objects known as pulsars that are sprinkled throughout the Universe.

The lecture will take place on Monday, 10 October at 8pm in Trinity College Dublin and is open to all.

Tickets can be booked online at www.astronomy.ie or by calling (01) 890 11 11.

Space Scoop, which provides astronomy news for children, will release daily highlights from a major space science meeting next week.

The 2011 meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress and Division for Planetary Science will be held in Nantes, France, from 2-8 October 2011.

EU-Universe Awareness (EU-UNAWE) is asking primary school teachers from around the world to use the Space Scoop releases as the basis for a week-long series of lessons about our Solar System.

Educators and children are invited to submit their questions about astronomy by email, Twitter or Facebook. The Space Scoopers will track down astronomers to find answers to as many of your questions as possible.

Questions can be emailed to info[at]unawe[dot]org. Questions via Twitter should be sent to @unawe and include the hashtag #SpaceScoop. You can also use Universe Aware Facebook page to ask questions.

For more information visit Universe Aware online