Most people who cook take a practical approach: watching to see when a sauce thickens up, when bread rises perfectly and how long it takes to scramble eggs. We learn by trial and error, from each other and from recipe books. But how many of us know what is really going on when we cook, in scientific terms? Some famous chefs, most notably Ferrán Adria of top restaurant El Bulli and Heston Blumenthal, have taken a scientific approach to cooking, turning the kitchen into a laboratory and producing some novel and astonishing results.

Minecraft is a fun, blocky, Lego-like virtual environment in which to build anything you want, or play as a survival game. Each procedurally-generated world is a unique place to explore, mine for materials, and acquire ever more sophisticated tools. The catchy combination of immersive reality and alchemy has had child and adult geeks hooked since its first release in 2009.

Abertay University’s Professional Masters in Games Development is Europe’s leading Postgraduate Programme in Game Design, and among the top 10 worldwide – and that’s according to the Princeton Review. It produces graduates with high levels of professional experience who now occupy key positions at major studios like Rockstar, Crytek, Codemasters and Ubisoft.

Still paying piecemeal for your coding classes? Locked into a long academic IT course? Get with it. A new style of pay-once-and-study-all-you-want training offer has hit the web, and here we’ll look at two examples that cost just $50 for a lifetime subscription. Welcome to the All You Can Eat Coding Buffet where you can come in any time you like and snack to your heart’s content, then come back again and again, all for a one-time payment of $50.

Events make the modern world go round. Corporate awards ceremonies, annual parties, charity fundraising events, concerts, school fetes, weddings, political rallies, sports events, product launches, exhibitions and conferences all need someone to organise them. Bars don’t just pop up out of nowhere, performers don’t turn up randomly and play for free, food doesn’t materialise out of thin air. At large events, professional management companies organise every facet and ensure it all goes smoothly.

A new degree course for aspiring actors and performers is to begin this September in Brighton and Hove, England.