The bio­me­chan­ics of human body move­ments, the preser­va­tion of char­cu­terie, out-ofdate meat, the prop­er­ties of rusks — these are just some of the sub­jects on which UTC is often the set­ting for the pop­u­lar sci­ence TV pro­gramme “E=M6”, host­ed by the icon­ic French TV pre­sen­ter and pro­duc­er that every fam­i­ly in France knows: Mac Lesg­gy. Let’s meet him!

Miri­an Kubo, a lec­tur­er-research sci­en­tist in the Depart­ment of Chem­i­cal and Bio­log­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at UTC, is the reg­u­lar expert who answers pop­u­lar sci­ence ques­tions on the E=M6 pro­gramme host­ed by Mac Lesg­gy. The French tele­vi­sion pre­sen­ter and pro­duc­er, whose real name is Olivi­er Les­gour­gues, trained as an agri­cul­tur­al engi­neer. He has pro­duced and pre­sent­ed the pro­gramme E=M6 since 1991, which won the Grand Prix de l’Information Sci­en­tifique in 1995, award­ed by the Académie des Sci­ences, as well as the “ 7 d’or” for «best edu­ca­tion­al pro­gramme» in 2001. Author of sev­er­al books, includ­ing Le corps humain (2005), Les chiens et les chats (2006) and L’histoire au quo­ti­di­en racon­tée aux enfants (2016), Mac Lesg­gy is the cen­tral char­ac­ter of this fam­i­ly sci­ence mag­a­zine par excel­lence. For sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions now, M6 has been pro­vid­ing a fun way to learn through visu­al exper­i­ments, tes­ti­mo­ni­als and insights from spe­cial­ists who answer the ques­tions that every­one is ask­ing. «Over two mil­lion view­ers tune in every Sun­day evening. Par­ents let their chil­dren watch the pro­gramme before going to bed. And those same par­ents watched it them­selves when they were chil­dren. My leit­mo­tiv has remained the same: to make a seri­ous pro­gramme with­out tak­ing itself too seri­ous­ly. I’m care­ful not to be pon­tif­i­cat­ing. It’s a pro­gramme for curi­ous peo­ple who like to learn. Which is total­ly what I do,» con­fides the 61-year-old pre­sen­ter, who doesn’t hes­i­tate to give of him­self and reg­u­lar­ly finds him­self in awk­ward posi­tions, on ice skates, on a trapeze, or wear­ing the suit devel­oped at the UTC’s Bio­me­chan­ics and Bio­engi­neer­ing Lab­o­ra­to­ry (BMBI), which works either in an obe­si­ty mode, i.e., in an over­weight sit­u­a­tion or in age­ing sim­u­la­tion with reduced visu­al and audi­to­ry acuity.

The world seen through the magnifying glass of science

«UTC is a school that real­ly fits in with this TV pro­gramme. Unlike oth­er schools, UTC’s teach­ing and research are focused on a wide range of appli­ca­tions. Its experts know how to help us deci­pher our every­day envi­ron­ment and the world around us in a sci­en­tif­ic way,» adds Mac Lesg­gy, who believes that sci­ence has a lot to teach us. For him, engi­neers are the right peo­ple to talk to in this con­stant­ly chang­ing world. «Tech­nol­o­gy and sci­ence are advanc­ing fast. Take arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, for exam­ple, which is rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing every field. Engi­neers have the curios­i­ty and open-mind­ed­ness to keep pace with progress,» he con­cludes. This is a real oppor­tu­ni­ty for well­trained engi­neers. Our com­pa­nies need engi­neers more than ever. For his part, Mac Lesg­gy and his teams are con­tin­u­ing to pre­pare new pro­grammes on increas­ing­ly inter­est­ing sub­jects such as: why do we have pins and nee­dles in our legs or white hair, or how to clean the machines that clean. «We’re also think­ing about a pro­gramme that would explore pre­his­to­ry and see what we know about ear­ly man”. It should be enough to bring par­ents and chil­dren togeth­er again on the sofa in the liv­ing room on Sun­day evenings at 8.25pm… on TV chan­nel M6.