September 23rd 2004

What is the Big Bang, who came up with the idea and why do we believe in it? Simon Singh discusses the Big Bang theory, from its birth in the 1920s to the observational evidence that backed it and then clinched it. As well as describing the development of the Big Bang theory, Simon will also chat more generally how new scientific ideas are invented, developed and adopted, which will include the partnership between theory and experiment and the role of personalities and politics. Simon Singh received his PhD in physics from the University of Cambridge. He is the author of ‘Fermat's Last Theorem’ and ‘The Code Book’, and he has just published "Big Bang", the story behind one of the most important theories in the history of science. His website is at www.simonsingh.net
 

After an unofficial 5 year moratorium, the UK Government has recently announced it would allow the first commercial growing of a GM maize but not other crops. This follows the advice of its environmental advisory committee ACRE, but it goes against the clear result of last summer’s GM Nation public consultation. The general public might see benefits from GM in the longer term future, but does not want GM crops to be grown at this time. So what does the Government's decision say for democratic and public consultation? Are EC and WTO demands for "scientific evidence" the real driving force and are mere public values irrelevant? Should Scotland take a stand and abide by the people? Or is the Government right to consider the risks of GM are much lower than campaigners have made out? And if GM crops are grown in Scotland, do non-GM growers have the moral right to demand zero-GM, or just a reasonable threshold to enable co-existence? Dr Bruce is a scientist and bio-ethicist and currently the Director of the ‘Society, Religion and Technology Project’ of the Church of Scotland.
 

Scotland's ranking in the international league table of health has not always been so poor as it is today. Earlier in the 20th Century Scots enjoyed a much a higher ranking in life expectancy. Now, our nearest neighbours are Costa Rica, Cuba and Portugal and we are losing ground to most other western European countries. Although life expectancy is rising, healthy life expectancy is static so added years of life are being lived with limiting illness. Importantly, inequalities are widening. Also, a variety of problems are getting worse in absolute terms - obesity, sexually transmitted diseases, alcohol related harm and mental health. The question is why? Deprivation and poverty are clearly important but what is the role of culture? Is there something about the way we now live our lives and the values that drive us that are making us unhealthy?

Phil Hanlon is Professor of Public Health at Glasgow University and has spent the past 20 year grappling with academic and practical issues associated with health in Scotland.

For most of us climate change has so far meant warmer winters and pictures of flooding on the news, but climate change isn't just going to stay on your TV. It's coming to your house, your garden, your car, even your bank account. Find out how it will affect you, and how you affect it. Dave Reay is editor of the leading climate change website 'Greenhouse Gas Online' and a research fellow at Edinburgh University. He has worked on climate change for over a decade, in environments ranging from the Southern Ocean to evil-smelling drainage ditches. He lives in a house well above sea level.

NOTE: Just for our January 20th date  the event will be held in The College club, Glasgow University, University Avenue for one night only.
 

When Neil Armstrong uttered those immortal words "One small step for Man", was he really on the surface of the Moon or in a Hollywood film studio?  A surprising number of people believe the entire Apollo programme was an elaborate hoax, and point to damning evidence in NASA's archive footage: the American flag waving in the breeze; no stars in the lunar sky; astronauts lit by multiple floodlights. Martin and Ken will debate the myths behind the Moon landings, exploring the "Top 10" reasons why it's claimed that the Apollo missions had to be faked. Did we really land on the Moon?  Come along and make up your own mind!

Martin Hendry is a senior lecturer in the department of physics and astronomy at the University of Glasgow. He is highly active in public outreach and recently won an award from the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his contributions to science communication. Ken Skeldon is a research fellow in medical physics at the University of Glasgow and has recently been awarded a NESTA fellowship to promote science across the UK and further afield. Over the past 12 years he has scripted and presented popular science lectures, his Arcs & Sparks electricity show having now reached a total audience of over 100,000.  In 2004, Ken and Martin were awarded a grant by the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council to investigate 'Moon Hoax' theories.

So we couldn’t drag the shoppers off Byres Rd into Café Scientifique. So we are taking Café Scientifique to the shoppers! Come and join us, the shoppers and local school children for a special one day event. This is an official Science Week event, supported by the BA and funded by a ‘Peoples Award’ from The Wellcome Trust. The topic will be MEDICINES - FROM BENCH TO BEDSIDE – CAN OUR GENES AND MIND CHANGE THE WAY WE RESPOND? Discuss the ‘black box’ of drug discovery and the mystery of the Nobel prize with Prof Sir James Black. David Porteous will discuss the application of knowledge emerging from the Human Genome Project to the identification of risk factors, disease processes and how our genes can affect our response to medicines. Dr David Reilly will reveal the secrets of ‘the placebo effect’ and how our minds can influence our response to medicines. So you want to discuss science with real scientists but that shopping must be done? Need to meet friends for a coffee?? Now you can do it all!! Come and join us.

On a recent television programme, Carol Thatcher commented that she was ‘surprised how excited the scientists were’ when the Huygens probe landed on Titan. After all, scientists are supposed to be dry and impassive ‘grey men’ working away in underground labs somewhere. Another comment recently heard, referring to (therapeutic) cloning, was ‘scientists are running out of control, playing God.’

Why do scientists have such a bad ‘image’? Why don’t members of the public trust scientists? Why are so few school-leavers going into science? Are scientists themselves to blame, or the media and films and fiction? Perhaps the interaction between science and non-science has always been like this, but the speed and ubiquity of modern communications networks and the search for ‘stories’ has merely made us more conscious of the cultural divide.

Ann Lackie, zoologist and parasitologist, was formerly at Glasgow University before leaving academic life to write and broadcast. She writes novels (under the name Ann Lingard) that use scientists as ordinary people, and has been involved in ‘sci-art’ projects including bringing scientists, artists and writers together through the ‘Words & Pictures’ conferences; see www.annlingard.com . She is currently an Outreach Associate of PEALS Research Institute, University of Newcastle, on the ‘Talking Science in Cumbria’ project, and has been awarded a NESTA grant to set up ‘SciTalk’, a database of ‘writer-friendly’scientists. Ann lives on a small-holding in Cumbria and rears Herdwick sheep.

The songs of birds have long inspired poets, musicians and young lovers.  Birdsong has also inspired generations of scientists.  Particularly intriguing are the parallels between the development of speech in humans and the acquisition of song by birds.  What is the message in a song?  Why do songbirds have regional song dialects?  What happens to a young bird who never hears the song of an older bird?   Why do some birds sing only a single song type while others have huge repertoires?  After this talk, a walk in the woods will never quite be the same! Glen is Professor of Biology at St. Mary's University College in Calgary, Canada. He has been studying the songs of birds for 19 years.  This work has taken him to the wildest parts of western North America. He claims that he could be blindfolded and placed anywhere in British Columbia or Alberta, and tell you where he was by listening to the songs of birds! Our first, and long-awaited natural history topic!! Come and find out why ‘bird-brain’ is not such an insult after all!
 

Should we have the right to decide when it’s time to die?  And how should the law deal with such sensitive human and ethical questions.  This issue has been brought shapely back into focus by the recent case of Terri Schiavo in the USA.  The case of Hillsborough victim, Anthony Bland, brought the issue centre-stage here when he was allowed to die through the withdrawal of food and water - but Lord Mustills, one of the senior judges in the House of Lords, described the law which applies at the end of life as “intellectually misshapen”, expressing considerable unease at the route he had to take to allow Bland’s “treatment” to be withdrawn.   Shelia McLean, Professor of Medical Law and Ethics at Glasgow University, analyses these end-of-life decisions and considers whether Lord Mustills view reflects the reality of the law’s approach.  

 23^rd June 730pm

uncanny valley: (n.) feelings of unease, fear, or revulsion created by a robot or robotic device that appears to be, but is not quite, human-like.

For the last 40 years, scientists around the world have been working towards realising the dream of creating humanoid robots. Now, as walking, thinking and even feeling robots and androids take their first tentative steps into reality, writer Richard Evans outlines the latest research into humanoid robotics and discusses the far-reaching ethical and social implications of the coming world of artificial helpers, friends and lovers.

Richard is author of the acclaimed futuristic thrillers Machine Nation and Robophobia, which were researched at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and sponsored by Arts Council England.

More information at www.richardevansonline.com.

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Monday December 3rd

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Nature's bright lights: bioluminesence

Speaker:

Anne Glover, Aberdeen University

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Bioluminescence is widespread in nature but why and how the phenomenon evolved is a mystery. It is found in organisms as diverse as marine microbes and fireflies and from the Tropics to the seas of the coast of Scotland (as long as we know how to look!).

Why should we be interested in bugs that glow in the dark? Scientists have identified the genes involved in coding for bioluminescence and have exploited the phenomenon to find out what is going on inside living cells and how they interact with their environment. This has proven incredibly useful in areas such as cancer research and contaminated land remediation, where glowing bugs have been used to sleuth out contaminated land and also provide solutions for its clean up.

Come along and find out more about one of Nature's truly beautiful phenomena, including how the study of this simple system has allowed us to understand much of how microbes communicate so that they can co-ordinate powerful attacks on our bodies.

Anne is the newly appointed Chief Scientific Advisor for Scotland. She works three days a week at the Scottish Executive and the rest of the time pursues her research at the University of Aberdeen. She became interested in bioluminescence while swimming off the shore of Portugal (more of that in the talk) and also set up an environmental biotechnology company to exploit the phenomenon to clean up contaminated land.

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Twenty years of research into the psychology of face perception has led to great progress in understanding everyday face recognition. In doing so, it has also revealed fundamental limits to the face recognition abilities of both humans and machines. These limits have profound implications for today's surveillance society and with CCTV, identity cards, and national security high on the political agenda, it has never been more important to understand them. This talk will illustrate the strengths and weaknesses of human face recognition, using real-life examples and live demonstrations. It will also explain how machine performance can be improved by incorporating discoveries from psychological research.

Rob obtained a first class honours degree in Cognitive Science from  the University of Westminster in 1996. He then moved to the Psychology department of University College London, where he obtained  a PhD on the topic of Attention and Face Processing. In 2000 he took  a postdoctoral research position at the Psychology department of the  University of Glasgow, to work on computer modelling of face recognition. In 2002, he was awarded the prestigious 3-year British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship to continue his research on face perception. He later moved to the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge to combine social cognition research with neuro-imaging expertise. In 2006, Rob took up a lectureship at the Psychology department of the University of Glasgow. He was awarded the 2007 BAAS Joseph Lister prize for science communication.

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In the UK we’re offered with a bunch of technical fixes to meet the challenges of climate change. The nuclear industry is re-inventing itself as a low-carbon option with built-in energy security, the utilities generating electricity from coal and gas plan to capture their own carbon dioxide, and the different renewable energy technologies have great potential. But which will become the technologies of choice?

Help find the answers - before you have to retreat into your well-insulated cave powered by a domestic wind turbine from your local superstore.

Alan Morton is in the team at NESTA that’s launched the Big Green Challenge, a prize fund of £1m for communities who innovate to reduce their carbon use. See www.biggreenchallenge.org.uk Previously he was curator of energy and modern physics at the Science Museum in London.

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Naveed Sattar, Glasgow University

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So how bad is the obesity epidemic? And what are the major factors responsible for it? Based on the best available evidence, this talk will outline many relevant issues and explain how obesity, via ‘ectopic’ fat, leads to diabetes and other disease. Naveen will also explain why it is so difficult to lose weight once obese, outlining concepts not widely appreciated. The contributions of government, food industry, the media and the health professionals in tackling this epidemic will be scrutinised, with the audience’s views welcome.

Naveed was appointed Professor of Metabolic Medicine in 2005. He is interested in the causes of heart disease and diabetes and makes use of existing data to help determine the relevance of both clinical (e.g. body weight) and blood-derived measures (e.g. blood cholesterol) to these conditions. He also has considerable interest in research related to obesity. He was awarded the Professors Prize for Clinical Biochemistry in 2001, the RD Lawrence Lecture for contributions to diabetes research in 2005 (by Diabetes UK) and the John French Lecture for heart disease research (by the British Atherosclerosis Society) in 2006. Finally, but perhaps most importantly, his passions outside work include his two young children (Zara, 4 and Zakee, 6) and playing football wherever the opportunity arises.