Leeds Cafe
 

 Launched 1998

 


 

 

 

Date:
 
October 18th 2004
Title: 'Medicines Out Of Control'
Speaker: Charles Medawar, Director of Social Audit.
Description:

The question of how scientific research is funded, monitored, published and then used is at the heart of the current debate about the antidepressant Seroxat. As far as the patient is concerned, is the pharmaceutical research objective? Is all of it published? Is it properly monitored? Are the warnings in the packet complete and truthful? Is the regulatory body independent and efficient? Or is the medical profession in the pocket of the big pharmaceutical companies?

Social Audit has been monitoring relations between patients, the regulatory bodies, the pharmaceutical companies and the research community now for 20 years, and Charles Medawar appeared in the Panorama TV programme last Sunday. He is one of the few independent authorities on this highly contentious and important area.

 

Date:
 
November 8th
Title: 'What We Don't Know About The History of Life'
Speaker:
 
Yan Wong, Evolutionary geneticist, Leeds University
Description:

We can deduce the history of life from the fossil record and,
increasingly, from informed analysis of current organisms and their DNA sequences. Three Richards - Southwood, Fortey, and Dawkins - have written recent popular science books describing the surprising amount of detail that is known and generally agreed upon by scientists. But although recent analyses of DNA, as well as new fossil finds, have revolutionised our understanding of the past, they have also crystalised debate around some key areas of earth history.

Yan will introduce some of the "dark ages" in the history of life, along with topics that raise heated discussion  among scientists. Unsurprisingly, controversy surrounds such distant events as the origin of animals, the origin of the eukaryotic cell, and the origin of  life itself. More unexpectedly, even comparatively recent events such  as the origin of our own order, the Primates, are currently being  argued upon in the scientific literature. Given the lack of consensus, these topics are ripe for speculation.

It should be a lively evening. Hope to see you there.

 

Date:
 
February 15th 2005
Title: 'The Sperm's Tale'
 
Speaker:
 
Prof. Tim Birkhead,  Sheffield University.
Description: Male fertility has become a talking point in recent years and also a subject for increased research. What do the results tell us, and are males underperforming in the evolutionary advance?
 

 
Date:
 

Monday September 12th . 8 pm 2005

Title: 'Why Most Things Fail – Evolution, Extinction and Economics'
 
Speaker: Paul Ormerod
 
Description:

Is there any connection between biology and economics? How is it that phenomena as diverse as stock market crashes, biological phenomena and contacts on the World Wide Web are described by a ‘power law’ in which the frequency of an event falls away with the square of its size?  Are there deeper forces at work?

Paul Ormerod, the speaker this evening, has written a book exploring these ideas and examining the principles of success and failure in the natural and human environment.

 

Date:
 
Monday October 3rd 7.30 pm
Title: 'Complete Laws of the Universe'

Speaker:
 

Prof. Roger Penrose
Venue: Ilkley Playhouse

Description:

As part of the Ilkley Literature Festival a Café Scientifique is taking place with Prof. Roger Penrose. He will be talking about his new book ‘Complete Laws of the Universe’. The event is at 7.30 pm at the Ilkley Playhouse. Check with the Literature Festival Office whether you need to get a ticket.
Date:
 
Tuesday October 11th 8pm
Title: 'Sick and Tired'
 

Speaker:
 

Dr. Nick Read
Venue: The Old Police Station, 106 Harrogate Road

Description:

‘Sick and Tired’, which draws attention to one of the most important public health issues of our time – over half the visits to doctors in the UK are for medically unexplained illnesses like chronic fatigue Syndrome, Post Traumatic Stress disorder, Fibromyalgia Syndrome, etc. Dr. Nick Read suggests that the context of these diseases is increasing social isolation and the complex demands of modern life. Therapeutic focus needs to shift if these ailments are to be addressed.

Date:
 

Monday October 31st 8pm

Title:
 

Science and Belief
Venue: The Old Police Station, 106 Harrogate Road

Speaker:
 

Prof. David Knight
Description:

Is science founded on experiment and observation? Prof. David Knight says no, it is based on imagination and belief. But if belief is going beyond the bounds of reason how do scientists know what to believe in? David Knight looks at examples from the history of science to find how the conflict between reason and imagination can be explained.

 

 

Date:
 


Monday September 26th . 8 pm 2005

Title: 'Beam Me Up Scotty! – Quantum Entanglement and Supercomputers '
 
Speaker: Vlatko Vedral
 
Description:

Einstein didn’t believe in Quantum theory and was sceptical of quantum entanglement, which he called ‘Spooky action at a distance’. Two ‘entangled’ particles are connected because the fate of one depends on the other – even if it is at the far side of the universe. It sounds crazy, but was recently proved to be true and could be the basis of teleportation, as in StarTrek.

This is a chance to get to grips with quantum theory, as explained by Vlatko Vedral, professor of Quantum Information Science at Leeds University.

Date:
 
Monday March 6th
Title: Déjà vu
 
Speaker:
 
Chris Moulin, Leeds University
Description:

Many of us will have experienced déjà vu – the uncanny feeling of already having seen something that is happening for the first time. What is going on? Is it evidence of a previous existence, a paranormal connection, crossed wires in the brain or a breakdown of memory? And what is the role of memory in déjà vu, since there is often no evidence of a previous similar experience?

When déjà vu was first described, over a hundred years ago, it was associated with the paranormal. So are we in the field of psychology or parapsychology?

Chris Moulin is from the Psychology Department of Leeds University.

Date:
 

Monday May 8th

Title:

Visions of the deep

Speaker:
 

Ron Douglas, City University London

Description:

Over seventy per cent of the Earth is covered with water, so by surface area alone the aquatic environment is the largest habitat on the planet. However, life on land is more-or-less two-dimensional -  most organisms live within a few metres of the ground - but the ocean is a truly three-dimensional world, with an average depth around 4000m. Over ninety-nine per cent of the world’s habitable space is deep-sea (usually defined as depths greater than 200m) arguably making it a diverse and important habitat. However, because it is also a very hostile environment, much of its biology remains a mystery.

Ron Douglas’s work is in researching deep-sea creatures, often in remote parts of the world. In particular, he is studying bioluminescence, produced by eighty per cent of deep sea creatures. This is a means of communication, preying, confusing predators and camouflage.

Unusually, this presentation will have visuals, to enable us to see what these creatures see. It will also be the story of how difficult this research is.

Date:
 
Monday May 22nd
Title: Lost for words
Speaker:
 
Dan Everett, Manchester University
Description:

The Piraha people of the Amazon basin are unusual because their language has a very small vocabulary and they appear to have no myths and no words for numbers or colours. They also have no words for abstract concepts, so that speakers cannot talk about things beyond their direct experience. They are a puzzle for both anthropologists and linguists. How does their language affect their thinking? How do they explain the world they live in?

Dan Everett is a linguist who has lived with and studied this tribe. He believes that their language is not just a curiosity but a nail in the coffin of Chomsky’s theory of innate language, which has become so powerful in the last twenty years. Thus the Piraha’s simple concrete vocabulary may be the death of a famous abstract concept.

Date:
 
Monday 10th July
Title:

The evolution of co-operation

Speaker:
 
Andrew Colman, Leicester University
Description:

Robert May, ex-President of the Royal Society, began his presidential address in 2005 by saying ‘The most important unanswered question in evolutionary biology and more generally in the social sciences, is how co-operative behaviour evolved and can be maintained in human and other animal groups and societies’. The problem of the balance between self interest and co-operative behaviour stretches from the evolution of alarm calls in birds and animals, to public health crises like MMR, to the over-fishing of herring in the North Sea. Why should selfish genes co-operate with unrelated genes?

Date:
 

Monday 25th September

Title:

What is a gene?

Speaker:
 

Yan Wong, Leeds University.

Description:

The received wisdom is that genes are like beads on a string, and that the beads determine specific characteristics of a plant or animal. That view is now hotly contested and is seen as grossly old-fashioned by many geneticists. Research around the Human Genome Project has shown that genes can move within the DNA molecule, be split, turned on and off by molecular switches and regulated by RNA. Some researchers are suggesting that the word ‘gene’ is redundant. We seem to be entering a ‘post-genomic’ age where the gene will no longer be so dominant in our understanding of biological inheritance. Where does this leave subjects like genetic engineering and medical genetics?

Yan Wong wrote The Ancestor’s Tale with Richard Dawkins and now researches evolutionary genetics.

Date:

Monday 30th October

Title:

Chemical and biological warfare - do scientists need a code of conduct?

Speaker:

Alastair Hay

Description:

Since 9/11, the threat from chemical and biological warfare has been high on the news agenda. However, in science the agenda has been different: what should scientists be allowed to research, what should they be allowed to publish and how should research be conducted and to what purpose? Establishing a code of conduct has become a major international concern and whether the code should be voluntary or mandatory is a key question.

Should emerging areas of chemical and biological research be licensed – and if so, by whom?  The relationship between rapidly developing technologies, the speed of information flow and the possible abuse of results makes these questions difficult to resolve but they need to be addressed. And if this applies to chemical and biology now, what other areas of science are also likely to be censored?

Professor Hay is a leading international figure in this area and has been active in promoting an international Code of Conduct.

Date:

Monday 13th November NB 7pm start!!!

Title:

Ernest Jones - "Freud's Wizard"

Speaker:

Brenda Maddox

Description:

No scientist becomes famous until their ideas are popularised, and this was certainly true of Freud. Jones was not only Freud’s biographer but also friend, supporter, publicist and the person who persuaded the British government to accept him, as a refugee from the Nazis, in 1938. He also dissuaded Freud from talking publicly about his belief in telepathy and his respect for Lamarkism.

Jones was himself a psychoanalyst and the book raises questions about how popular Freud’s methods would have been in the English-speaking world without this champion. It also raises the problem of how scientific, or indeed useful, Freud’s ideas have been in medicine and psychiatry in the last hundred years.

Please note that this meeting starts at 7pm and will finish shortly after 8.

Date:

Monday  11th December

Title:

The forensic use of bioinformation

Speaker:

Carole McCartney

Description:

Using bioinformation for forensic purposes, such as DNA sampling and fingerprinting, is now considered a routine part of the crime-solving process. The UK’s National DNA Database is the largest forensic DNA database in the world, containing profiles from over three million individuals. Samples can be collected from crime scenes and compared with those samples taken from people (with or without their consent) who have previously been arrested for a recordable offence. The database can be used not only to match samples to crime scenes but also to reveal other information about individuals that may lead to their detection, such as their sex, ethnic background, or the identity of family members. Those samples taken from those who are arrested (or victims and witnesses who so consent) remain on the database even if the person is not subsequently charged with an offence. This is the case regardless of the age or criminal background of the person arrested. These forensic uses of bioinformation have the potential to raise a number of ethical, social and legal issues concerning:

- the interpretation of the bioinformation;

- the collection, storage and retention of profiles and samples;

- informed consent, privacy and confidentiality in the light of data protection and human rights legislation;

- access to and use of forensic databases for purposes of research;

- sharing of bioinformation for forensic purposes across international boundaries; and

- governance of research conducted by or for forensic laboratories.

The Nuffield council on Bioethics is holding a consultation on this subject and Carole McCartney, who lectures on law at Leeds University, is the project manager.

Date:

Monday 22nd January

Title:

Should we bury nuclear waste in Yorkshire?

Speaker:

Bruce Yardley

Description:

The disposal of nuclear waste has been one of the main bones of contention in arguments about nuclear power. As global warming moves higher up the agenda and energy reserves diminish, is it time to re-examine the options for nuclear waste? Is resistance to waste disposal based on practical problems or prejudice?

Last summer the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) reported that deep underground disposal was the preferred choice for the long term management of the UK's existing radioactive waste, having weighed up a wide range of the risks involved from construction of the site(s), transport and long term effects. This brings the UK into line with, although a long way behind, plans in most other countries that have nuclear waste. There are a range of geological settings which are considered potentially appropriate for deep waste disposal, and some of them are present in the Yorkshire region, but what are the factors that are considered important? Given that Yorkshire is down-wind from Sellafield where the waste currently sits in much less secure surface storage, how good is the case for storing waste in Yorkshire, and what incentives would be needed for it to be considered acceptable?

Bruce Yardley is Professor in the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds and last year convened a meeting of the Geological Society of London that looked at the case for deep geological storage and reviewed the progress being made elsewhere in Europe.

Date:

Monday 12th February

Title:

Decoding DNA

Speaker:

Simon Shepherd, Bradford University

Description:

If DNA is the Book of Life, its meaning is far from clear. If a book is reduced to a continuous, uninterrupted sequence of letters, it becomes impenetrable gobbledegook, even if it is written by Jane Austen. However in 2001, Simon Shepherd created an algorithm which reconstructed ‘Emma’, word for word, from just such an uninterrupted string, despite being unacquainted with English vocabulary or syntax. He has now turned his attention to the string of A’s, G’s, C’s and T’s of DNA that make up the world's genomes.

Prof. Shepherd picked up much of his experience during ten years cracking Russian codes in British Naval Intelligence. As soon as the DNA molecule’s structure was discovered, researchers realised that it contained at least one code was realized. That code, cracked in the 1950s and 60s, parses passages of DNA into three letter combinations that correspond to particular amino acids. But researchers now know there are other layers of biological information interspersed between, or superimposed on, the passages written in triplet code. This ‘junk’ DNA is now under close scrutiny, to find the codes that control or regulate all sorts of cellular processes. This is an area of worldwide research and Prof. Shepherd is at its cutting edge.

 

Date:

Monday 12th March

Title:

Free will and the workings of the brain

Speaker:

Max Velmans, Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Description:

The relation of free will to the workings of the brain is a matter not just of ethical concern but also legal responsibility. The discovery that that the brain prepares to perform an act around 350 milliseconds before the conscious wish to perform that act appears makes this concern acute.  Am I responsible for my acts or are these determined by my brain?

Max Velmans has written extensively on the problems of consciousness. He suggests that we do retain ethical and legal responsibility but need to extend our concept of who we are to include not just our consciously experienced selves but also the preconscious and unconscious processing in our mind/brains.

Date:

Monday 26th March - Host Media Centre, Chapeltown

Title:

Art, science and intuition: from Leonardo to the Hubble telescope

Speaker:

Martin Kemp, Professor of Art History, University of Oxford.

Description:

Martin Kemp has written and broadcast extensively on imagery in art and science from the Renaissance to the present day. Leonardo da Vinci has been the subject of a number of his books and exhibitions. Increasingly, he has focused on issues of visualisation, modelling and representation.  The broad thrust of more recent work is devoted to a 'New History of the Visual', which embraces the wide range of artefacts from science, technology, and the fine, applied and popular arts that have been devised to create models of nature and to articulate human relationships with the physical world. A scientific diagram or computer graphic model of a molecule is as relevant to this new history as a painting by Michelangelo. He writes a regular column on 'Science in Culture' in the science journal Nature, an early selection of which has been published as Visualisations (OUP, 2000).  Many of the themes of the Nature essays are developed in Seen and Unseen (OUP 2006), in which his concept of 'structural intuitions' is explored.

I have been trying to get Professor Kemp to talk to us for a number of years, so I am looking forward to this meeting.

Date:

Tuesday 18th September

Title:

Is RNA the new DNA?

Speaker:

Peter Meyer

Description:

In June this year The Economist ran an editorial entitled ‘Biology’s Big Bang’. It concerned recent research into RNA – the so-called ‘messenger molecule’ between DNA and the cells. The editorial compared the new results on RNA to the discovery of the neutron in atomic theory – a discovery which was critical to the understanding of the nucleus and the subsequent development of the atomic bomb.

However the description of DNA by Crick and Watson in 1953 was hailed by many as the idea underpinning all of biology, and it led ultimately to the quest for the human genome and the sequencing of other plant and animal genomes. But is DNA the key to biology or is RNA the new key – because it seems to be able to switch genes off and on in developing plants and animals and is at the centre of the evo/devo controversy (which used to be nature/nurture)?

Or is there no real key? Has a combination of the media, commercial and political interests and lazy thinking led to the received wisdom that our lives depend on the sequence of genes we are born with, and the CGAT sequences within the genes?

Peter Meyer, Professor of Plant Genetics at Leeds University, will address these questions and the importance of the new findings on RNA.

 

Date:

Tuesday October 16th

Title:

The Mathematical Symbol e

Speaker:

Richard Elwes, mathematician and science writer.

Description:

The number known as e has been cropping up in a bewildering variety of contexts since its discovery over three hundred years ago. It's vital in fields from computer science to epidemiology, the law of compound interest to the inner structure of a nautilus shell and Bach’s well-tempered scale to the art of M.C. Escher. To mathematics, its importance cannot be overestimated. In particular, e is key to unravelling a fundamental question about the nature of numbers.

 Transcendental numbers are confusing objects that lie at the far end of the spectrum from the more familiar whole numbers. After 150 years of study, much about them remains mysterious and most efforts to make sense of them centre on e, itself transcendental. In the 1960s, Stephen Schanuel made a huge conjecture about e, which, if proved, would settle hundreds of outstanding questions in transcendental number theory and beyond.

We'll (gently!) discuss recent evidence from the world of mathematical logic that Schanuel's conjecture may indeed be true. In a surprising twist, this turns out to have intriguing consequences for our efforts to understand the quantum universe.

Date:

Tuesday November 20th

Title:

Science and Religion - Dissent over Descent

Speaker:

Steve Fuller

Description:

Steve Fuller adopts a revisionist theory of Intelligent Design. Instead of seeing at as the modern and respectable face of Christian fundamentalism he argues, from a historical perspective, that Intelligent Design was responsible for the 17th Century Scientific Revolution and has helped to build modern histories of physics, mathematics, genetics and social science. This confident, even arrogant, view of humanity has enabled the West to triumph in the modern era.

Steve Fuller is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick.

Date:

Tuesday January 22nd

Title:

Academics, science and the drug industry - leaving patients blowing in the wind

Speaker:

Aubrey Blumsohn

Description:

Aubrey Blumsohn will discuss important ethical issues arising from the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and universities. Who has ownership of, and rights of access to, data? How accountable for the final results are all the authors of scientific papers? Is it possible to ‘spin’ the results of scientific experiments and data so that they look more acceptable? How ethical are the drugs regulators? How independent are medical journals? And where does this leave the patient?

Date:

Tuesday February 5th

Title:

The Science of Sleep

Speaker:

Jim Horne (Sleep Research Centre)

Description:

ZZZZZZZZ ZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Wake up! It’s not another geneticist hypnotizing you with repeated references to RNA, DNA, ACG and T, etc.

This is The Science of Sleep – not the dream sequence film, but a look at how and why we sleep.  Have you ever fallen asleep unexpectedly (theatre, cinema, bath, etc)?  How does it change you if you don’t get a 'good night’s sleep'?  Have you ever seen a car swerve on the road and wondered if the driver’s eyelids may have closed for longer than a blink? Sleep  'knits up the ravelled sleeve of care', said Macbeth as he reached his low point and we all know that things can look better in the morning.  Surely there must be more to sleep than the idea that being tired makes you feel bad and being well rested makes you feel good.

The Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University is the place where sleep is studied in detail. Prof. Jim Horne heads up the SRC and is the author of Sleepfaring, a book about naps, snoozes and insomnia.  He has also appeared on Radio 4’s Today programme.

NB – the organisers can confirm that the event will finish in good time for everyone to get home for a full eight hours.

 

Date:

Tuesday March 4th

Title:

Dissent over descent: evolution's war on Intelligent Design

Speaker:

Steve Fuller

Description:

Steve Fuller adopts a revisionist theory of Intelligent Design. Instead of seeing at as the modern and respectable face of Christian fundamentalism he argues, from a historical perspective, that Intelligent Design was responsible for the seventeenth-century Scientific Revolution and has helped to build modern histories of physics, mathematics, genetics and social science. This confident, even arrogant, view of humanity has enabled the West to triumph in the modern era.

Steve Fuller is Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick.

Date:

Tuesday 6th May

Title:

Ants, Bees and Altruism

Speaker:

Francis Ratnieks, Sussex University

Description:

Altruism is defined as an action that, on average, decreases the lifetime direct fitness of an actor and benefits one or more recipients. The altruism of insect workers has puzzled researchers for decades. Altruism in nature is nowhere seen as plainly as in insect societies, in which the workers sacrifice most or all of their direct reproduction to help rear the queen’s offspring. How did natural selection, which normally favours increased reproduction, cause individuals to help others at a cost to their own reproduction? This is a controversial topic which has recently caused a public argument between Richard Dawkins and E.O. Wilson.

Inclusive fitness theory suggests that high relatedness has been key in promoting such altruism. Recent theory, however, indicates that the intermediate levels of relatedness found within insect societies are too low to directly cause the extreme altruism observed in many species. Instead, recent results show that workers are frequently coerced into acting altruistically. Hence, the altruism seen in many modern-day insect societies is not voluntary but enforced. Prof. Ratnieks will also discuss the role of coercion in promoting altruism and cooperation in other social systems, such as vertebrate and human societies.

Francis is Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at Sussex University.

Date:

Tuesday 17th June

Title:

Will we ever discover the origin of language?

Speaker:

Gregory Radick, Leeds University

Description:

In the early 1890s, the theory of evolution gained an unexpected ally: the Edison phonograph. An amateur scientist used the new machine—one of the technological wonders of the age—to record monkey calls that he then played back to the monkeys while watching their reactions. From these soon-famous experiments he judged that he had discovered 'the simian tongue', made up of words he could translate, and containing the rudiments from which human language evolved.

In the early 1980s, a team of ethologists announced that experimental playback showed certain African monkeys to have rudimentarily meaningful calls.  

Greg's recent book, The Simian Tongue, charts the scientific controversies over the evolution of language from Darwin’s day to our own.

 

 

Date:

Tuesday 15th July

Title:

Is there evidence for psychotherapy or not?

Speaker:

Larry Brownstein

Description:

Is psychotherapy science or religion?

Psychotherapy is in the news once again.  And the news as usual is either unbalanced or insufficiently critical.  An old question concerning whether psychotherapy is scientific or not has been raised again though the context is slightly different.  Some behaviour therapies claim almost universal utility and that they are the only scientific therapy in town.  Do the data support them? 

Neuropsychology is making substantial inroads into our understanding of brain function, particularly the discovery of mirror neurons but does this make for greater understanding of psychological functioning as some maintain?  Is the medical model an appropriate one for psychotherapy? 

The assessment of psychotherapy as a treatment regimen is both complicated and multi-faceted.  It is not quite as straightforward a matter as has been claimed.  And some of its assessment procedures are quite different from those found in the natural sciences.

Date:

Tuesday November 4th

Title:

Eating disorders

Speaker:

Lisa Rudkin

Description:

 

Date:

Tuesday December 2nd

Title:

Geo-engineering the planet: can seeding clouds counter global warming?

Speaker:

Alan Gadian

Description:

The Royal Society recently launched a study to investigate whether planetary scale geo-engineering schemes may be an effective way of countering global warming, arguing that major intervention is necessary because of political failure to address emissions reductions. Alan Gadian is a member of a team that has advocated using cloud seeding techniques to stabilise the increase in the planet's mean temperature. Extensive low-level maritime clouds would be seeded by small seawater droplets and result in increased albedo, sufficient to produce a cooling effect that would compensate for the warming produced by a doubling of atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide. The seeding would be done by a fleet of wind-driven ships traversing the oceans. He will discuss the science behind the concept and how it might be put into practice.

Date:

Tuesday 27th January

This meeting will take place at Chapel Allerton Methodist Church, Town Street

Title:

Hunger

Speaker:

Raymond Tallis

Description:

Understanding hunger is the key to understanding ourselves. Even first-level biological hunger is experienced differently in humans and little in human feeding behaviour has any parallel in the animal kingdom. Out of our primary appetites arise a myriad of pleasures and tastes that are elaborated in second level hedonistic hungers, creating new values. The art of living is the art of managing our hungers.

Date:

Tuesday 24th February

Title:

Evolution and Gender

Speaker:

Corry Gellatly

Description:

We all know how babies are made …but what are the odds of having a boy?  50-50? The moment any child is born we know whether it is a girl or a boy.  Anyone who has had a child since the recession before last will know that the sex of a child can be determined on an ultrasound scan at 12 weeks, but of course the embryo is already either male or female when it is an unrecognizable cluster of cells. 

What factors make it more likely that a bunch of flowers – stay for a coffee – failure of contraception will result in a baby boy 9 months later rather than a baby girl?  Why do some couples have more boy children, and others more girls?  Why are there clusters of boys born at certain times?  Does evolution have any effect on whether more children are girls than boys?

Dr Corry Gellatly of the Evolutionary Biology Group at Newcastle University has been studying the possible genetic reasons that explain why a particular baby is more likely to be a girl, or why a population may be full of boy babies.  He will also be seeking views on the controversial issue of gender selection.

Come along to Café Scientifique to hear Dr Gellatly talk about evolution and what might skew the odds on the next child born into your family being a girl or boy.

 

Date:

Wednesday 18th March

Title:

Antimatter

Speaker:

Frank Close

Description:

Of all the mind-bending discoveries of physics--quarks, black holes, strange attractors, curved space--the existence of antimatter is one of the most bizarre. It is also one of the most difficult, literally and figuratively, to grasp. Frank Close explores this strange mirror world, where particles have identical yet opposite properties to those that make up the familiar matter we encounter everyday, where left becomes right, positive becomes negative, and where--should matter and antimatter meet--the resulting flash of blinding energy would make even thermonuclear explosions look feeble by comparison. Antimatter is an idea long beloved of science-fiction writers--but here, renowned science writer Frank Close shows that the reality of antimatter is even more intriguing than the fiction. We know that at one time antimatter and matter existed in perfect counterbalance, and that antimatter then perpetrated a vanishing act on a cosmic scale that remains one of the great mysteries of the universe. Today, antimatter does not exist normally, at least on Earth, but we know that it is real, as scientists are now able to make small pieces of it in particle accelerators, such as that at CERN in Geneva

Date:

Tuesday 24th March

Title:

Science - a 4,000 year history

Speaker:

Patricia Fara

Description:

Patricia Fara rewrites science's past to provide new ways of understanding and questioning our modern technological society. Aiming not just to provide information but to make people think, she explores how science has become so powerful by describing the financial interests and imperial ambitions behind its success. Instead of focussing on esoteric experiments and abstract theories, she explains how science belongs to the practical world of war, politics and business. And rather than glorifying scientists as idealized heroes, she tells true stories about real people--men (and some women) who needed to earn their living, who made mistakes, and who trampled down their rivals. Finally she challenges scientific supremacy itself, arguing that science is successful not because it is always indubitably right, but because people have said that it is right. Science dominates modern life, but perhaps the globe will be better off by limiting science's powers and undoing some of its effects.

Date:

Monday May 18th

Title:

Science and Society – Match or Mismatch

Speaker:

Andrew Nelson

Description:

is an understatement to say that science and technology are impacting both positively and negatively more than ever today.  Issues such as global warming, environmental pollution, public health and many others are in the forefront of the agenda and hotly discussed.   But how can we manage this debate in the best possible interest of mankind?  How do we improve the communication between the scientists and technologists and the public to avoid some of the disasters and scares which we have experienced over the last fifty years or so?  This café will detail the nature of the interface between science and the people and how it has maintained itself up to now. A few case studies will be described with all their too familiar outcomes. At the end of the session we hope to come up with some ideas of how an  improvement in the way such communication can be implemented.

Date:

Monday June 22nd

Title:

Ida – New Light on Palaeontology

Speaker:

Martin Whyte

Description:

‘Ida’ is a cat-size skeleton from Germany which made the Google Home Page on May 20th and was the subject of a BBC documentary. At present it is being shown in museums round the world, being described as ‘finding the Holy Grail for Palaeontologists’ and ‘the first link to humans’. It was illegally dug out of a pit near Frankfurt in 1983 and sold to a private collector who hung it on the wall of his home. In 2006 he offered it to the Natural History Museum in Oslo for $1 million. Oslo bought it and then secretly investigated it for 2 years before publishing on an online journal on May 19th this year and simultaneously making a documentary. Now the claims that Ida is a missing link are being disputed and the fossil is the subject of much controversy.

Is this what palaeontology is like – secrecy, illegal mining, high-cost buying, media interest and bold claims? Dr. Martin Whyte is a paleo-environmentalist from Sheffield University and his own interests are dinosaur footprints and dinosaur eggs. If you want to know what palaeontology is like, come along on June 22nd.

**The meeting will take place in a new location – Suburban Style Bar, 5 Stainbeck Lane, Chapel Allerton. If you come, go in, buy a drink at the bar and then go up the stairs on the left. Meeting begins at 8pm.  

 

Date:

Monday July 13th

Title:

Big questions in ecology and evolution

Speaker:

David Wilkinson

Description:

‘Big Questions’ is the title of a new book and David Wilkinson is one of the two authors. The book explores the relationship between ecology and evolution by asking simple questions which have deep implications for both subject areas. Some of the questions are ‘Why do we age?’, ‘Why is the land green (instead of being overgrazed by expanding populations of herbivores)?’, ‘Why is the sea blue (as opposed to being thick with plants, as most terrestrial habitats are)?’, ‘Why does life not consist of a single species?’. The answers to these questions sometimes produce surprising ideas and information.

**The meeting will take place in a new location **

8pm, upstairs at the Queens Arms, 201 Harrogate Road, Chapel Allerton.

Date:

Monday October 5th

Title:

Who needs science communication?

Speaker:

Graeme Gooday

Description:

There is a lot of science communication about nowadays, and it is increasingly taught by universities too. But who is it really for, and what is it meant to achieve?  Does the public really "need" to know more about science? Or is it more that scientists need it to ensure that their research can still flourish in an increasingly challenging socio-economic climate? Insofar as the public does need to know more about science, does it actually get the kind of science communication it  deserves? Is it ever legitimate, for example, to present new scientific projects as essential to preserve humankind from apocalypse, or as destined to free us from bodily infirmity? This talk will explore these questions, and suggest that maybe we've been here before...

Date:

Monday 15th February 2010

Title:

Alice’s Secrets in Wonderland

Speaker:

Melanie Bayley

Description:

What would Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ be without he Cheshire Cat, the trial, the Duchess’s baby or The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party? These famous characters are missing from the original story the author told Alice Liddell and her two sisters during a boat trip near Oxford. What inspired these later additions?

‘Lewis Carroll’ was Charles Dodgson, a stubbornly conservative mathematician at Oxford. He valued Euclid’s ‘Elements’ as the epitome of mathematical thinking, starting with a few axioms and building complex arguments through simple, logical steps in geometry and trigonometry. But the 19th century was a turbulent time for mathematics with new concepts like imaginary numbers, symbolic logic, projective geometry and quaternions. For Dodgson this was all ‘semi-colloquial’ and therefore parodied in Alice – hence the Cheshire Cat, the Duchess’s baby and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party – each one a critique of the new mathematics. This is a new analysis of Alice, originated by Melanie Bayley, a PhD student from Oxford.

http://theculturevulture.co.uk/blog/?p=490

Date:

Monday 1st March 2010

Title:

What happened in Copenhagen?

Speaker:

Simon Lewis

Description:

Science + Politics x Denmark = Chaos.

Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change states that its goal is to ‘prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system’.  Understanding how human actions change the climate system, and the impacts of these changes on people and their life-support systems is a role for science, whereas deciding what is dangerous (to whom?), and how to avoid it (at what cost?), is within the realm of politics. This logical mix of science and politics had led to much confusion. The 15th UN meeting on climate change was no exception, despite unprecedented media scrutiny.

Dr Simon Lewis is a Royal Society research fellow at the Earth & Biosphere Institute, University of Leeds, and an expert in the role of tropical forests in the changing Earth system.  He was in Copenhagen to advise a central African government and took time out of science to get involved in the negotiations. He will give a brief summary of how we got to Copenhagen via the IPCC and CRU email hack and what the outcome of the UN talks might mean.

 
 

Date:

Monday March 15th

Title:

Synthetic Biology – A Brave New World?

Speaker:

Dr Bruce Turnbull

Description:

Imagine a world in which we could make fuels or pharmaceuticals in the same way we ferment malt to make beer.  A world in which materials as strong as steel are made without industrial waste, or artificial viruses can be used to administer anti-cancer drugs without the usual side-effects of chemotherapy. Synthetic biology promises new technologies that could change our lives through the construction of new biological parts and devices, and the redesign of existing biological organisms for new purposes.

So, how can we redesign living organisms to perform useful functions? Are we on the point of creating artificial life in a laboratory?  Dr Bruce Turnbull, a synthetic chemical biologist from the University of Leeds will provide an overview of synthetic biology – the possibilities, practicalities, perils and potential profits.

Date:

May 17th 2010

Title:

The Birth, Life and Death of Stars

Speaker:

Paul Ruffle

Description:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are!" How often did we sing that as a child without realising what we were asking? Well, with the aid of some of the latest astronomical images, the wonder of what stars are is revealed in this presentation that includes: how stars form in clouds of molecular gas and dust scattered about in the interstellar medium (ISM) of our Milky Way galaxy; how they then evolve and synthesise the elements that make life possible; and how at the end of their lives, they return this material to the ISM for the next generation of stars, either as red giants and planetary nebulae or more catastrophically as exploding supernovae. The speaker also provides a feel for the sheer number of stars in the Milky Way, the enormous distance scales in our Galaxy and the range of densities encountered, from the most tenuous parts of the ISM to the compact cores of the most massive stars.

Paul Ruffle is a visiting research fellow in the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at The University of Manchester and the Astrophysics Research Centre at Queen's University Belfast.

 

Date:

Monday June 7th

Title:

GM crops: real benefits, real concerns?

Speaker:

Howard Atkinson and Peter Unwin, Centre for Plant Sciences, University of Leeds

Description:

Over 1 billion people are chronically hungry including 30% of all Africans and we need 50% more food to be produced within 20 years to feed the growing world population. We have little more land available globally for productive cropping and the yield from some agricultural land may fall. There are several key questions we must address:

Can GM crops help feed the world and what are the real limitations to ensuring food security?

  • What are the risks for us and the environment?

  • Are the concerns real and can they be managed?

  • Is this science irrelevant to European needs?

  • How would being a hungry African rather than a well fed European alter your viewpoint?

Scientists have a duty to listen to the concerns of society while meeting the challenge of providing new, beneficial crops that are safe to eat and ensure a healthy    environment. Surely UK science must contribute to assuring future food security for all.

Date:

Monday July 19th

Title:

The Roots of Language

Speaker:

Katie Slocombe

Description:

Katie spoke at a recent conference in Holland about the evolution of language. Her previous and current work focuses on chimpanzee vocal communication and, in particular, the extent to which our closest living relatives can use calls to refer to objects and events in the external environment and the psychological mechanisms underlying call production. This behavioural work is conducted with both wild and captive populations of chimpanzees.

The debate about language seems to be moving quickly. Whereas some years ago Chomsky’s theory of language seemed universal, there is now debate about the relation between gestures and the spoken word, and also about the relative importance of animals or birds in the development of human language.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Modified  23-07-2010                                                                                                                 Home