|
NEW - download a write-up of previous events:
Date:
|
Monday 13th
September |
| Title: |
'Fusion power: safe, clean and limitless energy for future
generations?'
|
Speaker:
|
Michael Loughlin |
| Description: |
Nuclear fusion has great potential as a, non-polluting
and safe energy source. There are, however, huge technical challenges
which must be met before we can harness this potential. Nuclear
physicist Michael Loughlin, who has worked for more than two decades in
fusion research, will explain what nuclear fusion is and how it will be
used to generate electricity.
Come along and see whether fusion really does promise to
solve our problems of energy supply and environmental impact.
|
Date:
|
Monday 11th
October |
| Title: |
'The
Big Bang: what is it and do we believe it?'
|
Speaker:
|
Simon Singh |
| Description: |
What is the Big Bang, who came up with the idea and why do we believe in
it? Simon Singh tells the story of the Big Bang theory, from its birth
in the 1920s to the observational evidence that backed it and then
clinched it. As well as discussing the development of the Big Bang
theory, Simon will also discuss 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 is just about to publish "Big Bang", the story behind one of the
most important theories in the history of science. His website is at
www.simonsingh.net
|
Date:
|
Monday 8th
November |
| Title: |
'Nanotechnology:
what is it and why should I care?'
|
Speaker:
|
Anthony Walton |
| Description: |
Nanotechnology, which is simply the exploitation of extremely small (sub
100nm) structures, has been in use for over a hundred years. The technology
is now commonplace in diverse products from cosmetics to computers.
Recently, as governments and companies have been investing billions in
nanotechnology, there has been a corresponding bloom of media scare stories
which have seriously threatened public confidence in this growing industry.
Professor Anthony Walton will explain what nanotechnology actually is, why
things so small are so useful and why most of the media scares are
unjustified.
|
Date:
|
Monday 13th
December |
| Title: |
'Obesity:
fat chance of progress?'
|
Speaker:
|
Jonathon Seckl |
| Description: |
Obesity is described as an
epidemic in our society. Well technically perhaps not, but there is a lot of
fat about these days. Some question whether we should treat people for the
outcome of their (mal)adaptive eating behaviour? In this session, Prof
Jonathan Seckl will discuss obesity, its nature, causes and consequences and
how medical scientists are beginning to come up with a better understanding
of what we might do to remedy this big issue.
|
Date:
|
Monday 10th
January 2005 |
| Title: |
'MMR:
Science and Fiction'
|
Speaker:
|
Richard Horton |
| Description: |
The
controversy surrounding the MMR vaccine has inflicted deep wounds in our
public life. Scientists and doctors have pitted themselves one against
another. Parental distrust in medicine has become acute. Families have been
divided. This rancour has propelled MMR out of science and into politics.
But there has been a collective failure to conduct a reasoned debate about
an issue of vital public interest. This failure is now being repeated not
only for new vaccines (such as the 5-in-1 jab) but also for almost all new
scientific issues that bear directly on public health (eg, nanotechnology).
What has gone wrong? How can we construct a culture that tolerates, even
welcomes, dissent but values rational discussion? What are the implications
of the MMR affair for the health of our children - and for children
suffering the threat of infectious diseases in some of the poorest parts of
the world today? In short, what can we reclaim from the ashes of this
tragic breakdown in trust? The answers to these questions require nothing
less than a complete re-evaluation of science in modern society.
|
Date:
|
February 10th
Valentine' specials |
| Venue: |
The Oxygen
Bar, 3 Infirmary St, Edinburgh
|
| Title: |
'The Science of Love'
|
Speaker:
|
Gareth Leng
and Dr Craig Roberts
|
| Description: |
What is love?
What can scientists tell us about it? Come and spend an evening discussing
this most enigmatic of human behaviours. Who knows, you might even pick up
some tips for a successful Valentine's Day!
|
Date:
|
March 14th |
| Venue: |
The Oxygen
Bar, 3 Infirmary St, Edinburgh
|
| Title: |
'Can we really control the
climate and do we want to'
|
Speaker:
|
Prof Stephen Salter
|
| Description: |
Professor
Stephen Salter will talk about an exciting new approach to tackle the
problem of climate change. By changing the properties of clouds, he thinks
we can reflect more sunlight and limit global warming. Furthermore, this
could be achieved even without reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Come
along and ponder this potential solution to this massive issue.
|
Date:
|
April 11th |
| Venue: |
Filmhouse
Cinema Bar, Lothian Road,
|
| Title: |
'Is
the first 1000-year-old already in middle age?'
|
Speaker:
|
Dr Aubrey de Grey |
Description:
|
Aubrey de
Grey wants to develop a cure for human aging. He believes the fundamental
knowledge necessary to develop truly effective anti-aging medicine mostly
exists, but the impetus is not there in the scientific community and society
at large to make it happen. He will discuss the current and foreseeable
biology of mammalian (and specifically human) life extension and the
sociological, ethical and political ramifications of success in seriously
postponing aging and age-related disease.
|
Date:
|
May 9th 830pm |
| Venue: |
Filmhouse
Cinema Bar, Lothian Road
|
| Title: |
'Relativity
and the Specialness of Now'
|
Speaker:
|
Dr John Kennedy |
| Description: |
One of
the first consequences of Einstein's ruminations on time and relativity is
that the concept of now has no singular meaning. The relativity of
simultaneity, absent in Newton's theory, means that what events count as
simultaneous with any given event happening here right now -- now, as I snap
my fingers - becomes an observer dependent notion. But surely this is in
conflict with many of our intuitions about reality. Is it not that events,
objects, and persons which exist now are special, in that they have a
privileged ontological status over the things which existed in the past?
But how can that be, if what is now for us is the past for someone else?
Isn't reality the same for all of us? And where does it leave determinism?
Albert Einstein thought that the theory of relativity meant that the past,
present and future were all on a par with respect to reality. Dr John
Kennedy, of University of Manchester and author of 'Space, Time and
Einstein' begs to differ. Walking us through the Minkowski four-space that
is the arena for events in relativity, and discussing what we might mean by
'reality' in physics and in life, Dr. Kennedy will argue that in fact the
present can be said to sustain its privilage over the past and its
ontological specialness, while staying faithful to the formal consequences
of Einstein's theory.
This is
the first of three Albert Einstein-themed Café Scientifique meetings of the
year, to coincide with the Institute of Physics' 'Einstein Year' and the
International Year of Physics.
|
Date:
|
June 13th 830pm |
| Venue: |
Filmhouse
Cinema Bar, Lothian Road
|
| Title: |
'The
New Renaissance in Mathematical Science'
|
Speaker:
|
Dr
Andrew Green |
| Description: |
The
renaissance was a special time in the history of intellectual thought; a
time when individuals could expect to understand the full range of current
ideas from art to science and from engineering to philosophy. The story of
science since this time has been one of ever increasing specialization.
This is
an exciting time for mathematical scientists. A new subtlety in the way in
which mathematics is applied to the world has emerged, which has opened up
new disciplines to mathematical analysis. Once again, it is possible for
mathematical scientists to be renaissance men and women with careers
spanning areas as diverse as cellular biology, information theory, finance
and economics, theoretical physics, and ecology.
Andrew
Green will discuss these ideas from the perspective of a theoretical
physicist, using examples from a range of disciplines to illustrate the
nature of this new connectivity in science.
|
Date:
|
July 6th 730pm |
| Venue: |
Filmhouse
Cinema Bar, Lothian Road
|
| Title: |
'Tissue
engineering and biomaterials: making the bionic man'
|
Speaker:
|
Professor Steve Howdle, University of
Nottingham and Professor Paul O’Brien, University of Manchester
|
| Description: |
Imagine implanting biodegradable polymers to
generate or repair human organs; using flexible plastic electronic
newspapers every morning to download the daily news; and living and working
in smart buildings with nano-coatings that are able to regulate temperature
and lighting automatically.
How will advances in materials change the
way we live over the next century? Scientists are developing smarter
materials that can respond to their environments and new electronic
materials are set to change the size and type of electronic products we use.
Advances are coming out of the exciting field of nanotechnology but are also
being inspired by replicating how biological materials are formed. More
importantly new materials will improve energy efficiency and greener methods
will make processing and synthesis cleaner and greener.
Come and find out more about the materials
of the future and discuss the shape of things to come…
|
Date:
|
Monday 12th December |
| Title: |
'Avian Flu: how worried should we be?'
|
Speaker:
|
Bob Dalziel and Sheila Burns |
| Description: |
Bob Dalziel, a
research virologist, will provide an introduction to what flu viruses are
and how they affect us. Sheila Burns, a consultant virologist for the NHS,
will deal with the more clinical and public health aspects of bird flu. We
hope to have brief talks followed by both speakers taking questions.
Chaired by Philipp
Wesche.
|
Date:
|
Monday
16th January 2006 |
| Title: |
A cold winter: climate change in the UK
|
Speaker:
|
TBC |
| Description: |
|
Date:
|
Monday 13th March |
| Title: |
Genes, patents and the law |
Speaker:
|
Paul Chapman
and Gerard Porter |
| Description: |
The
patenting of genes is controversial. Gene patents are needed to protect
investment in research - but should genes remain unpatentable products of
nature? Do patents on DNA make the human body a commodity? Rapid advances in
genetics pose difficult ethical questions, and patent law seems to struggle
to keep up with the pace of change.
In this
Cafe Scientifique, patent attorney Paul Chapman will describe current patent
law practice and explain why and how genes are 'patentable'. Gerard Porter,
research associate at the University of Nottingham, will outline the history
of patent law in relation to biology and kick-start a discussion on the
consequences of gene patents for industry, health care services and the
freedom of academic research. Come and join in with the discussion.
Chaired
by Dr Jenny Bangham. |
|
Date:
|
SUNDAY 18th
JUNE, 6 - 9pm
Venue:
Ocean Bar & Grill – First Floor, Ocean Terminal, Ocean Drive, Leith,
Edinburgh, EH6 6JJ |
| Title: |
Ships of the Ice |
Speakers:
|
Geoff Swinney
ARSGS, Royal Museum Edinburgh
Captain Nick
Lambert, CO, HMS Endurance
Brian Kelly,
RRS Discovery Dundee
|
|
Description: |
How do
modern ships of the ice compare to those of the earlier explorers? What
were, and are, the challenges of moving around Antarctica?
|
|
Date: |
Monday 18th
September |
|
Title: |
HIV: still a fatal infection |
|
Speaker: |
Gordon Scott |
|
Description: |
With current
drug/treatment regimes in the western world becoming increasingly effective
at 'controlling' HIV infection in sufferers, should it still be regarded
with fear and trepidation? Conversely, how and why was this 'controllable'
disease able to kill 2.8 million people last year? |
|
Date: |
Monday 16th
October |
|
Title: |
Sleep - do we need it? |
|
Speaker: |
Chris
Idzikowski |
|
Date: |
Monday 13th
November |
|
Title: |
Killer viruses - threats & risks
Download a
poster for this cafe (jpg) |
|
Speaker: |
John
Fazakerly |
|
Date: |
Monday 11th
December |
|
Title: |
Childhood IQ and its impact on adult life
Download a
poster for this cafe (jpg) |
|
Speaker: |
Ian Deary |
|
Date: |
Monday 29th January |
|
Title: |
Shedding light on dark matter |
|
Speaker: |
|
|
Date: |
Monday 12th March |
|
Title: |
Living in a time of plague
- the emergence of infectious diseases and its relation to how we interact
with our environment |
|
Speaker: |
Mark Woolhouse |
|
Date: |
Monday 26th March |
|
Title: |
Communicating natural disasters with
scientific content |
|
Speaker: |
This event, co-organised with the BA, will focus on how
information about natural disasters with a scientific content is
communicated to the public. The speakers will look
at examples such as
bird flu and tsunamis/earthquakes. However as with every Cafe Scientifique,
the subsequent discussion session is likely to cover numerous different
examples, dictated by the audience!
|
|
Date: |
Monday 10th September |
|
Title: |
Barcoding Life |
|
Speaker: |
Peter
Hollingsworth (RBGE)
Taxonomy - the
science of naming and classifying life - has been based on physical form, or
how things look. Three hundred years after the birth of Linnaeus we are now
bringing DNA technologies to the taxonomist's toolkit.
Is this a threat or an opportunity for Linnaean taxonomy, and how should the
science of taxonomy evolve? |
|
Date: |
Monday 12th November |
|
Title: |
Climate Change
Download a poster for this cafe
here
(jpg) |
|
Speaker: |
Simon Tett,
Gabi Hegerl & Mary Elliot (School of Geosciences, Edinburgh University)
The recent Intergovermental
panel on climate change (IPCC) recently concluded that:
• Warming of the
climate system is unequivocal…
• … that the
warmth of the last half century is unusual in at least the previous
1,300 years.
• Most of the
observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th
century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic
greenhouse gas concentrations.
• Continued
greenhouse gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further
warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the
21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during
the twentieth century.
To assess how abnormal is
this modern ‘human induced’ change in our climate system, we compare
recent climatic trends with geological evidence for past climate change.
This evidence shows that the Earth’s climate has always changed due both
to external drivers, such as changes in the energy from the sun, the
orbit of the Earth and to internal drivers, such as instabilities of
large continental ice sheets. We will discuss climatic variations on
geologic timescale and over the last few centuries and explain the
unusual changes in the recent climate and how future climates might
change. We will demonstrate why we think human activities have changed
the climate and how the Earth’s climate might change in response to
anthropogenic increases in greenhouse gases.
|
|
Date: |
Monday 17th December
|
|
Title: |
Holes,
Hefalumps and Pooh: why we need good forensic science |
|
Speaker: |
Allan Jamieson, Director of the Edinburgh Forensic Institute
'The difficulty is to detach the
framework of fact - of absolute, undeniable fact - from the
embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established
ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to see what inferences
may be drawn, and which are the special points upon which the whole
mystery turns.' Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of Silver Blaze: The
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The forensic scientific expert
carries a heavy responsibility to interpret physical evidence for the
jury. Without unnecessarily compromising the accuracy of what is
reported the expert must provide helpful impartial explanations. It is
imperative that, as with the chain of evidential custody, there is a
clear continuity from scientific theories and facts to the
interpretation of evidence and the explanation of this interpretation to
the jury.
This presentation will explore how
the scientist can minimise the risk of serious errors and the
consequences for the profession, the system and the accused.
|
|
Date: |
Monday 14th January
|
|
Title: |
No job for a
gentleman? |
|
Speaker: |
Felicity Henderson,
Historian for the Royal Society
The Royal Society has shaped the course of Science and framed our
view of Scientists. The myth of its foundation in 1660 is of a club
for noble gentlemen, driven by amateur curiosity about the natural
world. This is exemplified by Robert Boyle- son of the Earl of Cork
- who epitomised the wealthy, disinterested, unworldly
experimentalist. For some, this contrasts with the present, where
such amateur passions have been sullied by worldly and commercial
concerns.
The records of the Royal Society present a different picture. The
early Society was closely involved with mercantile affairs,
particularly the East India Company and the Royal African Company
and some of the most active fellows were merchants and tradesmen.
Fellows were keen to develop money-making schemes including
marketing local mineral waters, patenting improvements to coaches
and growing new crops, such as potatoes.
The notion of the scientist changed rapidly. By the 1700s,
scientists were ridiculed for investigating fleas and worms or
weighing air – scientific investigations were seen as worthless and
beneath the dignity of gentlemen. One of the few Fellows to be a
paid scientist was Robert Hooke and some have argued that he was
looked down upon by more gentlemanly Fellows.
What lessons can be drawn from this founding period of the Royal
Society? What is the purpose of Science and how should it be funded?
What is the difference between amateur and professional scientists?
Felicity will use a range of examples from the historic records to
highlight these and other questions.
|
|
Date: |
Monday 18th February |
|
Title: |
Why robots
will never rule the world
Download a write-up of this event (pdf)
here |
|
Speaker: |
Chris Malcolm,
School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
It is
sometimes suggested that there is a dangerous possibility that computers
or robots or some unholy combination thereof might become so much
cleverer than us that they would take over the world, by force if
necessary. Moore's Law, by which computers become twice as powerful
every 18 months or so, is often cited in support of this.
I will
explain what more is required than computer power, plus the brake on
Moore's First Law which is provided by his little known Second Law, plus
the important differences between biological and machine evolution which
have given us such a large and decisive advantage over our creations.
|
|
Date: |
Monday 10th March |
|
Title: |
Braneland: a
romance of many dimensions |
|
Speaker: |
Hannu Rajaniemi,
ThinkTank Mathematics
A
recent ambitious attempt to formulate a Theory of Everything -
string theory - suggests that some of Edwin Abbot's ideas may have
been remarkably prescient. Tiny higher dimensions could be lurking
in the world of high-energy particle physics. Or perhaps we are not
that different from Mr Square: some physicists suggest that we are
stuck on a Flatland-like slice - a brane - inside a much larger and
stranger Universe...
I
will discuss the emerging understanding of the relationship between
physics and higher-dimensional geometry and give some pointers on
living in Braneland.
|
|
Date: |
Monday 14th April |
|
Title: |
The great game
- looking for extra-terrestrial intelligence |
|
Speaker: |
Alan Penny,
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews
Forty-seven years of searching for radio emissions from advanced
civilisations has found nothing.
The
searches are getting much more powerful and it seems more and more
likely that there are other Earths like our own but the Fermi
Paradox and the Anthropic Principle may point to us being alone. We
still have no way of telling if our searching has any realistic
chance of success.
Should
the search be called off, or should it be intensified? Alan Penny
will argue that conditions are now right for Britain to join in.
Dr Alan
Penny is an Honorary Reader in the School of Physics and Astronomy
at St Andrews, where he teaches a graduate course on The science of
SETI in the SUPA (Scottish Universities Physics Alliance) graduate
school. He spent two years at the SETI Institute in California,
working as a Principal Investigator on a planet-hunting programme.
Alan is currently contributing to efforts to get Britain involved in
SETI.
|
|
Date: |
Thursday 8th May
2008, 7.00pm
Venue: Edinburgh
Camera Obscura, Castlehill, The Royal Mile
Please note
change of date and time for this special event |
|
Title: |
Moving Objects With Light |
|
Speaker: |
Will Hossack,
School of Physics, University of Edinburgh
SPECIAL EVENT: Edinburgh Café Sci at the Camera Obscura
As this first Edinburgh Café Scientifique special event we will be holding
an evening at the Camera Obscura. This is a brilliant opportunity to get
free entry into the Camera Obscura, hear a great talk on the power of
lasers, and enjoy a drink and hopefully some nice Edinburgh weather on the
roof terrace!
Lasers have been in common scientific and technological use for almost 50
years but still remain the source of surprising physical phenomena. We
find that if a laser beam is very tightly focused, it has the fascinating
ability to trap objects at its focus. If we then move the beam we can
manipulate objects entirely by light. This phenomenon is relatively easily
demonstrable with modest lasers and optical systems and can be used to trap
small objects, including biological cells, under a conventional high
resolution microscope allowing a new range of analyses to be undertaken. |
|
Date: |
Monday 9th
June |
|
Title: |
Synaesthesia: tasty coloured touchy-smelling
sounds |
|
Speaker: |
Julia Simner, University of
Edinburgh
For people with synaesthesia, everyday activities such as
reading, listening to music, etc. give rise to extra-ordinary experiences of
colour, tastes and more. For example, smelling food may trigger the
experience of touch against the hand or reading words give rise to the
perceptual experience of taste in the mouth. Other common variants include
'grapheme-colour synaesthesia' in which letters and numbers trigger
sensations of colour, or 'visuo-spatial synaesthesia' in which time
sequences (e.g., months, days) are seen in specific shapes or patterns in
space.
Synaesthesia has a known family transmission pattern, and has
been traced to increased structural connectivity in the brains of
synaesthetes. In this talk Julia will describe her work examining the
cognitive and developmental basis of synaesthesia, and what the phenomenon
might tell us about the functioning of perception, memory and language more
generally. |
|
Date: |
Monday 28th July |
|
Title: |
Copenhagen: the science behind the play |
|
Speaker: |
Marialuisa
Aliotta, University of
Edinburgh
At this year's Edinburgh Fringe
Festival, Poimandres Productions presents Michael Frayn's 'Copenhagen', a
play about truth, uncertainty and the struggle for humanity. In the summer
of 1941 physicist Werner Heisenberg visited his old Danish mentor, Niels
Bohr, in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen. Before the war their famous partnership
gave birth to quantum physics.
Now they are on opposite sides
and their science has spawned a terrible new possibility.
A study of science, war and
humanity - Dr Marialuisa Aliotta will be examining some of the crucial
scientific concepts behind Michael Frayn's play, and taking questions on the
main themes and theories.
Download a
poster for this event
here (jpg - 6MB)
This Edinburgh Café Scientifique
event anticipates Michael Frayn's Copenhagen at Spotlites @ The Merchants'
Hall (31st July – 2nd August, 8.15pm). 33% discount for Café Scientifique
members. Quote cs81 at the Box Office (0131 220 5911) for £5 tickets. |
|
Date: |
Monday 11th August |
|
Title: |
The animals and ourselves |
|
Speaker: |
Aubrey Manning
After a few
words outlining the interlocking histories of humans and our fellow
creatures, Aubrey will discuss some developments in the study of instinct
and intellect in animals. He'll try to steer a path between the hard-line
which would see a great chasm between us and the rest and those who readily
accept common threads of mind and consciousness. He says "this is an active
field of research and there's plenty of conflict with good points being
scored on both sides. My conclusion is full of doubts but I cannot repress
a feeling that we all too readily tend to underestimate animals".
Aubrey Manning is recognised as one of the country's leading authorities on
animal behaviour. He was professor of natural history at The University of
Edinburgh from 1973-1997 and is now Emeritus Professor.
Aubrey has presented BBC TV documentaries including Talking landscapes,
Earth story and Seven natural wonders of the south, as well
the Radio 4 series The sound of life and The rules of life. |
|
Date: |
Monday 25th August |
|
Title: |
Breakneck Science
How
to break the speed limit whilst face down on a tea tray without brakes: the
science of Skeleton Bobsleigh |
|
Speaker: |
Iain
Roberts, School of Engineering,
Edinburgh University
Iain Roberts has dreamt of the Olympic Games for
the last 16 years.
Now, two years out, he finds himself in a great
position for the Skeleton Bobsleigh at the 2010 Winter Olympics. The pursuit
of this goal has led to major research of the equipment that could give the
vital edge to clutch a medal position.
In his talk he will embrace all aspects of the
sport: not only the scientific challenges faced in making the sled faster
without the competition getting wind of it, but also the personal, mental
and physical battles involved to compete at international level, travelling
the world on the minimum wage and living in a camper van. |
|
Date: |
Monday 15th September |
|
Title: |
Weather Forecasting: The Past,
Present & Future |
|
Speaker: |
Alex Hill,
Met Office Chief Government Advisor for Scotland & N. Ireland
The Past
- Weather impacts in history, how weather has shaped the history and
development of the UK. A brief outline of the development of the
science of Meteorology from the Tower of the Winds to the Second World
War.
The
Present - There is almost nothing you do in a modern industrial
society that weather and climate doesn't influence. Where we are now,
how we do what we do and why what we do is crucial.
The
Future - The impacts of human induced global warming and how to
assess them. How we model the world.
|
|
Date: |
Tuesday 28th April 2009 Time: 7-9pm
Royal
Observatory, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh |
|
Title: |
Exoplanets : what do we already know?
Habitability: finding life on other worlds |
|
Speaker: |
Ken Rice and Duncan Forgan, Institute for
Astronomy
The second
special evening event for Edinburgh café sci. We are going to the Royal
Observatory on Blackford Hill, where Ken and Duncan will be telling us what
we already know about exoplanets and whether we might ever find life on
other worlds.
The Royal
Observatory is kindly letting us use their gallery area so if it's a clear
night, we should get some good views of the stars!
As always, café sci events are free and open to anyone but due to space
limits, we can take only fifty guests at this event. If you wish to attend,
please email
Laura. The
50 spaces will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.
Ken: To
date we have detected in excess of 300 planets around stars other than our
Sun. These planets are commonly known as exoplanets or extrasolar
planets. Some of the properties of these planets are surprising when
compared with the planets in our own Solar System. These properties have led
us to reconsider how planets form and evolve. I will briefly touch on
currents views of planet formation and evolution and finish by discussing
also how we detect exoplanets and the prospects for detecting Earth-like
planets in the not too distant future.
Duncan:
Planet hunters are homing in on the Holy Grail of exoplanets: an Earth-like
planet which may harbour life. But what do we mean by Earth-like? What is
so distinctive about planet Earth that we search for its analogue? Should we
even be looking for Earth-like planets to find extraterrestrial life? I will
attempt to
answer these questions (as well as any others you can think of!), and show
that the search for aliens (thanks to the field of astrobiology) is in the
realm of legitimate science. |
|
Date: |
Monday the 24th August |
|
Title: |
Virtual spaces for Education and
Collaboration |
|
Speaker: |
Austin Tate |
|
Description: |
An introduction to second life and how it is already being
used by the University of Edinburgh to aid collaboration and improve
research. Second life is an online 3-D universe that allows individuals to
live out -
virtually - dreams, hopes, ambitions and sometimes fall in love. Professor
Austin Tate will add yet another dimension to this universe: it's use in
education, research and collaboration.
Second Life
and other emerging massive on-line persistent 3-D virtual world environments
are set to follow the 2-D web as an essential element of future computing
systems and are becoming more widely used
in education, scientific collaboration and a range of other applications.
Our speaker, Austin Tate, Director of the Artificial Intelligent
Applications Institute in the School of Informatics at the University
of Edinburgh, and his virtual worlds counterpart 'Ai Austin', will introduce
work at the Virtual University of Edinburgh - Vue - and describe what some
University projects are doing in the Vue regions in Second Life. He will
open up a discussion on how virtual environments are being used for
research, collaboration and teamwork, especially in
his own area of interest in improved emergency response.
http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~bat/
http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/
Please spread the word about the talk, and feel free to print out the poster
and hang it around your institute. Also note that the talk will start at 9,
not 8.30. This is due to the Fringe Festival making the Filmhouse bar a bit
busier than usual. |
|
Date: |
12th October 2009 |
|
Title: |
Deadly Companions: How Microbes
Shaped Our History?
|
|
Speaker: |
Dorothy H Crawford |
|
Description: |
Ever since we started huddling together in communities, the
story of human history has been inextricably entwined with the story of
microbes. They have evolved and spread amongst us, shaping our culture
through infection, disease, and pandemic. At the same time, our changing
human culture has itself influenced the evolutionary path of microbes.
Dorothy H. Crawford here shows that one cannot be truly understood without
the other. Beginning with a dramatic account of the SARS pandemic at the
start of the 21st century, she takes us back in time to follow the
interlinked history of microbes and man, taking an up-to-date look at
ancient plagues and epidemics, and identifying key changes in the way humans
have lived - such as our move from hunter-gatherer to farmer to city-dweller
- which made us vulnerable to microbe attack. Showing how we live our lives
today - with increasing crowding and air travel - puts us once again at
risk, Crawford asks whether we might ever conquer microbes completely, or
whether we need to take a more microbe-centric view of the world.
Among the possible answers, one thing becomes clear: that for
generations to come, our deadly companions will continue to shape human
history.
Dorothy H Crawford is a Professor of Medical Microbiology and
Assistant Principal for Public
Understanding of Medicine |
|
Date: |
26th November 2009 7pm - 830pm |
|
Title: |
Special Event - Cloning its many uses |
|
Speaker: |
William Ritchie (Bill) |
|
Location: |
Edinburgh Zoo, Mansion House - Gillespie
Suite |
|
Description: |
Bill Ritchie, founder of Roslin Embryology looks at his
past and future work into animal cloning techniques. Bill
started micromanipulation in the late 1980's and produced his first
cloned animals in the early 90's cloning lambs using disaggregated 16
cell sheep embryos. He is best known as the embryologist who, with a team
of experts, produced the first cloned lambs from cultured cells, Morag and
Megan. The following year he and his colleagues produced Dolly the first
cloned animal from an adult cell. More recently he produced the first cloned
animal with a gene knocked out. This proved the principal that disease genes
could be deleted from animals. This principal has the potential to minimise
the risk of devastating disease in the future. We hope you will join us for
what promises to be a highly entertaining and lively discussion into the
world of cloning.Ticketing: Due to space limitation
this event will be by guest list only. Please email Laura Pollitt at
cafe.sci.edinburgh@googlemail.com to
request your free place. |
|
Date: |
Monday 8th February 2010 |
|
Title: |
What should governments do with scientific
advice? |
|
Speaker: |
Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland
|
|
Description: |
Scotland is a
hotbed of science, engineering and technology. It leads the world in many
areas and has much to contribute to global health, wealth and wellbeing. So
what role does science have in
shaping what governments do?
We hear much
about evidence-based policy making. How is evidence collected to
inform policy, when and how is it used? Would the electorate feel
comfortable if scientific evidence were the only basis on which policy was
constructed? Would that make the policy more robust than if it were based
on the philosophy of a political party or popular opinion?
If scientific
evidence were used in this way, would that be a threat to democracy, as
those providing the evidence have not been elected and don't have any
responsibilities to the electorate?
Against a
background of talking about some of the
wonderful science that is going on around us, Anne hopes the discussion can
address some of these issues and explore how science, engineering and
technology can make a better Scotland and a better world. |
|
Date: |
Monday 8th March 2010 |
|
Title: |
The dark side of the
universe: when light doesn't travel in straight lines |
|
Speaker: |
Richard Massey |
|
Description: |
Most of the Universe is made of mysterious
"dark matter" and "dark energy". Both ingredients are invisible - which
makes life difficult for astronomers - but we are beginning to get the first
picture of what they are. They give themselves away by bending light around
them, a characteristic effect first predicted by Albert Einstein. Richard
will describe how Arthur Eddington's 1919 observations of an African solar
eclipse demonstrated this effect and proved the general theory of
relativity. He will discuss a return expedition to celebrate the anniversary
last year and how the latest observations from the Hubble Space Telescope
are revealing the dark side of the Universe everywhere around us. |
|
Date: |
Monday 10th May |
|
Title: |
Beauty and the beast:
sleeping sickness parasites and why I love them |
|
Speaker: |
Keith Matthews |
|
Description: |
In the world of parasites, African
trypanosomes are the masters of haute couture. Despite swimming
freely in our bloodstream, these deadly parasites are able to avoid our
immune defences by an elegant strategy: they constantly disguise themselves
by changing the proteins that make up their surface coat. In fact, their
wardrobe is almost inexhaustible- by rearranging their genes, they can
tailor new surface coats and so stay constantly ahead of the antibodies that
we raise against them. This ability to survive in our blood for long periods
gives them the advantage that they increase their chances of being spread to
a new host. This happens when they are ingested in the blood meal of a
tsetse fly, biting flies restricted to sub-Saharan Africa.
How the trypanosome parasites get ready to travel is just as complicated
as our own airport security checks and ensures that only those parasites
with the right permissions get cleared for take-off. In this talk, Keith
will discuss both the beautiful and beastly sides of trypanosomes and how we
can go about stopping them or, at least, disrupting their travel plans. |
|
Date: |
Monday 19th
July 2010 |
|
Title: |
Moving and shaking: the brain in movement |
|
Speaker: |
Mayank
Dutia |
|
Description: |
Whether it’s the World Cup or Wimbledon, there’s something fascinating about
highly skilled movement. While relatively few of us achieve such high levels
of skill, we are all able to learn remarkably complex movements. We move
around and manipulate objects to do useful things, but often also learn
motor skills just for sheer pleasure, as in sport or dance. In this talk I
will discuss how the brain learns and remembers skilled movements, and how
this reveals much about us and the way we store and use information about
the real world around us. Understanding how the brain learns movement gives
us means to help people with movement disorders or disabilities, and the
ability to use biologically-inspired ideas in building robots that can learn
in a similar way. |
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