Past Talks

The After Life Professor Clive Gamble, University of Southampton

Abstract Abstract Imagination makes us human and immortal. It allows us to roam into deep-time and to navigate the future. Everything is possible in places that can be experienced but never visited, and in this respect the after-life is just one imagined geography among many. All these geographies share the property of ‘going beyond’ where the life of the individual is extended across space and time.

Friday, March 09, 2012
17:30 - 18:30
LMH, Lady Mitchell Hall [Further Details]

Artificial Life Professor Chris Bishop, University of Cambridge

Abstract Abstract Living organisms are extraordinary, with capabilities far exceeding any present-day technology. This talk will explore the quest to create artificial systems which exhibit some of those capabilities, and will thereby highlight the deep connections between two seemingly disparate disciplines: biology and computer science.

Friday, March 02, 2012
17:30 - 18:30
LMH, Lady Mitchell Hall [Further Details]

Life and Death of a Cell Professor Ron Laskey, University of Cambridge

Abstract Abstract Each of us starts life as a single cell, a fertilized egg, which divides repeatedly to form the hundred trillion cells that make up the adult human body. This poses extraordinary logistical problems. How do we produce the right numbers of blood cells and nerve cells, to give just two examples from many? More remarkably, how do we maintain the right number when blood cells are continuously replaced, yet nerve cells are not?

Friday, February 24, 2012
17:30 - 18:30
LMH, Lady Mitchell Hall [Further Details]

Life in Conflict Dr Mark de Rond, University of Cambridge

Abstract Abstract Using original photographs and film footage from his fieldwork with deployed military surgical teams in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, Dr de Rond explores the lived experience of conflict in the world's bloodiest war hospital. He will argue that the sources of conflict are not restricted to a hospital's perimeters, but endemic to teams of high performers, including surgical teams.

Friday, February 17, 2012
17:30 - 18:30
LMH, Lady Mitchell Hall [Further Details]

Life in the Ancient World Dr Michael Scott, University of Cambridge

Abstract Abstract It’s a question we have always been asking: what was life like in the ancient world? But just as interesting and important is a slightly different one: how have we, over the past centuries, chosen to examine and answer that question? This lecture will focus on the changing attitudes to telling the story of the ancient past, and particularly the weird and wonderful world of ancient Greece.

Friday, February 10, 2012
17:30 - 18:30
LMH, Lady Mitchell Hall [Further Details]

The Spark of Life Professor Frances Ashcroft, University of Oxford

Abstract Biography Professor Frances Ashcroft FRS was educated at Cambridge University. She is currently a Royal Society Research Professor in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and Director of OXION, a training and research programme on the integrative physiology of ion channels (tiny membrane pores important for the function of all cells).

Friday, February 03, 2012
17:30 - 18:30
LMH, Lady Mitchell Hall [Further Details]

Life in Ruins Dr Robert Macfarlane, University of Cambridge

Abstract Abstract After 'the destruction of Nineveh', warns the Book of Zephaniah, ‘the desert owl and the screech owl shall lodge on its capitals, the raven croak on its thresholds’. For millennia, writers and artists have been fascinated by ruins, and in particular by the return of nature following human abandonment. This lecture explores the cultural history of ‘ruinism’, and the counterfactual visions in modern art and literature of how nature might thrive in a world without us – of life in ruins.

Friday, January 27, 2012
17:30 - 18:30
LMH, Lady Mitchell Hall [Further Details]

From Genomes to the Diversity of Life Professor Michael Akam, University of Cambridge

Abstract Abstract Publication of the human genome sequence in 2001 represented the culmination of a multi-million dollar international effort. But since then, the cost of sequencing DNA has fallen more than 10,000 fold, and it is now possible to sequence the genomes of organisms representing the great diversity of life on earth. Already, complete genome sequences are available for animals as diverse as sea anemones and centipedes, as well as for literally thousands of different bacteria and other microorganisms.

Friday, January 20, 2012
17:30 - 18:30
LMH, Lady Mitchell Hall [Further Details]

The Science and Beauty of Nebulae Dr Carolin Crawford, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge

Abstract Biography Dr Carolin Crawford is an astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge, and a Fellow of Emmanuel College. Her research focuses on the properties of the most massive galaxies in the Universe, using data collected from the largest ground-based and space telescopes. Carolin combines her research and teaching with her other passion - communicating her love of astronomy to as wide an audience as possible.

Friday, March 11, 2011
17:30 - 18:30
LMH, Lady Mitchell Hall [Further Details]

Terror by Beauty: Russo-Soviet perspectives Professor Evgeny A Dobrenko, University of Sheffield

Abstract Biography Evgeny Dobrenko is Professor and Head of the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies of the University of Sheffield. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of twenty books, and has published more than 250 articles and essays on Soviet cultural and intellectual history, literature, film, visual arts, architecture, photography, media and music, Socialist Realism, and critical theory, which have been translated into eight languages.

Friday, March 04, 2011
17:30 - 18:30
LMH, Lady Mitchell Hall [Further Details]