Lunch Hour Lectures - Autumn 2012 - Audio

Did the Classic Maya really predict the end of the world on 21 December 2012? What caused them to record a date that would occur over a thousand years into their future? This lecture will review a variety of apocalyptic prophecies, specially the one for this year, in the light of scientific research into the formation, development and eventual destruction of entire solar systems, including ours.

We live in an era of abundant data, and more data is being opened up to the world every day. More and more of us are handing over detailed personal and location data via social media and smartphones. How can researchers use this data to model and understand the way our cities and societies work? What do physics and maths have to offer? And how can we use this data to improve people’s lives?

What is it about exile that inspires photography? This talk explores the earliest known exile photography, created in the studio formed by Victor Hugo’s family and friends in their exile on the Channel Island of Jersey between 1852 and 1855. In these years, the Hugo group turned exile into a photographic project, and in doing so, they transformed the history of photography.

In the nineteenth century, mainstream medical opinion suggested that abstaining from alcohol was a health risk. The advent of insurance policies for abstainers helped to chip away at this certainty, as well as encouraging policyholders to think about their health. This lecture will discuss how, by the start of the twentieth century, the medical profession had begun to do very well out of insurance, despite the ambiguities of assessing drink-related problems.

What does ‘sustainable energy for all’ mean? How much energy, ‘sustainable’ over what period, and who are the ‘all’? If this ambitious goal is achievable, then how can it be done, and by when? And who will pay for achieving it? To mark the UN International Year of Sustainable Energy for all, this lecture explores the environmental, economic, and social issues raised by these questions and the implications for public policy.

Alzheimer’s disease affects an estimated 400,000 people in the UK – that number will double over coming decades without treatments to delay or prevent disease. We are now able to ‘see’ the earliest brain changes of Alzheimer’s disease, which can appear years before first symptoms, opening up the possibility of presymptomatic trials. With serial imaging and videos of patients and at-risk individuals this lecture considers the potential and problems for such trials.

What is it about exile that inspires photography? This talk explores the earliest known exile photography, created in the studio formed by Victor Hugo’s family and friends in their exile on the Channel Island of Jersey between 1852 and 1855. In these years, the Hugo group turned exile into a photographic project, and in doing so, they transformed the history of photography.

For centuries, scientists have sought help from artistic practice as a visual aid. This lecture will explore case studies from the 18th to the 21st century, to show that artists have often participated in the growth of scientific knowledge by disturbing and questioning concepts that scientists take for granted. Would current artist in residence programmes benefit from adopting a more sustained critical role, in light of this history?

Is slavery confined to the past? Sadly not. Instances of grave labour exploitation exist in present-day Europe and elsewhere. This lecture will discuss abuses of labour conditions suffered by domestic workers, victims of trafficking and others. It will explain why their situation is akin to slavery, and will set out the steps that have been taken in law to protect the human rights of these workers.

There will be over a billion prescription items dispensed in England in 2012, costing the NHS over £9bn. Most of these will be for patients with chronic conditions, yet we know that perhaps up to half of these patients will not take their medicine as prescribed. This lecture explores some of the reasons behind this, and outlines the development of a new NHS service to help patients with their medication.

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is using proton-proton collisions to explore physics at higher energies than ever before. This is the region where the weak and electromagnetic forces unify, where mass originates, and where a new particle – looking very much like the Higgs boson – has just been found. The talk will give an account of the discovery and an update on progress since.

The Abelam people of Papua New Guinea are known for their elaborate initiation ceremonies. While these are no longer performed, the Abelam nevertheless continue to cultivate, decorate and display massive yam tubers, reaching up to 10 feet in length. Globalisation has deeply transformed local customs, yet this phenomenon, mixing agricultural techniques, rituals and magic, has maintained its relevance. This lecture will outline how non-western representations of society can, surprisingly, take the shape of very long yams.

In the 100 years since Scott's expedition to Antarctica, we have redefined the way we explore the physical world. Parallel advances in our understanding of the human body have allowed us to extend human exploration across the globe on into the endless frontier of space. But with the space shuttle fleet now in retirement, the question for this new century is what have we learnt and how should we continue ‘to boldly go?’

What role did individual Black and Asian actors play in the changing artistic, social, cultural and political scenes that emerged in inter-War London? Dr Bressey’s current research project examines the archives of art collections as well as personal papers, autobiographies and memoirs to recover the lives of Black and Asian men and women who worked as artists and artists models in London between 1919 and 1939.

Snails are beautiful and decorative animals, with many species marked by patterns on the shell that differ from one individual to another. But why? Prof Jones has spent forty years trying to find out. It might seem a trivial question but it is at the heart of genetics: why is there inherited diversity in almost every creature? The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is also hinted at by some of our greatest artists.