Video: Dr Richard Henderson: Using electron microscopy to understand the molecules of life - Honorary Fellows Lecture

Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry Dr Richard Henderson gives our Honorary Fellows Lecture: Using electron microscopy to understand the molecules of life. 

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Image:A V Hill Lecture - Kings and Queens of the Mountain: Studies of Extreme Physiology in Himalayan Sherpas

23 November
2020

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A V Hill Lecture - Kings and Queens of the Mountain: Studies of Extreme Physiology in Himalayan Sherpas

Dr Andrew Murray, Reader in Metabolic Physiology from the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience discusses the body’s responses to altitude and considers the different evolutionary strategies adopted by Sherpas and other high-altitude dwelling people.

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03

02

To Bend or to Break?  — new views on the hardening of metals

Professor Lindsay Greer

  • 18:00 - 19:00 Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre Lent Term G.I. Taylor Lecture

Kipling’s “Iron‒Cold Iron‒is master of them all” captures the familiar importance of metals as structural materials.  Yet common metals are not necessarily hard; they can become so when deformed.  This phenomenon, strain hardening, was first explained by G. I. Taylor in 1934.  Ninety years on from this pioneering work on dislocation theory, we explore the deformation of metals when dislocations do not exist, that is when the metals are non-crystalline.  These amorphous metals have record-breaking combinations of properties.  They behave very differently from the metals that Taylor studied, but we do find phenomena for which his work (in a dramatically different context) is directly relevant.

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17

02

Why there’s no such thing as “the” scientific advice

Professor Stephen John

  • 18:00 - 19:00 Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre Lent Term

During the Covid-19 pandemic, U.K. policy-makers claimed to be "following the science". Many commentators objected that the government did not live up to this aim. Others worried that policy-makers ought not blindly "follow" science, because this involves an abdication of responsibility. In this talk, I consider a third, even more fundamental concern: that there is no such thing as "the" science. Drawing on the case of adolescent vaccination against Covid-19, I argue that the best that any scientific advisory group can do is to offer a partial perspective on reality. In turn, this has important implications for how we think about science and politics. 

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