Dr Mark Sergeant, Nottingham Trent University. Monday 01 February 2010 19:00 The Showroom
The last 30 years has seen an explosion of research into the biological basis of male homosexuality.
Historically, much research focused on the effects of upbringing and childrearing on the development of an individual's sexual orientation. More recent research, however, has focused on areas such as molecular genetics, neuroanatomy and endocrinology in a bid to fine out what makes someone gay.
This talk will review research findings on this area, and discuss the ethical implications of such findings. Dr Mark Sergeant is a lecturer in Psychology at Nottingham Trent University.
His PhD studies focused on the evolution of male homosexuality. He has lectured extensively on the topic and is an active research in the field of sexual science
Sheffield Café Scientifique
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Sunday, 8 November 2009
December Cafe: The genes that regulate intelligence.
For December we are delighted to welcome Dr Tony Payton. (Monday 07 Dec at 1900 at The Showroom) Identifying the risk factors for individual differences in age-related cognitive ability and decline is amongst the greatest challenges facing the healthcare of older people. Cognitive impairment caused by “normal ageing” is a major contributor towards overall intellectual deficit in the elderly and a process that exhibits substantial variation within the population. Both cognitive ability and its decline with age are influenced by our both our genes and the environment with interaction between the two. Over the past fourteen years genetic research has aimed to identify the genetic variation responsible for high cognitive functioning and successful cognitive ageing. During this period a bewildering array of contrasting reports have appeared in the literature that have implicated over 50 genes with effect sizes ranging from 0.1 to 21 per cent. This talk will discuss the progress that’s been made in the field and the benefits and pitfalls of discovering genes that regulate intelligence.
Thursday, 8 October 2009
November Café: Mass extinctions and volcanism by Paul Wignall
All major crises of life in the past 300 million years coincide with large scale volcanic eruptions.
This includes the two biggest mass extinctions of all time: the end-Cretaceous and end-Permian events.
The reasons behind this coincidence have not been clear but geologists have generally thought that it is related to the effects of two of the principal volcanic gases, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide.
These have diametrically opposed climatic effects, the former causes long-term global warming and the latter causes short-term cooling due to formation of clouds of volcanic aerosols.
The talk will look at some of the latest research which shows that some mass extinction events coincide with huge individual eruptions - involving up a thousand cubic kilometres of lava. Event Page: http://www.sciencecafesheffield.org/200911.htm
This includes the two biggest mass extinctions of all time: the end-Cretaceous and end-Permian events.
The reasons behind this coincidence have not been clear but geologists have generally thought that it is related to the effects of two of the principal volcanic gases, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide.
These have diametrically opposed climatic effects, the former causes long-term global warming and the latter causes short-term cooling due to formation of clouds of volcanic aerosols.
The talk will look at some of the latest research which shows that some mass extinction events coincide with huge individual eruptions - involving up a thousand cubic kilometres of lava. Event Page: http://www.sciencecafesheffield.org/200911.htm
Monday, 14 September 2009
October Café: Processing Human Language by Computer: Advances and Challenges, by Rob Gaizauskas
In his landmark 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", Alan Turing proposed conversation as the ultimate test of machine intelligence: if we cannot distinguish a computer from a human in conversation then we may deem the computer intelligent. Turing also speculated that computers would achieve this capability by the year 2000.
2000 has now come and gone, and despite the phenomenal advances in computing since 1950, the "Turing Test" has not yet been passed. Why not? And what have computer scientists, computational linguists and artificial intelligence researchers been up to in the interim in order to get computers to "understand" human language?
In this talk I will discuss just what it is that makes human language so difficult for computers to interpret and describe some of the approaches that researchers have taken to address this problem. While the holy grail of human-like language understanding remains illusive, significant advances have been made, advances that are leading to a improved language processing capabilities embedded in applications ranging from question answering and text mining to machine translation, task-based dialogue systems and plagiarism detection.
2000 has now come and gone, and despite the phenomenal advances in computing since 1950, the "Turing Test" has not yet been passed. Why not? And what have computer scientists, computational linguists and artificial intelligence researchers been up to in the interim in order to get computers to "understand" human language?
In this talk I will discuss just what it is that makes human language so difficult for computers to interpret and describe some of the approaches that researchers have taken to address this problem. While the holy grail of human-like language understanding remains illusive, significant advances have been made, advances that are leading to a improved language processing capabilities embedded in applications ranging from question answering and text mining to machine translation, task-based dialogue systems and plagiarism detection.
More>>
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Thursday, 27 August 2009
We're back!
Sorry about the few months of silence.
We have a new programme of events kicking off in OCTOBER:
The next Café event will be at 7.00 pm on Monday 5th October in the Cafe/Bar area of the Showroom Cinema.The speaker will be Prof Rob Gaizauskas speaking on computer linguistics.
November: Paul Wignall.
December : Dr Tony Payton on latest developments in genomic research.
We have a new programme of events kicking off in OCTOBER:
The next Café event will be at 7.00 pm on Monday 5th October in the Cafe/Bar area of the Showroom Cinema.The speaker will be Prof Rob Gaizauskas speaking on computer linguistics.
November: Paul Wignall.
December : Dr Tony Payton on latest developments in genomic research.
Friday, 22 May 2009
'Power' is not about resources; it's about sex', Steve Moxon
'Power' is assumed to be about resources, exercised by men over women as well as by men over other men. But this misunderstands the biology of dominance, which is same-sex, serving not to apportion resources more efficiently by minimising conflict, but to create competition so as to apportion reproduction. To understand society, our conception of 'power' needs radical revision. Steve Moxon has published a provocatively titled book, 'The Woman Racket: The new science explaining how the sexes relate at work, at play and in society - http://www.imprint-academic.com/moxon. A scientific essay on dominance is to be an editorial in the journal, Medical Hypotheses, and he publishes his own occasional and challenging blog - stevemoxon.blogspot.com.
Monday, 1st June at 7pm in the bar of The Showroom
Monday, 1st June at 7pm in the bar of The Showroom
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Big Science for Big Questions: the race to find New Physics at the Large Hadron Collider
Monday, 11th May at 7pm in the bar of The Showroom
On 10th September 2008 seemingly the whole world was watching as the largest machine on the planet, the 27km circumference Large Hadron Collider, was coaxed into life 100m under Geneva. This mammoth project has been 15 years in the making, and despite the early engineering glitch it promises to revolutionise our understanding of how the universe works at the smallest and largest scales, answering questions ranging from how particles acquire mass to why galaxies rotate as fast as they do.
In his presentation Professor Tovey will give a whistle-stop tour of the LHC and the giant experiments which observe its collisions; outline the motivations behind their construction; and highlight the key role in the project played by Sheffield scientists.
Café Scientifique is sponsored by LloydsTSB
Dan Tovey Professor of Particle Physics,
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Sheffield
On 10th September 2008 seemingly the whole world was watching as the largest machine on the planet, the 27km circumference Large Hadron Collider, was coaxed into life 100m under Geneva. This mammoth project has been 15 years in the making, and despite the early engineering glitch it promises to revolutionise our understanding of how the universe works at the smallest and largest scales, answering questions ranging from how particles acquire mass to why galaxies rotate as fast as they do.
In his presentation Professor Tovey will give a whistle-stop tour of the LHC and the giant experiments which observe its collisions; outline the motivations behind their construction; and highlight the key role in the project played by Sheffield scientists.
Café Scientifique is sponsored by LloydsTSB
Dan Tovey Professor of Particle Physics,
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University of Sheffield
Sunday, 26 April 2009
emotional responses to music in film
Dr Nicola Dibben, the University of Sheffield
‘Chills, thrills and other feeling states: Understanding emotional responses to music in film soundtracks.’
For many people music elicits strong emotional experiences, and film soundtracks often exploit that potential, whether it be to heighten an effect of suspense and terror, as in the shower scene of the film Psycho, or of love and romance, as in Brief Encounter. Musicians have developed the ability to evoke emotions through a folk psychology of musical techniques, many of the clichés of which can be heard in film music. But why do these techniques work (and why do they sometimes fail?). The talk will explore the way in which affective response to music is dependent on psycho-biological mechanisms for expectation, illustrated with clips from films, and data drawn from experimental research. The talk illustrates the way in which affective experience of music is shaped both by culture and biology.
Dr Nicola Dibben is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Sheffield where her research and teaching focuses on the relationship between music, mind and culture.
She has over 40 publications spanning music cognition and emotion, textual analysis of popular music, gender and identity, and critical and cultural theory. She is editor of the journal Popular Music and has two books forthcoming: Björk (Equinox Press, 2009) and Music and Mind in Everyday Life (Oxford University Press).
‘Chills, thrills and other feeling states: Understanding emotional responses to music in film soundtracks.’
For many people music elicits strong emotional experiences, and film soundtracks often exploit that potential, whether it be to heighten an effect of suspense and terror, as in the shower scene of the film Psycho, or of love and romance, as in Brief Encounter. Musicians have developed the ability to evoke emotions through a folk psychology of musical techniques, many of the clichés of which can be heard in film music. But why do these techniques work (and why do they sometimes fail?). The talk will explore the way in which affective response to music is dependent on psycho-biological mechanisms for expectation, illustrated with clips from films, and data drawn from experimental research. The talk illustrates the way in which affective experience of music is shaped both by culture and biology.
Dr Nicola Dibben is a Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Sheffield where her research and teaching focuses on the relationship between music, mind and culture.
She has over 40 publications spanning music cognition and emotion, textual analysis of popular music, gender and identity, and critical and cultural theory. She is editor of the journal Popular Music and has two books forthcoming: Björk (Equinox Press, 2009) and Music and Mind in Everyday Life (Oxford University Press).
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
April Cafe: Nothing is Certain: Understanding Randomness, Unpredictability and Uncertainty
Keith Worden [Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sheffield]
Monday 06 April 2009 at 19:00 The Showroom
Engineering relies increasingly on computer modelling of systems and structures. Because of the expense of prototypes for testing, modelling offers clear economic advantages. However, this may not be as reliable as one would wish, because of uncertainty in the physics being modelled. This may be due to the inherent randomness or unpredictability of nature or may be a result of ignorance. Even if physics is deterministic, predictability can be lost – as in Chaos Theory, where the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can appear to have catastrophic consequences. Uncertainty also commonly arises in living organisms, e.g. the behaviour of human tissue depends on highly uncertain material properties; this will be illustrated by reference to models of heart valves and ‘shaken baby’ syndrome.
Monday 06 April 2009 at 19:00 The Showroom
Engineering relies increasingly on computer modelling of systems and structures. Because of the expense of prototypes for testing, modelling offers clear economic advantages. However, this may not be as reliable as one would wish, because of uncertainty in the physics being modelled. This may be due to the inherent randomness or unpredictability of nature or may be a result of ignorance. Even if physics is deterministic, predictability can be lost – as in Chaos Theory, where the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings can appear to have catastrophic consequences. Uncertainty also commonly arises in living organisms, e.g. the behaviour of human tissue depends on highly uncertain material properties; this will be illustrated by reference to models of heart valves and ‘shaken baby’ syndrome.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
How to be Creative
Cafe Scientifique, the Arts-Science network and the ESRC present:
How to be Creative
Thursday, 12th March 2009, 7 - 9 pm,
the Showroom Bar
As part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science, we are hosting a special event on creativity in the sciences, the social sciences and the arts. Two physical scientists, a psychologist and an artistic director/performer will draw on their research and personal experiences to share their insights and tips on how to be creative. This is an opportunity for Cafe Scientifique guests to interact with the disciplinary specialists on where, how and whether they are creative! With a mix of stories, studies, discussion and creative activities, this session is set to be a Cafe with a difference!
How to be Creative
Thursday, 12th March 2009, 7 - 9 pm,
the Showroom Bar
As part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science, we are hosting a special event on creativity in the sciences, the social sciences and the arts. Two physical scientists, a psychologist and an artistic director/performer will draw on their research and personal experiences to share their insights and tips on how to be creative. This is an opportunity for Cafe Scientifique guests to interact with the disciplinary specialists on where, how and whether they are creative! With a mix of stories, studies, discussion and creative activities, this session is set to be a Cafe with a difference!
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