Thursday 21st June 2018 at FIRSTSITE

In conjunction with Clean Air Colchester

Around 40,000 deaths each year, in the UK, are attributable to outdoor air pollution, including over 140 in Colchester. The economic cost of outdoor air pollution is around £20 billion a year. Despite emissions from motor vehicles falling by 12% from 2012 to 2016 Britain remains in breach of European limits for nitrogen oxides in 16 cities. This talk by Professor Ian Colbeck from the School of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, will consider ways cities around the world are tackling air pollution.

It will also address such questions as:

Can air pollution negate the health benefits of cycling and walking?

Are shampoos and deodorant a bigger source of air pollution than vehicle exhausts?

Do trees really help clean the air in our cities?

9th May 2018

Free Will

Should we choose to believe in it?

What is free will? Does free will exist and if it does, do we all have it all of the time? If we don’t have it, should we pretend that we do? The answers to these questions have big implications for how we, as fundamentally social beings, understand ourselves and promote pro-social, moral behaviour. This talk by Peter Gooding from the Department of Psychology at the University of Essex will look at competing understandings of what free will is and evaluate its existence using current empirical evidence. We will examine research that seeks to experimentally undermine peoples’ belief in free will in order to study the impact on peoples’ moral attitudes and behaviours. This talk will draw upon experimental findings, contemporary debates and some personal opinions. These are big complex questions with few firm answers. So let’s have fun chewing it over!

11th April 2018

A Decade of Health Changes & the Impact on the NHS

Health policy for 70 years has been problematic from the start of the NHS in 1948. It quickly became very popular and the funding became a problem even then, hence the introduction of prescription charges in the early 1950’s. Since then it has been a rollercoaster, with each successive policy asking for different goals to be achieved. The change has also been more of a focus on patients and their needs, rather than the needs of the NHS and the clinicians, which is as it should be. NHS management has vacillated between clinical and bureaucratic management with few winners on either side! The Mid Staffs enquiry certainly highlighted many issues with funding and care delivery, and as a result clinical practice and health professionals’ education has and will change. Mrs Sherrie Green, Lecturer at School of Health and Social Care from the University of Essex will be presenting this talk.

14th March 2018

Beware nanoparticles!

Impact of human-made nanoparticles on coastal systems

Minute they may be, around billionth of a meter, but due to their unique properties nanoparticles are now produced in large quantities to be added to numerous consumer products such as clothing and sunscreens. And this is where the dangers may arise. These products release nanoparticles in water where they might be toxic for natural systems, especially for coasts where nanoparticles tend to accumulate. Dr Claire Passarelli, Researcher at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Essex, will talk about the threat of nanoparticles in coastal systems which, as areas of human recreation, food and oxygen production, are vital to our health and well being. Highlighting their impact on local organisms and the functioning of coastal systems. Dr Passarelli will assess the dangers from nanoparticles to the environment and us.

14th February 2018

From Thirsty Crows to Cognitive Robots

Unlike traditional applications of robotics in industry, this talk will explore how robots are also valuable tools to understand how the brain works. While trying to make our robots act intelligently in a complex unstructured world, engineers are attempting to solve the same problem that the brain solves to make us act intelligently in similar situations! In this context, Dr Vishwanathan Mohan from the University of Essex will summarize what happens when playful experiments related to “learning, reasoning, and creativity” originally conducted on human infants, crows, chimps are re-enacted on robots. Ongoing work to deploy cognitive robots (or Cobots) in several sectors like Elderly Care, ManufacTuring and Agriculture among others will be briefly described.

10th January 2018

From the Womb to the World

How babies and children learn to understand themselves and others

We constantly feel, see and move our body, and have no doubt that is our own. But imagine not having control over your bodily movements or not being able to recognise that the face you see in front of a mirror is your own face. Without a sense of self, we would not be able to perform actions or interact with other people. Based on recent studies carried out at the Essex Babylab, you will hear about how even the first movements babies make in the womb are related to the development of infant personality. How do we develop the ability to sense that our body belongs to us? What other factors contribute to determining baby’s temperament? Join us for this presentation by Dr Maria Laura Filippetti and Dr Silvia Rigato from the Department of Psychology at the University of Essex.

13th December 2017

Physical and Social Pain in the Brain

In this talk Dr Elia Valentini from the Department of Psychology at the University of Essex will guide us through the complexity of pain. He will move from the contemporary discussion on the definition of pain, through the theoretical and methodological considerations scientists are challenged with when studying pain, and eventually briefly outline the debate on how pain is represented in the brain. Last but not least, Dr Valentini will introduce us to the longstanding controversial debate on whether pain originating from social and psychological events is processed by the very same brain mechanisms responsible for the experience of physical pain.

8th November 2017

Super(bugs) everywhere

Invisible to the naked eye, but incredibly abundant, microorganisms are key to the welfare of our planet. They live almost everywhere on earth, they drive global processes and their species diversity is enormous, exceeding that of visible organisms many times over. Dr Etienne Low-Decarie from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Essex will explain how we are only just beginning to understand even basic biology for this large portion of the biosphere. In our effort to understand these organisms, we discovered that even a normal lake is host to critters that can grow in extreme conditions. We are now pushing back what were thought to be the chemical and physical limits to life. These findings require that where we look for industrially useful microorganisms and even where we look for life on other planets be thoroughly rethought.

11th October 2017

The fastest Algorithm

How difficult is it to multiply two matrices, really? A true story

Dr Vanni Noferini, Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Essex, will tell the story of how in the 1960s a young German mathematician shocked the mathematical community by discovering a revolutionary new practical method to perform a certain mathematical task (that is, a new “algorithm”). The novelty amazed the maths world, defying more than one century of prior beliefs on how things should be done. This led to a worldwide race to the fastest algorithm: a competition that is still alive and well. Dr Noferini will guide us through the fascinating story of fast matrix multiplication, sharing the most understandable mathematical details, summarizing the ideas beyond the most advanced parts, and emphasizing the human side of this tale of mathematical research.