Talk Library
It turns out that table salt isn't specific to Earth - in fact it has been found 1500 light years away surrounding a massive young star. For the last PhilSoc term of this half-term, Dr George Bendo will be representing The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Telescope (ALMA) and will be talking about the work that they do. He will be talking at MGS from 4:15-5:15. All Year 11-13 are welcome.
ALMA is the world's premier telescope operating at millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. Dr Bendo will first talk about how this telescope works, including why the telescope is located in a high-altitude desert in Chile and how the telescope uses the concept of interferometry to create images. After this, he will describe the many scientific breakthroughs that have been made with this telescope, ranging from images of the protostellar discs where new exoplanets are forming to the detection of interstellar dust and gas in the most distant galaxies.
For more information before the talk, feel free to visit the following links:
https://www.almaobservatory.org/en/home
Asthma is one of the most prevalent diseases in the economically developed countries. Despite a concerted effort by the medical community, the frequency of asthma is increasing rather than decreasing. Dr Tucker Gilman will talk about a new approach to curing asthma that builds on recent advances in mathematics, ecology and modern genomics. It will be taking place at MHSG from 4:15-5:15. All Year 11-13 welcome.
Dr Gilman is a lecturer in Environmental Biology at the University of Manchester. His lab is interested in how things evolve. This is approached with a combination of mathematical and computational models. Often there is an artificial barrier placed between the medical sciences and mathematics. Dr Gilman hopes to convince you that these are exactly the sciences that should attract mathematically talented young researchers.
Experiments are the cornerstone of science. Although theory is useful, often a physical demonstration provides the best understanding. This week's PhilSoc will be given by Dr Andrew Szydlo, entitled "Fireworks and Waterworks". Multiple chemical reactions will be demonstrated live, which illustrate the essence of chemistry. It will be taking place at MGS in the Theatre from 4:15 - 5:15. All Year 11-13s are welcome.
Dr Szydlo will be explaining the importance of the discovery of oxygen, and how this has played a key role in the improvement of combustion processes, which led in turn indirectly led to the Industrial Revolution (in which Manchester played a key role). Some experiments from the domain of physics will be shown with the use of liquid nitrogen.
Dr Szydlo is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and has frequently given chemical performances around the UK and aboard, from the Royal Institution to the University of Cambridge. As well as this, he has appeared in several television programmes, including 'Absolute Zero' - a BBC documentary exploring the race to reach the absolute minimum of our temperature scale. Below are YouTube links to a few of his previous performances:
TedX - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOuEJf8Dr_4
Royal Institution - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qi4rrQoruQ
Dr Maitra is a Paediatric Respiratory Consultant at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and is also a Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester. He will be discussing the importance of protein targeting in the precise treatment of complex medical conditions such as Cystic Fibrosis and how medical treatment can be tailored to suit individuals from a molecular point of view. Dr Maitra will also be touching on relevant research conducted in his own specialty of respiratory medicine.
Following on from his doctoral research, whilst forming a new collaboration with the University of Strathclyde, Dr Saghir intends to present current advances in laser plasma accelerators, Skyrmion and TI research and how these novel techniques can potentially be used for studies in the condensed matter world of materials physics. There will be a basic introduction into the techniques used, the motivation behind the work and potential avenues of research that can be taken for the ongoing project.
Medicine has to become more and more efficient to remain sustainable. A new mentality has recently emerged. Dr Potluri will be exploring this new mindset in this week's PhilSoc entitled, ‘Personalised Medicine: How Science Lets us Give Therapies That Actually Work’. It will be delivered at WGS from 4:15-5:15.
Dr Sandeep Potluri was a former PhilSoc Chair at MGS in 2005. Since then, he has studied medicine at Cambridge and pursued an academic clinical pathway and is now a Haematologist and Clinician Scientist at the University of Birmingham. In his talk, he will be discussing modern treatment paradigms and how doctors and scientists are working together to give effective treatments suited to individual patients. This lecture will be fitting for (prospective) Medicine applicants, especially those who would like to expand their knowledge for the upcoming interviews.
16th November 2018
Biotechnology aims to improve our lives by harnessing the efficiency of living systems. In this week’s PhilSoc, Dr Muelas will focus on how our own metabolic system manages to transport molecules. It will take place at MHSG from 4:15-5:15. As usual, all Year 11-13s welcome.
Dr Marina Wright Muelas is a Research Associate at the University of Manchester Institute of Biotechnology. Her current project involves understanding the role of ‘transporters’ in the human metabolic network. ‘Transporters’ are simply proteins that deliver molecules through membranes into cells. Dr Muelas will explore the technicality of influx and efflux and how transporters match up to their molecules. This will also be a perfect opportunity for those interested in Biochemistry or Biomedical Sciences to quiz a working researcher in the field.
9th November 2018
Chemists design and build molecules with many functions, from new drugs to new materials. Professor Clayden will be exploring how and why this is done in this week's PhilSoc entitled ‘Building Organic Molecules - Shape Matters’. It will be taking place at MGS from 4:15-5:15 this Friday. All Year 11-13s welcome.
Jonathon Clayden is a Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Bristol. Having completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, Professor Clayden has since published over 240 papers.
Any molecular function depends on its molecular shape. Many of these new developments in chemistry's ability to build molecules with well-defined three-dimensional structures have taken their lead both from the ways that biology builds molecules, and the sort of things biology does with them. This talk will explore some of the ways in which chemistry has learnt from biology how to design and construct molecules with a purpose, and how sometimes chemistry can outclass biology in terms of efficiency and simplicity.
19th October 2018
Mathematics has a number of applications in science. This week's PhilSoc will focus on mathematics in a biological context. Ms Ruth Whelan-Jeans will speaking at MHSG from 4:15 - 5:00 followed by a short Q&A. All Year 11-13s are welcome.
Ms Ruth Whelan-Jeans spent 3 months in an interdisciplinary research team working on placental fluid flow problems and bio-imaging. This involved working with experimentalists at the Royal Manchester Infirmary and mathematicians at the University of Manchester. This talk will bridge the gap between the experimental skills learnt at A level and professional research whilst also comparing their similarities and differences. There will be a specific emphasis on data analysis and biological physics.
12th October 2018
This week's PhilSoc talk shall be given by Dr Ed. Pickering on "Alloys - the most important material in the world". As usual, we shall run from 4:15-5:15 and all Year 11-13's are welcome.
Dr Ed Pickering has been a Lecturer in Metallurgy at the University of Manchester since late 2015. Before this, he was a Research Associate in Cambridge’s Rolls-Royce UTC.
Alloys are used everywhere and have enabled the development of modern civilisation, but they’re often taken for granted (usually because they do their jobs so well). This talk explores what alloys are, the types of alloy we commonly, and why they’re so useful. It will also include two demonstrations of the unusual behaviour alloys can display.
5th October 2018
The opening talk at Withington Girls' School shall be given by Professor Young on graphene, the new "wonder material". As usual, we shall run from 4:15-5:15 and all Year 11-13's are welcome.
Professor Robert Young is a distinguished professor of polymer science and technology at the University of Manchester, a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), and also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng). Discovered here in Manchester in 2004, graphene is one of the strongest and stiffest known materials with a potential to revolutionise engineering, from the way future aeroplanes are designed to how cars will be built. Additionally, graphene exhibits superior electrical, thermal and barrier properties leading to many high performance applications. Professor Young will explore the science of this material, from its chemical makeup to its other physical properties.
28th September 2018
Graph theory is one of mathematics' simplest yet most powerful abstractions that can be stretched and applied to the fascinating biology of genomic sequencing. This week will take place from 4:15-5:15 at Manchester High School. As usual, we welcome Year 11-13s.
For this week’s PhilSoc, Dr Mark Muldoon will be discussing “Walking with Euler through Ostpreussen and the Genome.”
Leonhard Euler was the famous, revolutionary scholar of mathematics and his influential discoveries including graph theory and his introduction of the notion of a mathematical function. From Euler's renowned solution to the infamous Seven Königsberg Bridges conundrum, to the analysis of the sequencing of different bases in our own DNA, Dr Muldoon will relate various aspects of Decision Maths and Biology in a surprising manner. It promises to be a captivating and thought-provoking talk.
21st September 2018
This year's PhilSoc is kicking off with a Joint Talk between the committees of MGS, MHSG and WGS. Join us on the Friday 21st September (tomorrow!) for an exploration of the engineering and applications of electronic machines. It will be taking place in the theatre from 4:15 - 5:15. All students in Years 11-13 are welcome to attend.
The MGS Committee will be presenting a talk on engineering of modern computers. This will include how computers read languages to how semi-conductors work. There is something for everyone here - from the physics of transistors or the chemistry of electron band theory to the programming of computers.
From Withington, we shall be hearing about machine learning. Machine learning is ubiquitous, from self-driving cars to medical diagnostics. With the advent of ‘big data’ on the internet, machine learning is fast becoming more and more reliable for making accurate predictions of outcomes using vast amounts of data. Machine learning employs a multitude of algorithms including artificial neural networks (ANN), Bayesian inference and K-means clustering. Artificial intelligence opens up huge potential for next generation computer scientists, future clinicians and wider society.
MHSG will be focusing on microfluidic technology. This nano-scale technology has numerous advantages in certain fields. Again, this topic is wide ranging. Laboratories can be compressed down to the size of a chip, ocean acidification can be tackled more efficiently and the search for extraterrestrial life (or astrobiology) has been helped greatly by microfluids.