LECTURES

Mark Strand

This week, we honor Pulitzer Prize winner and former US poet laureate Mark Strand, who passed away over the weekend at the age of 80. The beloved poet and author joined us this October to discuss art, imagination, and the life of the mind.

Mark Strand on Artistic Imagination

Jago Dodson is the Professor of Urban Policy and the Director of the Centre for Urban Research in the School of Global Urban and Social Studies. This lecture explores the late-modern world and how it appears beset by various transformative crises: climatic and environmental, socio-technological, economic and spatial, ideological and material. Cities, where the majority of humanity now dwells, are at the core of these manifold problems. Urban questions are now at the fore of public policy. This lecture approaches the global urban crisis through the notion of ‘reconstruction’.

Cities of the Reconstruction: Urban planning in late modernity

Emily Washington, policy research manager at the Mercatus Center and writer at marketurbanism.com, studies land-use regulation and policy as it relates to urban development. Washington joined the Federalist Radio Hour to discuss the current state of affordable housing, zoning issues, Jane Jacobs, and transportation.

The marketplace in urban areas faces a challenge in supplying the higher number of millennials and their housing needs, and government often feels pressure to weigh in. "A lot of cities are revisiting their planning codes and in many cases adopting more liberal codes that are improved for denser and mixed-use development, but it's often a very long and difficult process because homeowners want to keep things the way they are," Washington said.

Jane Jacobs advocated for diverse, walkable, and mixed-use neighborhoods. Many modern city planners agree with her views, but often fail to create policies that reflect her ideas. "To the extend that cities are willing to persue deregulation, allowing more freedom for developers to build what they see consumers demanding, that will get us closer to Jane Jacobs' approach to urban development," she said.

Later in the hour, Domenech and Washington discussed the overlapping patterns of crime, subsidized housing, and anti-poverty programs.

Affordable Housing, Jane Jacobs, and New Challenges in Urban Planning

In the Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae and Dr Ken Setiawan alternately present extended interviews each fortnight with experts on Indonesian politics, foreign policy, culture, language and more. Photo credit: Priscilla Huwae via Flickr. Find all the Talking Indonesia episodes and more at the Indonesia At Melbourne blog.


Professor Widjaja Martokusumo - Urban Planning and Heritage Conservation

Using sparks, fire, microwave ovens and many more demos, Dave Ansell shows the science and engineering that has allowed humans to shine light into the darkness from the stone age to the present day.

This is Dave's 21st Cambridge Science Festival, in that time he's been an a physics undergraduate and a research student, has worked in science radio, built a hands on science museum, and started a science roadshow. Now he spends most of his time in his shed making science toys, demos and exhibits for his own shows and for museums, researchers, TV companies and enthusiasts.

http://sciansell.co.uk

Dave Ansell - Makin' Light

Take a deep breath and jump into the incredible world of fish, with marine biologist Dr Helen Scales (goggles and snorkels optional). Find out how fish can live for 500 years, how their beards can glow in the dark and sometimes they talk to each other with farts.

As a writer, marine biologist and broadcaster Dr Helen Scales' work combines a scuba diver’s devotion to exploring the oceans, a scientist’s nerdy attention to details, a conservationist’s angst about the state of the planet, and a storyteller’s fixation with words and ideas.

Helen writes books and articles and makes radio documentaries; she searches for stories about the oceans and the natural world, of the wonders of science and people; and she does her best to spend as much time as she can in, on and next to the sea.

Dr Helen Scales - Something Fishy

We love dogs for their companionship and work but they can also help humans by teaching us about human genetic diseases. Eleanor Raffan, Institute of Metabolic Sciences, explains how studying inherited disease in dogs can benefit humans too, including examples from her own work studying the genetics of obesity.

Biography:
Eleanor Raffan is a vet and researcher at the University of Cambridge Metabolic Research Laboratories. She got the bug for research after specialising as a vet and encountering lots of inherited disease in her patients. Eleanor studies pet dogs to understand how genes cause disease in both animals and humans.

Eleanor Raffan - Woofing it down: lessons on obesity from man’s best friend

The world sends more messages today than ever before. Through the internet we email, and tweet, and instagram. And those messages are in code. This may not be surprising, but even those codes contain more secrets than you realise.

Dr James Grime will reveal how film studios know if you are sharing movies illegally. How to hide a secret message on the internet in plain sight. And the ingenious maths within a CD that allows it to keep playing.

James will also reveal a World War II code machine even more secret and difficult than the famous Enigma, and how too that code was broken. And introduce the Golden Age Hollywood actress and secret inventor who came up with an idea still used in WiFi today.

Dr James Grime is a mathematician and public speaker. Formerly of the Millennium Mathematics Project for the University of Cambridge, James now runs The Enigma Project and travels the world giving public talks on the history and mathematics of codes and code breaking. James is also a presenter of the YouTube channel numberphile.

Dr James Grime -  Bits and pieces: secrets of a digital world

Have you ever wondered why dragons, unicorns, giants and vampires don’t exist? If so, then this is the event for you, as zoologist Dr Matt Wilkinson takes you on an expedition beyond life as we know it, to see why there are some things that evolution just can’t make.

Dr Matt Wilkinson - Why are there no dragons?

David Marshall reads an extract from The Liar by Stephen Fry, one of the books featured in Tall Tales: Secrets of the Tower at Cambridge University Library.
#ulTallTales
www.lib.cam.ac.uk

The Liar by Stephen Fry: Tall Tales extract

Louise Williams reads this short practical pamphlet, from the Tower Collections at Cambridge University Library, which encourages people to take up chicken rearing. The author, a Mrs Woodrow of Harrow, notes that rearing chickens is ‘One of the least expensive, most enjoyable, scientific, interesting, and healthy hobbies that can be undertaken.’
Tall Tales: Secrets of the Tower runs from May 2-October 28, 2018.
#ulTallTales
www.lib.cam.ac.uk

The Simplicity of Chicken Rearing, 1908: Tall Tales extract

Julian Fuller reads an extract from Lonely Londoners, featuring in Tall Tales: Secrets of the Tower at Cambridge University Library.
The novel was one of the first books to focus on poor, working-class blacks following the enactment of the British Nationality Act 1948 and the arrival of the 'Windrush Generation'. The book was a major step towards the recognition of the new, multicultural London of the 1950s. 

#ulTallTales
www.lib.cam.ac.uk

The Lonely Londoners: Tall Tales Extract

In recent years the debate about the harms and benefits of breast cancer screening has become increasingly polarised. This expert panel discussion will consider the complexities of this debate from four different disciplinary perspectives. Dr Sian Taylor Phillips, an epidemiologist who works with the UK National Screening Committee, will provide insights into the challenges of interpreting the evidence base; Professor Fiona Gilbert will give a clinical perspective and describe new technological options in breast screening, Professor David Spiegelhalter will discuss the challenges of communicating complex risk information to the public in screening programmes and Dr Hogarth will provide a social scientist’s perspective on how the mammography debate has developed since the 1970s.

Panel Discussion - The Polarised Debate About Harms And Benefits Of Breast Cancer Screening ?

Very rarely, people with epilepsy have mystical experiences during their seizures. This may be why the ancients called epilepsy the Sacred Disease. Dostoyevsky had such seizures and wrote about them in The Idiot. Professor Alasdair Coles and Dr Joseph Tennant describe modern day examples of people with these unusual seizures, and what they can teach neuroscience, psychology and theology.

The Rev Professor Alasdair Coles & Dr Joseph Tennant - God And Epilepsy

A technology breakthrough that started in Cambridge has brought us to where we are able to decode the entire DNA sequence of 100,000 genomes to determine mutations that cause rare genetic diseases and cancer. Dr David Bentley, Chief Scientist at Illumina, and Professor Mark Caulfield, Chief Scientist at Genomics England, discuss how this promises to revolutionise the way we practise medicine.

Dr David Bentley & Professor Mark Caulfield - 100,000 Genomes Project

Research Horizons Public Talk

As AI systems are widely deployed in real-world settings, it is critical for us to understand the mechanisms by which they take decisions. Dr Adrian Weller discusses how processes are being developed to ensure AI systems are transparent, reliable and trustworthy.

Dr Adrian Weller - Trust And Transparency In AI Systems

Nutrition and exercise are paramount for improving health and preventing disease. However, controversy exists over what constitutes a healthy diet. “Chocolate is good, Butter is back…” Misinformation in the media is confusing. Alexander Mok, MRC Epidemiology Unit, aims to demystify the research and evidence base underpinning the public health recommendations for a healthy lifestyle.

Alexander’s research focuses on the combined influence of Nutrition and Physical Activity on health, chronic disease and longevity using large population-based studies. He graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Master’s Degree in Epidemiology and subsequently completed interdisciplinary training in Public Health at Harvard University. Prior to starting his PhD studies at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge; he worked in the Clinical Nutrition Research Centre within the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences and was awarded the National Science Scholarship from A*STAR, Singapore to pursue his doctoral studies.

LECTURES

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