Category Archives: Previous

03/2017: Body Clock (A. Jagannath)

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Place and Time: Abingdon, Thursday 16 March 2017  from 19:00 for 19:30

(Date was previously stated wrongly)

Barn Room, Crown and Thistle (18 Bridge St, Abingdon OX14 3HS)

TITLE: How the body clock is set to time
Image result for circadian clock

We now live in increasingly 24/7 societies – sleep and rhythm disruption has become part of everyday life. This disruption can lead to obesity, diabetes and even some mental health disorders. The talk will cover the newest research on how our body clocks (the circadian clock) work, and what we may be able to do to reduce the effects of this disruption.

Speaker: Aarti Jagannath

Aarti Jagannath is a BBSRC David Phillips Fellow at the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute within the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience. Her group researches the molecular mechanisms that regulate the circadian clock. Aarti read for a DPhil on the mechanisms of RNA interference at Brasenose college and subsequently joined NDCN as a Roche Post-Doctoral Fellow in 2010 to begin work on the circadian clock. She was awarded the L’Oreal Women in Science Fellowship in 2015 and is also Hayward Lecturer at Oriel College.

02/2017: Palaeoclimate (S. Caroline)

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Place and Time: Abingdon, February 16, 2017  from 19:00 for 19:30

Barn Room, Crown and Thistle (18 Bridge St, Abingdon OX14 3HS)

TITLE: The Power of Karst Palaeoclimate

Climate change is one of the greatest modern challenges facing society on a global scale. The study of past climates (“palaeoclimatology”) is a critical field that looks beyond the short instrumental period of the last century to improve our knowledge of ocean-atmosphere dynamics and gain a better understanding of the magnitude and speed of change the climate system is capable of. Ultimately, records of hundreds of thousands of years of past climate help scientists to gauge confidence in the ability of state-of-the-art climate models to correctly predict future change in temperature, rainfall, sea level, etc.

In this talk I will introduce one archive that has taken centre stage in the palaeoclimate arena over the last decade: cave speleothems as recorders of past rainfall amounts. I will discuss methods scientists use to study these mineral deposits (how to determine the age of a stalagmite, how to extract climate information from layers of calcium carbonate), and some of the most astonishing conclusions that have been drawn from records across the globe. I will also share my experience of caving expeditions in the heart of Borneo, searching for ideal samples to reconstruct changes in tropical convection through the ice ages.

Speaker: Stacy Carolin

Stacy Carolin is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford. She specializes in paleoclimate and geochemistry. For more information on the speaker see https://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/people/stacy-carolin/.

 

01/2017: Rocking the Fundations of Math (V. Halbach)

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Place and Time: Abingdon, January 19, 2017  from 19:00 for 19:30

Barn Room, Crown and Thistle (18 Bridge St, Abingdon OX14 3HS)

TITLE: Rocking the foundations of mathematics: logic, paradox, and the quest for consistency

Mathematics looks like the rock-solid foundations of the sciences. But is it really as safe and unshakeable as it seems? The development went through some crises and hit upon unexpected paradoxes and problems.

Logicians, philosophers, and mathematicians, among them Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Kurt Gödel, and Alan Turing have worked on the foundations of mathematics. In the talk I will tell the story of grand programmes, their failures, feuds, and cunning arguments at the intersection of mathematics, logic, computer science, and philosophy.

Speaker: Volker Halbach

Volker Halbach is professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford. He specializes in logic and formal philosophy. For more information on the speaker see here.

11/2016: AGM & Dark Matter Talk (K. Boast)

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Place and Time: Abingdon, October 24, 2016  from 19:00 for 19:30

Barn Room, Crown and Thistle (18 Bridge St, Abingdon OX14 3HS)

We will have an initial short talk followed by the AGM.

Talk Title : Dark Matter

Dcosmos_3d_dark_matter_mapark matter is one of the biggest mysteries in physics. We know there is something out there twisting starlight and flinging stars around in galaxies, but we have never managed to detect it – it seems to be like nothing we know. In this talk, we will examine the evidence for dark matter and see what it tells us about this mysterious stuff, before considering some of the ways scientists are hunting for it and trying to discover what makes up 85% of the matter in the universe.

Speaker: Ms Kathryn Boast

Kathryn Boast is a graduate student at the University of Oxford. She is involved in planing and building the most sensitive dark matter experiment yet. She is also very active promoting women careers in science.

AGM Agenda

  1. Apologies for absence
  2. Minutes of last meeting
  3. Matters arising
  4. Chairman’s Report
  5. Treasurer’s Report
  6. Resolution to reduce membership fees
  7.  Elections
    1. Officers
      1. Chair
      2. Secretary
      3. Treasurer
      4. Programme Organiser
    2. Ordinary Committee Members
  8. ATOM Festival 2017
  9. Any Other Business