Dr Simon Butt (Keble), Fellow and Tutor in Neuroscience, gives a talk for the Oxford Alumni Weekend. The human brain is an amazingly complex organ, yet at the moment of conception we are formed of a single fertilised egg, the potential of which will be sculpted over the years ahead by a variety of genetic and environmental cues to emerge as the brain that defines us as individuals today. In this lecture, Simon Butt will explore how his research over the last few years has focused on elucidating a genetic bar code to identify nerve cells and relate their activity to behaviour - a strategy that has significant implications for our understanding of a wide range of neurological disorders Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Professor Richard Washington, Professor of Climate Science at the School of Geography and the Environment; Fellow and Tutor in Geography, Keble College, gives a talk for the 2013 Oxford Alumni Weekend. In summer the central Sahara is a brutally hot and inhospitable place largely devoid of people. But it is also a critically important part of the climate system controlling the West African Monsoon and driving the largest dust emissions on the planet. Yet we have no observed data to quantify the behaviour of this system. This talk will explore how the Fennec project aimed to do the impossible and recover those all-important observations from the core of the remote desert.

In this lecture, Professor Goldin presents ideas from his latest book and focuses on issues such as the financial crisis, the internet, pandemics, migration and climate change, in order to highlight the need for urgent global action. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

'Big data' in medicine is an emerging field with the potential to revolutionise healthcare research.This session will look at how Oxford is addressing some of these research opportunities and challenges.

With digital broadcasting increasing and newspaper readership falling, how should we respond in ways that ensure the free flow of information that is essential in a pluralist society?

See how modern analyses of the fossil record, genetics and development provide a new understanding of flatfish evolution, and how this bears on both the great flatfish controversy and the rate and nature of evolutionary change more broadly. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

This lecture, based on the recent biography by Bettany Hughes, looks at Socrates' life, following in his footsteps across Greece and Asia Minor and examining the new archaeological discoveries that shed light on his world.

Dr Rana Irshad, University of Oxford, gives a brief whistle-stop tour of the exciting initiatives Oxford has running in exploring the vast expanse of the Universe in which we live. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Sir Adam Roberts, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at Oxford, gives a talk for the Oxford Alumni Weekend 2013. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Dr Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, gives a talk for the Oxford Alumni Weekend 2013. Some have described the current moment of world history as a 'perfect storm', as a range of crises converge. The impacts of climate change are picking up speed with often devastating consequences. Increased pressures on limited natural resources are inevitably leading to conflict. Globally we see major economic exclusion and a democratic deficit. This lecture will highlight how the environmental movement needs to act very differently than it has done in the past, applying 21st century practices to 21st century problems, in order to play its part effectively. South African human rights activist Dr Kumi Naidoo has been the International Executive Director of environmentalist group Greenpeace since November 2009. He is an alumnus of Magdalen College and a former Rhodes scholar.