Lunch Hour Lectures - Spring 2008 - Video

The newlyweds George Gaylord Simpson (palaeontologist) and Anne Roe (psychologist) travelled through Venezuela on an expedition in 1938–39. The result was intellectual work unlike anything each did elsewhere in their long careers. Romantic and intimate partnerships offer fascinating case studies of collaboration in science. They produce unusual intellectual synergies. They alter life–work patterns. They simultaneously constrain and liberate. These collaborations tend to be overlooked by historians and biographers of science, leaving us with vastly inferior knowledge of science as a living, working enterprise.

Language is a highly complex, specialised cognitive ability that is unique to humans. Nevertheless, most three-year-olds can talk using simple sentences. However, seven per cent of otherwise normally developing children have ‘specific language impairment’ (SLI), and many of these children have dyslexia too. SLI has a strong genetic component and for many individuals it is a life-long impairment. The long-term costs are socially, culturally, and economically high. I will present some research findings, using traditional and brain imaging techniques to explain these children’s language problems. SLI provides a unique window into the brain, how specialised systems develop, and how our findings can help children.

Not all colours in nature originate from pigments. Colour can also emerge if the microstructure of a material is fashioned into an optical diffraction grating. In nanotechnology, this capability of ‘structural colour’ is now within our grasp, and it is easy to imagine how it can be intelligently integrated into jewellery and artwork, vehicles and buildings. Beyond ‘static’ structural colour is a ‘dynamic’ form that could enable a full colour display where one material provides an infinite range of colours, security devices for identification and authentification, and military vehicles with active camouflage. Opportunities for intelligent colour are truly boundless.

Amongst all human pathogens, the hepatitis B virus is one of the smallest known. The virus particle itself was first described in this Medical School nearly 40 years ago, although its existence had been surmised for much longer. Not only is the virus small in physical size, its genetic information is tiny, one thousandth of that in an average bacterium. It has a fascinatingly complex lifestyle that continues to yield insights into host parasite relationships and the way in which persistent infections by some viruses have evolved to confuse the immune system. This poses problems for vaccines and for antiviral drug therapy, a conundrum now far more intricate than ever imagined.

To even suggest there are sex differences in cognitive abilities is anathema to many. Academics have been sacked for suggesting that there may be group differences in general or specific intelligence. This paper examines estimated intelligence showing evidence from 25 studies in as many countries, that females tend to give significantly lower estimates than males, around five IQ points. This coincides with current estimates of the actual difference in IQ scores. The many implications of this research area will be explained.

People from certain ethnic minority groups living in the UK are at increased risk of disease and death compared with the majority population, but the reasons for these patterns are not known. It is also not clear at what point during life such differences begin to appear – could this be as early as childhood or even infancy? This lecture looks at the origins of ethnic differences in health – are they genetic, behavioural, or socio-environmental?