Thu 13 Feb 18:45: Squirrels of the British Isles: Red, Grey, and Black!
This talk will look at the current squirrel population of the UK from the ancient, native red squirrel to the relatively recent introductions of the American grey squirrel.
We will look at the changing ranges of these two species over time. We will look at what has been done so far, and what could be done in the future to protect the red squirrel. We will also look at the genetics of squirrel colouration, looking at the fascinating origin of the black genetic variant of the grey squirrel.
- Speaker: Helen McRobie, Anglia Ruskin University
- Thursday 13 February 2025, 18:45-20:00
- Venue: Main Seminar Room (First Floor) David Attenborough Building, University of Cambridge Pembroke St, Cambridge CB2 3QZ.
- Series: Cambridge Natural History Society; organiser: events.
Thu 13 Feb 18:45: Squirrels of the British Isles: Red, Grey, and Black!
This talk will look at the current squirrel population of the UK from the ancient, native red squirrel to the relatively recent introductions of the American grey squirrel.
We will look at the changing ranges of these two species over time. We will look at what has been done so far, and what could be done in the future to protect the red squirrel. We will also look at the genetics of squirrel colouration, looking at the fascinating origin of the black genetic variant of the grey squirrel.
- Speaker: Helen McRobie, Anglia Ruskin University
- Thursday 13 February 2025, 18:45-20:00
- Venue: Main Seminar Room (First Floor) David Attenborough Building, University of Cambridge Pembroke St, Cambridge CB2 3QZ.
- Series: Cambridge Natural History Society; organiser: events.
Thu 30 Jan 18:45: The Marine World
This talk will survey life in the ocean, from seashore pools, through underwater forests and grassy meadows, to tropical reefs, the wide open ocean and the deep, dark depths.
The oceans are home to an astonishing array of marine creatures, from tiny coral polyps to immense whales. New marine species are being discovered and described every year, especially from the deep ocean. Submersibles and special cameras are needed to see these, but with just a pair of wellies and sharp eyes you can see many fascinating animals and seaweeds on our own seashores.
- Speaker: Frances Dipper
- Thursday 30 January 2025, 18:45-20:00
- Venue: Main Seminar Room (First Floor) David Attenborough Building, University of Cambridge Pembroke St, Cambridge CB2 3QZ.
- Series: Cambridge Natural History Society; organiser: events.
Thu 30 Jan 18:45: The Marine World
This talk will survey life in the ocean, from seashore pools, through underwater forests and grassy meadows, to tropical reefs, the wide open ocean and the deep, dark depths.
The oceans are home to an astonishing array of marine creatures, from tiny coral polyps to immense whales. New marine species are being discovered and described every year, especially from the deep ocean. Submersibles and special cameras are needed to see these, but with just a pair of wellies and sharp eyes you can see many fascinating animals and seaweeds on our own seashores.
- Speaker: Frances Dipper
- Thursday 30 January 2025, 18:45-20:00
- Venue: Main Seminar Room (First Floor) David Attenborough Building, University of Cambridge Pembroke St, Cambridge CB2 3QZ.
- Series: Cambridge Natural History Society; organiser: events.
Thu 30 Jan 18:45: The Marine World
This talk will survey life in the ocean, from seashore pools, through underwater forests and grassy meadows, to tropical reefs, the wide open ocean and the deep, dark depths.
The oceans are home to an astonishing array of marine creatures, from tiny coral polyps to immense whales. New marine species are being discovered and described every year, especially from the deep ocean. Submersibles and special cameras are needed to see these, but with just a pair of wellies and sharp eyes you can see many fascinating animals and seaweeds on our own seashores.
- Speaker: Frances Dipper
- Thursday 30 January 2025, 18:45-20:00
- Venue: Main Seminar Room (First Floor) David Attenborough Building, University of Cambridge Pembroke St, Cambridge CB2 3QZ.
- Series: Cambridge Natural History Society; organiser: events.
Mon 24 Feb 13:00: Human Judgement and Decision-Making Under Uncertainty
A weather forecast is only useful if appropriate decisions are made on the basis of the forecast. This presents a challenge, because weather forecasts are innately uncertain. How do we ensure that the likelihood of an event, particularly for extreme and impactful weather, is understood and acted upon? This is where psychology meets physics, and where the application of mathematical understanding is key.
- Speaker: Helen Roberts (Met Office)
- Monday 24 February 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: MR3, CMS.
- Series: Quantitative Climate and Environmental Science Seminars; organiser: Bethan Wynne-Cattanach.
Fri 24 Jan 17:30: Bits with Soul
When people think of codes, coding, and computers, they often think of socially challenged nerds like me, writing “code” (whatever that might be) in a darkened basement, all soulless ones and zeros and glowing screens. But in fact computer science (the study of information, computation, and communication) gives us an enormously rich new lens through which to look at and explore the world. By encoding everything in the same, digital bits, we can mechanise the analysis and transformation of that information; we can explore it in ways that are simply inaccessible to manual techniques; we can engage our creativity to write programs whose complexity rivals the most sophisticated artefacts that human beings have produced—and yet fit on a USB drive; we can even learn from data in ways that have made “ChatGPT” into a verb practically overnight.
Given how closely digital technology is interwoven in our lives, having a visceral sense of how this stuff works, what it can do well, and how it can fail, is essential for us to survive and thrive, and should be part of every child’s education.
In my talk I will share some of the joy, beauty, and creativity of computer science. This is serious, because it impinges on our daily lives. But it is also rich, beautiful, and fun.
- Speaker: Professor Simon Peyton Jones, University of Cambridge
- Friday 24 January 2025, 17:30-18:30
- Venue: Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue.
- Series: Darwin College Lecture Series; organiser: Janet Gibson.
Fri 24 Jan 17:30: Bits with Soul
When people think of codes, coding, and computers, they often think of socially challenged nerds like me, writing “code” (whatever that might be) in a darkened basement, all soulless ones and zeros and glowing screens. But in fact computer science (the study of information, computation, and communication) gives us an enormously rich new lens through which to look at and explore the world. By encoding everything in the same, digital bits, we can mechanise the analysis and transformation of that information; we can explore it in ways that are simply inaccessible to manual techniques; we can engage our creativity to write programs whose complexity rivals the most sophisticated artefacts that human beings have produced—and yet fit on a USB drive; we can even learn from data in ways that have made “ChatGPT” into a verb practically overnight.
Given how closely digital technology is interwoven in our lives, having a visceral sense of how this stuff works, what it can do well, and how it can fail, is essential for us to survive and thrive, and should be part of every child’s education.
In my talk I will share some of the joy, beauty, and creativity of computer science. This is serious, because it impinges on our daily lives. But it is also rich, beautiful, and fun.
- Speaker: Professor Simon Peyton Jones, University of Cambridge
- Friday 24 January 2025, 17:30-18:30
- Venue: Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue.
- Series: Darwin College Lecture Series; organiser: Janet Gibson.
Fri 24 Jan 17:30: Bits with Soul
When people think of codes, coding, and computers, they often think of socially challenged nerds like me, writing “code” (whatever that might be) in a darkened basement, all soulless ones and zeros and glowing screens. But in fact computer science (the study of information, computation, and communication) gives us an enormously rich new lens through which to look at and explore the world. By encoding everything in the same, digital bits, we can mechanise the analysis and transformation of that information; we can explore it in ways that are simply inaccessible to manual techniques; we can engage our creativity to write programs whose complexity rivals the most sophisticated artefacts that human beings have produced—and yet fit on a USB drive; we can even learn from data in ways that have made “ChatGPT” into a verb practically overnight.
Given how closely digital technology is interwoven in our lives, having a visceral sense of how this stuff works, what it can do well, and how it can fail, is essential for us to survive and thrive, and should be part of every child’s education.
In my talk I will share some of the joy, beauty, and creativity of computer science. This is serious, because it impinges on our daily lives. But it is also rich, beautiful, and fun.
- Speaker: Professor Simon Peyton Jones, University of Cambridge
- Friday 24 January 2025, 17:30-18:30
- Venue: Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue.
- Series: Darwin College Lecture Series; organiser: Janet Gibson.
Industrial scale farming is flawed: what ecologically-friendly farming practices could look like in Africa
Fri 21 Feb 14:00: Post-doc talks
Abstract not available
- Speaker: Post-doc talks, DAMTP
- Friday 21 February 2025, 14:00-17:00
- Venue: MR2.
- Series: Fluid Mechanics (DAMTP); organiser: Professor Grae Worster.
Global food production has resulted in significant biodiversity loss, new research shows
The UK’s international commitments on climate and nature could soon become law – and better protect our environment
Mon 03 Feb 13:00: The atmospheric response to Arctic amplification: Insights from idealised models
Over recent decades the Arctic has warmed about three times as much as the global average, a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification (AA). There has been much interest in the extent to which AA can influence mid-latitude climate, with some studies suggesting that it may drive more frequent or long-lived weather extremes. However, general circulation models (GCMs) simulate widely diverging responses to polar heating, both in the mean atmospheric circulation and its variability. In this talk I will present two examples of recent work from my group, in which an idealised model, Isca, helps to explain some of the causes of this uncertainty. In the first, I will discuss the response of the persistence of surface temperature anomalies to AA. I will show that this response is large but absent in most GCM experiments due to the method by which they remove sea-ice. The persistence response is largest in the Arctic, but extends to mid-latitudes, where it is dynamically-driven, caused by a slowing of meridional wind anomalies. In the second example, I will discuss the ‘stratospheric pathway’, by which AA may dynamically impact lower latitudes. I will show that, by varying a single parameter that controls the mean strength of the stratospheric polar vortex, a range of stratospheric responses (both a strengthening and a weakening of the polar vortex) can be obtained, similar to the range seen in GCMs. These range of stratospheric responses, in turn, significantly impact the magnitude of the shift of the eddy-driven jet.
- Speaker: Will Seviour (Exeter)
- Monday 03 February 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: MR3, CMS.
- Series: Quantitative Climate and Environmental Science Seminars; organiser: Bethan Wynne-Cattanach.
To save Australia’s animals, scientists must count how many are left. But what if they’re getting it wrong?
Mon 10 Feb 13:00: The structure and lifecycle of stratified mixing in forced shear flows
Our environment is shaped by stably stratified air and water masses and the turbulent mixing of heat and chemicals within them. This talk addresses the challenge of understanding and predicting the density-stratified turbulent mixing driven by shear instabilities at high Reynolds numbers (Re > 10^5). These shear instabilities are a key process in the turbulent energy cascade in the ocean, spanning a great range of scales, from coherent instabilities at kilometre scales to the smallest eddies at micrometre scales. We present observational data taken by collaborators from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution at the mouth of the Connecticut River, a shallow salt-wedge estuary. Multi-beam echo-sounding imagery provides access to the spatial structure and temporal evolution of the intense interfacial mixing with unprecedented detail. The data demonstrate that mixing occurs primarily by turbulence in the ‘braids’ connecting the ‘cores’ of Kelvin-Helmholtz billows, rather than within the cores themselves. This secondary braid turbulence appears to be continuously forced by the baroclinic generation of shear in the tilted braid. This finding challenges the prevailing paradigm built upon direct numerical simulations (DNS) at lower Reynolds and Prandtl numbers, where mixing tends to occur primarily by overturning in the billow cores. This distinction may represent a shift in our understanding of mixing in highly dissipative hotspots driven by large-scale shear — not only in estuaries but also in wind-driven surface currents and deep oceanic overflows.
- Speaker: Adrien Lefauve (DAMTP, University of Cambridge)
- Monday 10 February 2025, 13:00-14:00
- Venue: MR3, CMS.
- Series: Quantitative Climate and Environmental Science Seminars; organiser: Dr Kasia Warburton.
Fri 07 Mar 16:00: The mathematics and physics of wound healing
I will discuss some recent work looking quantitatively at the process of wound healing using ideas from thermodynamics, continuum and statistical mechanics. Wound healing is a highly conserved process required for survival of an animal after tissue damage. The wound repair process is not only of great interest in its own right but is also a laboratory to study complex tissue dynamics and regeneration.
Many wounds involve damage to an epithelial (barrier) tissue (like skin) that separates different regions of the body of a living organism. I will describe some recent work on studying wound healing in two dimensional epithelial tissues of a fruit fly pupal wing. This epithelium was chosen because it is transparent and accessible to sophisticated imaging techniques. We use live confocal time-lapse microscopy to follow the behaviour of cells in a tissue before and after wounding.
I will focus on three cell-behaviours that are generally accepted to contribute to wound re-epithelialisation: cell shape deformation, cell division, and cell migration.
I will describe how we are beginning to use a combination of mathematics, physics and biology to disentangle some of the organising principles behind the complex orchestrated dynamics that lead to wound healing.
- Speaker: Professor Tanniemola Liverpool, University of Bristol
- Friday 07 March 2025, 16:00-17:00
- Venue: MR2.
- Series: Fluid Mechanics (DAMTP); organiser: Professor Grae Worster.
Fri 14 Feb 17:30: Epigenetics: A Code upon a Code?
Abstract
On top of the heritable genetic code that is our DNA , sits another layer of information that influences our genes. Studying the properties and functions of this ‘epi-genetic’ information has revealed a whole new aspect of genome biology with implications for health and disease, providing compelling explanations for how we might respond to our environment, and making us consider whether DNA is the only code we transmit from one generation to the next.
In her lecture, Anne will consider the influence of epigenetics on our genes, share a few insights into how understanding epigenetics is contributing to modern medicine, and encourage us to question at least some of what we think we might know about epigenetics.
Biography
Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith is the Executive Chair of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Before this appointment she served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and International Partnerships) at the University of Cambridge. A renowned mammalian developmental geneticist, genome biologist and epigeneticist, Professor Ferguson-Smith is the Balfour Professor of Genetics in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Genetics where she served as Head of Department from 2013-2020. She is also a Fellow of Darwin College.
At the University of Cambridge, Professor Ferguson-Smith leads a research group comprised of experimental and computational scientists. They focus on the epigenetic control of genome function, particularly on models of epigenetic inheritance with implications for health and disease. Committed to the training and professional development of new talent, her team’s current work includes investigating how genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors influence cellular and developmental processes.
In 2017, Anne was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 2021 received their Buchanan Medal for her pioneering work on epigenetics. In 2023, she was named Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for her research contributions.
Photo – Dasha Tenditna
- Speaker: Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith, University of Cambridge
- Friday 14 February 2025, 17:30-18:30
- Venue: Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue.
- Series: Darwin College Lecture Series; organiser: Janet Gibson.
Fri 14 Feb 17:30: Epigenetics: A Code upon a Code?
Abstract
On top of the heritable genetic code that is our DNA , sits another layer of information that influences our genes. Studying the properties and functions of this ‘epi-genetic’ information has revealed a whole new aspect of genome biology with implications for health and disease, providing compelling explanations for how we might respond to our environment, and making us consider whether DNA is the only code we transmit from one generation to the next.
In her lecture, Anne will consider the influence of epigenetics on our genes, share a few insights into how understanding epigenetics is contributing to modern medicine, and encourage us to question at least some of what we think we might know about epigenetics.
Biography
Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith is the Executive Chair of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Before this appointment she served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and International Partnerships) at the University of Cambridge. A renowned mammalian developmental geneticist, genome biologist and epigeneticist, Professor Ferguson-Smith is the Balfour Professor of Genetics in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Genetics where she served as Head of Department from 2013-2020. She is also a Fellow of Darwin College.
At the University of Cambridge, Professor Ferguson-Smith leads a research group comprised of experimental and computational scientists. They focus on the epigenetic control of genome function, particularly on models of epigenetic inheritance with implications for health and disease. Committed to the training and professional development of new talent, her team’s current work includes investigating how genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors influence cellular and developmental processes.
In 2017, Anne was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 2021 received their Buchanan Medal for her pioneering work on epigenetics. In 2023, she was named Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for her research contributions.
Photo – Dasha Tenditna
- Speaker: Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith, University of Cambridge
- Friday 14 February 2025, 17:30-18:30
- Venue: Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue.
- Series: Darwin College Lecture Series; organiser: Janet Gibson.
Fri 14 Feb 17:30: Epigenetics: A Code upon a Code?
Abstract
On top of the heritable genetic code that is our DNA , sits another layer of information that influences our genes. Studying the properties and functions of this ‘epi-genetic’ information has revealed a whole new aspect of genome biology with implications for health and disease, providing compelling explanations for how we might respond to our environment, and making us consider whether DNA is the only code we transmit from one generation to the next.
In her lecture, Anne will consider the influence of epigenetics on our genes, share a few insights into how understanding epigenetics is contributing to modern medicine, and encourage us to question at least some of what we think we might know about epigenetics.
Biography
Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith is the Executive Chair of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Before this appointment she served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and International Partnerships) at the University of Cambridge. A renowned mammalian developmental geneticist, genome biologist and epigeneticist, Professor Ferguson-Smith is the Balfour Professor of Genetics in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Genetics where she served as Head of Department from 2013-2020. She is also a Fellow of Darwin College.
At the University of Cambridge, Professor Ferguson-Smith leads a research group comprised of experimental and computational scientists. They focus on the epigenetic control of genome function, particularly on models of epigenetic inheritance with implications for health and disease. Committed to the training and professional development of new talent, her team’s current work includes investigating how genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors influence cellular and developmental processes.
In 2017, Anne was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 2021 received their Buchanan Medal for her pioneering work on epigenetics. In 2023, she was named Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for her research contributions.
Photo – Dasha Tenditna
- Speaker: Professor Anne Ferguson-Smith, University of Cambridge
- Friday 14 February 2025, 17:30-18:30
- Venue: Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue.
- Series: Darwin College Lecture Series; organiser: Janet Gibson.