Come along to the Blue Ball Inn for an evening of fascinating ideas, surprising discoveries and plenty of good conversation. You don’t need to be a scientist, or even particularly interested in science, just bring along your curiosity.
Three short, lively talks will open up some fascinating ideas and discoveries, followed by a chance to ask questions, join the discussion and perhaps challenge the speakers! It’s relaxed, sociable and definitely not a lecture.
So come for the science, stay for the conversation — and enjoy a drink or a meal while you’re here.
What has ocean life ever done for us?
Professor John Spicer, University of Plymouth
Our ocean is wonder-full… and more. In this talk we’ll explore all that life in our ocean does for us, even if we are unaware of it – a pearl of great price, irreplaceable, lifegiving, essential, worthy of wonder. And only when we truly recognise anything of value do we, consider, tend to look after, and protect, it. This is a talk for those who have never managed to cut out some time to think about the question ‘what has the ocean done for me?’
John is Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Plymouth. He has spent over 40 years investigating how marine animals respond to extreme and/or changing environments, and is the author of the popular book ‘Biodiversity a beginners guide’ and more than 250 scientific papers and textbooks. He is an avid wild swimmer and still cannot work out what he wants to be when he grows up.
Simple Kitchen Science: Make your own seaweed hair and body wash
Adam Reeve
Discover the simple process of making a nourishing hair and bodywash using a range of plants and three species of seaweeds.
Adam’s passion for macroalgae began with an interest in wild foods, with the journey leading me along the hedgerows of the Midlands. A move down to Devon introduced me to the rocky shore, which opened up the fascinating world of seaweeds and inspired a career change from Early Years teaching to Marine Biology. I am now pursuing a research master’s degree, exploring the potential of seaweeds and their many applications.
The known unknowns. From slime to society
Mark Fricker
Imaging signalling and transport in complex systems
Mark Fricker started as a plant physiologist with Colin Willmer at Stirling, following a degree in Botany at Oxford, with his research focussed on dissecting signal transduction pathways in stomatal physiology. This led to the development of quantitative imaging of Ca2+, pH and redox dynamics in plant and then fungal systems with Tony Trewavas and Nick Read in Edinburgh. This naturally evolved into the current interest in signalling and transport in networked systems that he has pursued since his appointment as a lecturer in Oxford in 1989. His experimental investigations cover a range of scales including confocal ratio imaging on a micron scale, radiolabel scintillation imaging at an intermediate scale, and network analysis and mathematical modelling to predict behaviour at a macro-scale, with over 150 publications and book chapters.