Well, actually, we don’t know yet! However, there will be a talk by one of the Museum curators, so do come along.
Sunday 9 June 2013, at 11.30am to 1.00pm
Tea, coffee and scrumptious cakes (I know – I’ve tested them extensively) are available to purchase from the café if you wish, but the talk is totally free.
Do join us: the more, the merrier!
Speaker: Lucy Moore
Sunday 12 May 2013
An archeology curator at Leeds Museums, Lucy Moore instead talked about her life-long passion for Gerald Durrell, the British naturalist, conservationist and writer. Presenting us with extracts from some of Durrell’s many books, Lucy told us about his childhood experiences with animals and his conservation efforts as an adult. We heard about the various breeding programmes to reinstate endangered species, the effects of the disappearance of one species on another – often wholly unrelated – species, and the consequences of habitat loss and destruction. We admired some related pieces from the Museum’s collection, including a seahorse, a lemur and a golden lion tamarind.
The talk inspired me to read at least one of Durrell’s books, so I’ll leave you with the beautiful quotation with which Lucy also ended:
“I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like golden coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers… I have felt winds as tender and warm as a lover’s breath, winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child… I have known silence: the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the silence when great music ends… I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies. I have heard the cobweb squeak of the bat, wolves baying at a winter’s moon… I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms. I have seen whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of dolphins… All this I did without you. This was my loss…”
Letter written by Durrell on 31 July 1978, quoted in Gerald Durrell: The Authorised Biography, by Douglas Botting
The following evening course, run by Leeds Museums, may be of interest to attendees of Café Scientifique:
The frequency of news reports in the media involving human skeletal remains is evidence of the continuing importance of this area of study. This series of six sessions will involve the hands-on study of human skeletal remains comprising a small part of the archaeological collections at Leeds Museum Discovery Centre. We hope that people will enjoy this rare opportunity to connect with collections held in trust for future generations and communities of Leeds.
The course is an introduction to the basics of human skeletal analysis and, as no previous knowledge is assumed, it is suitable for both the curious novice and more casually knowledgeable person.
The practical sessions will be run as a group activity but with opportunities for individuals to work at their own pace. Each group will be allocated the same skeleton for study throughout but with the occasion to examine all the material available.
For further details: Flier
Session 1: Tuesday 11th June 2013
The Human remains debate and the importance of understanding life histories.
Practical session: The identification of skeletal remains, introduction to skeletal anatomy, the basic terms used to identify bones, looking at the teaching skeleton, comparing and recording skeletal remains.
Session 2: Tuesday 18th June 2013
Skeletal remains in Archaeology: Excavation, identification, recording, post-excavation analysis. Case studies.
Practical session: Damage distribution, the importance of understanding taphonomy.
Session 3, 4 and 5:
Theme ‘We’re all individuals, or are we?’
Through practical analysis and discussion, these three sessions will focus on the importance of population studies – the distribution of sex and age at death in populations, bias and the significance of the data collected and its interpretation.
Session 3: Tuesday 25th June 2013
Practical session: Methods for determining age
Session 4: Tuesday 2nd July 2013
Practical session: Methods for determining sex
Session 5: Tuesday 9th July 2013
Practical session: Methods for the estimation of stature
Session 6: Tuesday 16th July 2013
Practical session: Pulling it all together, reporting on your group skeleton; whole group discussion of knowledge gained and potential for more analysis.
A brief introduction to the implications for further study; pathology and activity.
Speaker: Rowena Mitchell
Sunday 14 April 2013
Ah utopia. Social insects divided by task living in harmony under their queen. Altruistic and peaceful.
Not so, we learned today. Rowena Mitchell explained about insects that are eusocial (denoting social organisms in which a single female or caste produces the offspring and non-reproductive individuals cooperate in caring for the young: definition from the OED). The structure of the colony was laid out, with the different castes from the queen, to the female workers, to the male mates. We were told how genes were handed down through males and females, how caste and sex were determined and controlled, about specific divisions of labour, and about the advantages and disadvantages of colony life.
Rowena then went on to explain the causes and results of conflict within the colonies: conflict due to reproduction or caste determination; the alternative reproductive structures and how these affected colonies; and all about ‘royal cheats’ and social parasites. We heard about the work Rowena has been doing, looking at cheating behaviours and the resultant physiological costs. Some interesting questions rounded off another fascinating talk!
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Left, a large worker ant; middle, a small worker; right, a queen.
Rowena Mitchell is a final-year PhD student in the Faculty of Biological Sciences at the University of Leeds, studying caste determination in the social insects.
Speaker: Dr Lucie Middlemiss
Sunday 10 March 2013
Dr Middlemiss – a sociologist – put to us that we are all selfish. We lead profligate, consumerist, wasteful lifestyles. Selfishness can explain everything from nursing a dying relative through to having children.
However, selfishness is a catch-all theory. Many of those same actions can also be explained as altruism. Assuming that everyone is selfish doesn’t tell us anything; the theory is in no way useful. Unfortunately, the assumption has worked its way into economic and political policy, sometimes resulting in unexpected consequences.
The example Dr Middlemiss gave was a country that at one point desperately needed blood donors, so it decided to pay people to donate. Counter-intuitively, donor numbers dropped. Reasons put forward varied from a disinclination to ‘sell body parts’, to a feeling that one shouldn’t be paid to do something that was simply a ‘moral obligation’.
Apply this, then, to sustainable development. In order to move into the future without wrecking the planet or our lives, we’ll need to work together to adapt to climate change, and selflessly alter our behaviour. If the assumption is that we are selfish, the obvious answer would be to incentivise the necessary changes: tax breaks or rewards for recycling, for example. Compare this to the blood bank story, though, and you’ll see how this might be detrimental.
The talk covered increasing individualism, changes to social/family bonds and community behaviours, and rationality and choice vs. habit. It warned against simplistic assumptions.
Dr Middlemiss joined the University of Leeds School of Earth and Environment in 2004 as a Teaching and Research Fellow, and completed her PhD in the School in 2009. She became a Lecturer in Sustainability in 2009.
