HEADINGLEY DEVELOPMENT TRUST (HDT)


Open to everyone with an enquiring mind!

Cafe Scientifique is a place where people can meet for mini ‘lectures’ on all things scientific. Past Cafes have featured talks on transportation, research, weather, Darwin, astronomy and DNA. The events are extremely popular with lively discussion and informative talks. Topics are always relevant, cutting edge and up-to-date. They are often taken from a wider global discussion.

All are welcome and level of participation is up to the individual. The Cafe is held at The New Headingley Club on St Michael’s Lane.

For information on topics each month please check back here for updates or for more information see the e-newsletter or the HDT newsletter.

To be added to the Cafe Scientifique mailing list please contact
Ann Clarke on: ann.clarke17@yahoo.co.uk

 

‘The Hunt to Find the Genes That Make Us Human’

Tuesday March 30th
7:45pm – 9:30pm

New Headingley Club,
56 St Michael’s Rd,
Leeds LS6 3BG.
Tel: 0113 2757712
(for info. on venue)

Entry £2


How many gene mutations does it take to make a human out of something that looked very much like today's chimpanzee? It is a question frequently posed by the popular science media ever since the publication of the full read-out of the chimpanzee genome, less than five years ago.
The real story, however, is much more complicated - but also much more interesting - than the simplistic notion that "human-ness" can be accounted for by a mere 1.6% difference between the genetic code of humans and chimps. It involves the genetic foundations of language and the huge relative size of the human brain, our immune systems, our diet, and aspects of our behaviour. Chimpanzees are proving useful to our quest to find out how we became human, why, and when, but they are NOT watered-down versions of us and we are NOT chimps with a genetic tweak!.

Jeremy Taylor has been a broadcaster of popular science all his working life and has recently turned to science writing with his first book "Not A Chimp: The Hunt To Find The Genes That Make Us Human.

 


Past meetings:

Tues Mar 2nd 2010 Standards: The Boring Stuff that Shapes Virtually Everything We Do
by Lawrence Busch
Tues Feb 2nd 2010 How to Build a Zero-carbon House
by Matthew Hill
Mon Nov 2nd 2009 Decoding Reality
by Vlatko Vedral
Tues Oct 20th 2009 Enjoying the Night Sky
by Ray Emery and Paul Marchant
Mon July 1st 2009 Stable Plaques - Unstable Membranes
by Glyn Wainwright
+ A Cosmic Cabaret
with Lynda Williams
Mon Jun 1st 2009 Policing at the Frontiers of Science: The Forensic use of DNA
by Carole McCartney
Tues May 5th 2009 Back to Creation
by Jennifer Smilie
Mon Apr 6th 2009 The 21st Century’s First Perfect Storm:
A View From Outside Economics
by Larry Brownstein
Mon Mar 2nd 2009 The Birth of Cosmic Ray Astronomy on the Argentinian Pampas
by Alan Watson
Mon Jan 5th 2009 Diet and Cognitive Function
by Louise Dye
Mon Dec 1st 2008 Was there a Darwinian Revolution?
by Jonathan Hodge and Gregory Radick
Tues Nov 4th 2008 Geophysical Prospecting – Finding Rocks You Can Sell
by Alan Reid
Mon Oct 6th 2008 The Science of Weather Forecasting
by Doug Parker
Mon Aug 4th 2008 Biofuels: Global Challenge, International Response
by Catherine Rhodes
Mon July 7th 2008 Artificial Intelligence in Games - 1945 to 2045
By Peter Cowling
Mon June 2nd 2008 Sex and Drugs and Broken Bones
By Jo Neil and Kay Marshall
Tues May 6th 2008 The World as Structure: Exploring the Implications of Modern Physics
By Steven French
Mon Apr 7th 2008 Polymaths - Who needs them?
By Alasdair Beal
Mon Mar 3rd 2008 The Psychology of Pain
By Stephen Morley
Mon Feb 4th 2008 The Physics of Star Trek. Can Anti-matter power the Enterprise?
By Ruth Gregory
Mon Jan 7th 2008 A 21st Century Transport System for Leeds?
By Dave Haskins
Mon Dec 3rd 2007 Research Integrity
By Aubrey Blumsohn
Tues Oct 2nd 2007 Genetic Manipulation
By Chris Wild
Thurs Aug 2nd 2007 The Politics of Food
By Malcolm Povey
Mon Apr 30th 2007 Memory for life
How it works and how we lose it
By Martin Conway
Mon Mar 19th 2007 Copenhagen - The Play
Tues Feb 19th 2006 Nanotechnology
By Rik Brydson
Tues Dec 12th 2006

Capitalism Unleashed
The impact on the UK of the rapidly developing economies of China and the South
By Andrew Glyn

Thurs Nov 2nd 2006 21st Century Leeds
Geographies of a Regional City
By Rachel Unsworth, academic author working part time with the Leeds Initiative
Tues Oct 3rd 2006 Debate – To combat global warming we need nuclear power
For – Stephen Stretton (Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy)
Against – Phil Webber (Scientists for Global Responsibility)
Thurs Aug 31st 2006 Global Warming
From the geological past to the future
By Jane Francis, academic and regular visitor to the North Pole
Mon July 17th 2006 The Future of Work in Britain
What jobs will there be and what skills will we need to do them?
By Professor Mike Campbell, Policy and Research Director of the Sector Skills Development Agency