Attending the "Rhapsody in blue: the story of the blue LED" lecture by Professor Stephen Sweeney from the University of Surrey reminded of my time at secondary school. Reminded the physics of light brings back good memories. As it is the International Year of Light, the blue LED technology was explored to its root of discovery. The research and its applications were discussed to show how important it is to have LEDs around us everywhere. As a result, such device won the Nobel Prize last year in 2014.
It has been a while since I last breathed in the fresh air. It was down a long memory lane this morning when I went for a stroll prior breakfast. The sun was beaming behind me as I walked up to the main entrance and taking in the beautiful scenery over the University or Bradford. Unlike yesterday when the place was so quite that all you can here is your own breathing, this morning there were more people walking around campus before 8am.
The lecture "Follow the leader: the social lives of animals and humans" from Dr Shaun Killen (University of Glasgow) explored the social behaviour of how fishes behave, and understanding who and why others follow the leader in different situations. Relating to humans also, it was interesting to see how concepts experimented on animals applies similarly to us mammals. Starting the lecture with a physical active of Mexican wave, the audience were asked to initiate the activity without asking someone to start the wave. It was all due to social behaviours which was explained later on, that someone from the audience had to be brave and confident to being the Mexican wave.
Studying nutrition as my degree, I would have never thought of attending the next lecture. However, due to my hobby, my passion in music has led me to attend "The Daphne Oram Award Lecture for Digital Innovation", "Live Coding: creating languages for making music". Dr Alex McLean from the University of Leeds demonstrated live to us how to make music through coding. It was a fascinating method of demonstrating a new way to make sound through coding. To me, coding was just something which in the past I thought, "What has this got to do with me?". However, through recent experience on working in a summer research project with academics, coding seems to have found a place in my list of hobbies. It was just so surreal when Dr McLean created a piece of music in front of our eyes; seeing cods up on the screen whilst hearing notes put together to create a small tune. I wondered after the lecture, "have I chosen the right degree course to study?"
Speeding across from one room to the next with lectures being back to back for the whole day and is not even lunchtime yet... However, this next lecture began from the smell I received when walking down the corridor without even arriving at the door. "What does death smell like?" was my third lecture of the day. The smell down the corridor smelt dieffenbachia compared to earlier on when I was in the same room. Dr Anna Williams, a forensic anthropologist from the University of Huddersfield gave a very interactive lecture taking us on the journey of body decomposition and the effects it has on the body post death. Bringing with her the different smell of death at different stages of chemicals givin off by decomposing corpses, it was a chance for us to test our scent of smell by discovering what each stage of death smells like. I must say, I am glad I am not studying in this field!!
After lunch was the "Drinking in later life" lecture by Professor Clare Holdsworth from Keele University and working in collaboration with the Geography Section of BSA. Drinking behaviour changes between different age groups and evidence shows how as people age, our health and lifestyle also changes with research demonstrating that there are links between these aspects of life. A paper published by her on the "Alcohol consumption, life course transitions and health in later life" was used to demonstrate the title of the lecture. Statistics and facts were provided to make us more aware of the amount of alcohol consumption through an individual's life, and how the correct interventions can be provided to help inform the public on guidelines and targets.
With the recent outbreak of Ebola, the "Tracking viral infection" was a very popular lecture by Professor Paul Kellam from the Welcome Trust Sanger Institute. History and technologies were explored to demonstrate how the transmission of viral infections such as the flue or Ebola can have an affect on a population. Going back to the famous cholera outbreak in 1854 Broad Street, London, the concept of how diseases were identified and treated was applied to the Ebola case in today's time. It was discussed also that information should be shared between different parties, and interventions should be applied where needed as soon as positive to prevent further transmission.
The last lecture of the day was the best in my mind and has been the highlight so far. More to come on the post!
