Science and Society Back Catalogue

Meeting on 8th November 2022

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Meeting on 13th December 2022

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(Discussing global issues arising from Organic farming)

Organic farming: good or bad?

Issues about farming practices sent in by Joe Henderson

1. Organic production is only likely to be a niche market because of the lower yields

2. Chemical residues crop up everywhere. Next time you buy oranges, look at the label listing what they are treated with. It's normally an insecticide, a fungicide and a preservative.

3. Levels of trace elements in foods are declining compared to a century ago. There is little doubt that soils are being degraded by intensive farming.

4. Much of the damage has already been done. I read where dead sea mammals washed up on the west coast of America are now treated as toxic waste because of the levels of chemicals, washed into rivers and hence into the sea which are concentrated in the fat of animals at the top of the food chain. And there are guidelines on how much fresh tuna it is safe to eat mainly because of mercury levels.

5. There can be a big difference in the time taken for chemicals to be deactivated and how long it takes for them to be broken down. In clay and peaty soils chemicals can take months and occasionally years to be broken down. This applies particularly to herbicides.

I believe, perhaps optimistically that food produced in the UK, even if not organic is safe. I have reservations about some of the food imported. There are chemicals banned in the UK which are still being manufactured by UK companies and exported to other countries where these are not banned.

Sources and Types of Gravitational Waves | LIGO Lab | Caltech

Risks in social work

Parkinson’s alleviated by computer connection to brain

Climate change statistics – country comparisons (behind Daily Telegraph paywall)

Cockroaches join Reckitt’s race to build a much more hygienic world (behind Times paywall)

Transmission of Black Death

(My note taking is not perfect! If I missed or misrepresented a topic, please send me a link to better information. EM)

Meeting on 11th October 2022

The theme of this meeting was energy -- fuels of the future. How are we going to provide reasonably priced, non-polluting and sustainable energy? We viewed three presentations.

The first one presents the case that we should not be phasing out nuclear energy as a viable source of power.

Current nuclear reactors rely on the use of uranium as the primary fuel. In 1940s, most research on nuclear energy was focused on providing nuclear weapons, so an alternative method of producing energy, the thorium reactor was not developed. Our second video explores this.

Finally, we looked at a video that explained an approach to solar cells currently in development.

Meeting on 13th September 2022

Topics discussed at the start included the Drake equation and the Life Scientific programme run by Jim Al-Khalili on Radio 4.

Our presentation was about effective altruism - a TED talk by Will Macaskill who is a cofounder of the effective altruism movement, a philosophy that tries to answer the question: how can we do as much good as possible?.

This led to a discussion of whether science can inform topics of this kind. Examples were taken from the role of altruism in the survival of species, and led to discussion of the life and work of Peter Singer. His TED talk on this topic is embedded below.

Sometimes controversial, always practical ethicist Peter Singer stirs public debate about morality, from animal welfare to global poverty.

Earlier talks...

The Jet Stream

Blocking Highs and Weather Bombs

A presentation by Brian Beesley to the Science and Society interest group

Brian gave a very informative presentation at our April meeting that used audio and video recordings integrated by a Powerpoint presentation to illustrate the topic. Here's a link to a separate page containing its content.

March 8th 2022

"Artificial Intelligence meets Mental Health Therapy" was the video we used as the basis for our discussion.