All posts by nigmeng

Prostate Cancer UK event a success

Dr Jennifer Munkley from the IGM has organised a Prostate Cancer UK patient information day at the IGM on the 28th of September. The event was a huge success, with 80 patient visitors and included informal talks as well as hands on experiments and microscope demonstrations with real lab specimens. Congratulations and thank you for organising an amazing event!

A 3 day teaching opportunity in Italy, January 2019

Liceo Scientifico G. Bruno (Melzo, near Milan, Italy) are looking for 2 PhD students or postdocs in any scientific discipline (biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics or chemistry) to teach science (in English) to high school students (16-18 y/o) for a total of 30 hours (15 hours each) over 3 days (5 hours/day from 8.10 AM to 1.10 PM in January 2019.

The school will provide 80 euro/each for travel and 10 euro/hour of teaching. They will also provide a certificate of the hours taught. The PhD students/postdocs will be hosted by the families for as long as they like (if they want to stay and do a bit of sightseeing afterwards).

If you’re interested please send your CV to IGMengagement@ncl.ac.uk and we’ll forward it to the school for shortlisting. Thank you!

AHRC New Generation Thinks Scheme – a public engagement opportunity

Do you have early career researchers and PhD students in you institution who are keen to develop their career in broadcast media and public engagement?

The AHRC is currently looking for applications for its unique New Generation Thinks Scheme – the 2019 call is currently open and there is a month to go until it closes on 4 October.

Now in its ninth year, the scheme aims to cultivate talented, articulate academics into exceptional all-round communicators. It provides a variety of training opportunities and the chance to work with world-class broadcasters from across the BBC.

Ten academics will be given the chance to front engaging and innovative programmes on BBC Radio 3 and beyond, as well as working with the AHRC on public engagement opportunities.

The scheme is open to early career researchers from all research backgrounds, provided their research is linked to an arts and humanities discipline. You can find out more here: https://ahrc.ukri.org/newsevents/news/search-starts-for-2019-generation-of-great-thinkers-and-broadcasters/

The private life in colour – open lecture at Newcastle University, 19th September 5pm

Registration begins at 5.15pm and the first talk begins at 5:30pm. Free for members of Colour Collective UK, non members will be asked for a contribution of £3 on the door.

Questions such as What is colour? or What does a colour-blind person see? or Is the red you see the same as the red I see? are often asked by members of the public, yet the answers to such questions are not that straight forward and may depend on who you ask: An experimental psychologist or visual neuroscientist will tell you that colour is simply a construct of the eye/brain and depends on the structures and functions of the visual system of the beholder. The viewpoint of a philosopher will be governed by their respective approach, and an individual with ‘variant’ colour vision – such as colour blindness or synaesthesia – will offer an insightful but introspective view of their personal experience. Whatever the viewpoint, we hope that our event will demonstrate that our perception of colour is indeed very private.

***** TALK 1 *****
Dr Derek Brown (University of Glasgow, Philosophy)
Colour subjectivisms, Why, what, and which one?

Colour subjectivists deny that colours are objective properties “out there” in our world. Carrots don’t have orange in themselves, nor do avocados have green. For colour subjectivists there is a robust private life of colour. Why hold such a view? I offer two reasons, one stemming from colour properties and another from variations in colour perception. Now suppose colours aren’t simply “out there”. What should we say about colour? Here are three options: (1) Relationalism: colours are relations between perceivers and things in the world (carrots are orange-to-me even if they aren’t orange simpliciter). (2) Mentalism: colours are properties of colour perceptual states (carrots aren’t orange but the perceptual states we enter into when looking at carrots are orange). (3) Eliminativism: nothing is coloured, not carrots, not perceptual states, not relations between the two – nothing. Which account should we endorse? This is tricky, though I sketch a method for deciding.

***** TALK 2 *****
Joe Crutwell (Science writer for the British Science Association)
What it’s like to be colour blind

I have a confession to make. I am red-green colour blind.
I have been for the entirety of my life, but didn’t find out until I was around 10 years old, when I was shown a series of odd dot patterns at school. Ever since then, I‘ve been extremely interested in the details of this deficiency, both in my life experience and what I discovered through study.
Can I see things other people can’t? How do I tell traffic lights apart? Do my clothes always clash? I’ll answer these questions and more as I delve into what it is like to live with a condition that is so often misunderstood, and show how colour blindness isn’t just a black and white issue.

***** TALK 3 *****
Dr David Simmons (University of Glasgow, Psychology)
Individual differences in the perception of colours: From the perspective of synaesthesia and autism

It is tempting to think that everyone experiences colours in the same way we do. Certainly there is a surprising level of agreement over the colours that most people like and dislike, although there is also evidence that this can be heavily influenced by culture and upbringing. But for synaesthetes letters, words and even voices can be coloured, whereas for some autistic individuals seeing certain colours can give rise to discomfort and pain. I shall explore the world of individual differences in colour perception using examples from my own and others’ research.