CDT Pizza 11/01

Talk #1

Speaker

Frank Karvelis

Title

The Role of Memes in the Evolution of Species

Abstract

Genes are the basis of biology. They are the ultimate replicators in the story of evolution. For most species, genes might hold all the explanations of how they came to be and who they are. However, what happens when genes give rise to a new replicator – a meme*, which can spread and mutate similarly to how genes do, but it does so on a different substrate (hint: the brain)? Memes start interfering with genes in ways that we can barely keep track of. In this talk I will present some of the more established (and some speculative) cases of how memes might have affected the evolution of genes. Naturally, this will also touch on the question of what makes humans so special and how being so special enables humans to become even more special.* - meme here is used in the broad sense (meme as a unit of culture that gets passed around from brain to brain) rather than referring to the internet meme that we are all too familiar with and use a shorthand meme to refer to

Talk #2

Speaker

Luke Daly

Title

Meteorite Hunting with the UK fireball network

Abstract

The aim of planetary science is to determine how the solar system formed from a nebular of gas and dust to a star, with planets in orbit, one with life, bordering on intelligent. We do this by looking at meteorites. Unfortunately of the > 50000 meteorites we have in worldwide collections only 30 were observed falls from which we could calculate their orbit. I was part of a major project in Australia to rectify this by building a network of cameras to image fireballs, and triangulate and recover meteorites. This talk will cover the history of that network and its phase two expansion into a global fireball observatory, including a brand new UK fireball network, and how you could help!