Science and Technology Group

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March Meeting: Anil Seth, Machine Consciousness

March 15, Strangers Room.

Consciousness is, for each of us, the presence of a world. Without consciousness there is no world, no self: there is nothing at all. But we do not know much about the material and biological basis of this most central feature of our lives. How do rich multisensory experiences, the senses of self and body, and volition, agency, and ‘will’ emerge from the joint activity of billions of neurons locked inside a bony skull? Once the province just of philosophy and theology, the neuroscience of consciousness has emerged as a one of the great scientific challenges for this century. In this talk I will sketch the state-of-the-art in the new science of consciousness. I will distinguish between conscious level (how conscious we are), conscious content (what we are conscious of), and conscious self (the ‘I’ behind the eyes), describing in each case how new experiments are shedding light on the underlying neural mechanisms, in normal life and in neurological and psychiatric conditions. Throughout, I will emphasize phenomenology – the way things seem – as the target for any satisfying explanation of how the brain, in conjunction with the body and the environment, gives rise to and shapes conscious experience.

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April Meeting: Peter Wilson, The Rise of Antimicrobial Resistance

April 19th, Strangers Room

We may be witnessing the end of antibiotics as we know them. Penicillin is no longer the miracle drug it once was. Bacteria have evolved to beat it at its own game. The same goes for most other antibiotics. The problem is so severe that drug manufacturers have given up the unequal fight. They no longer sink significant sums into developing drugs that will retain their efficacy for a shorter and shorter period. This solves a problem for their investors, but creates a bigger problem for any of us that might be threatened with infection, which is all of us.

Without antibiotics, life will be very different. We will be afraid to take risks of coming into contact with infection. We will be afraid to play contact sports, in case we get an injury which might require even minor surgery. We will have to be very careful about how we live our everyday lives.

Peter Wilson is a consultant microbiologist at University College London Hospitals. He was trained at Cambridge and UCL and became a consultant in 1990. His main interests lie in antimicrobial chemotherapy and infection control and he has responsibility for critical care.

2017 Programme

Dates for 2017 are as follows (all meeting are on Wednesdays, usually the 3rd one of each month):

Month Day of Month Speaker Title
February 15th Prof Martyn Thomas Cybersecurity
March 15th Prof Anil Seth Machine Consciousness
April 19th Prof Peter Wilson Anti-Microbial Resistance.
May either 16th, 17th, Giles Yeo Are your genes to blame if your jeans don't fit?
June 21st Paul Veys CAR-T Study, Anthony Nolan. See Trello.
September 20th Dr Paolo Tasca Bitcoins and the Blockchain
October 18th Prof J A Madrigal Stem cell therapies.
November 15th To Be Confirmed To Be Confirmed

For more information, please visit our Meetings page.