Events

Film: A Plastic Ocean + discussion In this adventure documentary, Craig Leeson teams up with free diver Tanya Streeter and an international team of scientists and researchers and they travel to twenty locations around the world to explore the fragile state of our oceans. They uncover alarming truths about plastic pollution, and reveal working solutions that can be put into immediate effect.    Chris Desai of UOCEAN® 2050 will lead a discussion after the film. UOCEAN® 2050 works with volunteers, individuals, communities, governments, schools, universities and corporate businesses in over 33 countries. It aims to forge a circular economy of sustainable behaviours with the removal of marine plastics from canals, rivers, beaches and the open ocean. To this end it deploys educational toolkits and  academic institutions to address ...

From Fruit Fly Love Songs to a Nobel Prize Professor Charalambos Kyriacou   How a chance discovery led to a Nobel Prize.   Image by Madboy74 , CC0, via Wikimedia Commons Charalambos (Bambos) Kyriacou was born in Camden, London, in 1953 and was educated in North London, helping out during the week in his father’s restaurant in Finchley and during the summers working in the local graveyard. Bambos went to Birmingham University at 17 and read psychology where one of the lecturers sparked an interest towards behavioural genetics. Graduating in 1973 he started a PhD on Drosophila genetics and behaviour in the Departments of Psychology and Genetics in Sheffield. In 1976 he spent a year as a demonstrator in psychology at the University of Edinburgh before moving to Brandeis University, Bosto...

Darwin Day lecture   Brain training, Brain Blood Flow and Dementia Dr Lucy Beishon   Brain training is a fun and simple intervention to keep minds active in older age. However, there are many unknowns. What benefits does it have on the brain? And can people living with dementia realistically brain train using technology they’re not necessarily familiar with?   Lucy is  an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Geriatric medicine with an interest in cognitive disorders at the University of Leicester. She is particularly interested in how brain blood flow is altered or damaged in dementia and how this contributes to the development or progression of different types of dementia. In particular she has studied and investigated the use of cognitive or “brain training “as a treatment f...

Medical Detection Dogs Harold Palmer Medical Detection Dogs use their incredible sense of smell to save lives every day. Bio detection dogs use their nose to find illnesses such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, malaria, and even Covid-19! Dogs are trained to support people with life-threatening health conditions, saving their lives on a daily basis. support people with life-threatening health conditions, saving their lives on a daily basis.    All welcome - admission free . Tea & biscuits. Donations welcome.   Image by Dave Francis from Pixabay

Campaigning to reopen the Peaks and Dales rail line from Derby to Manchester A talk on the campaign to reopen the Peaks and Dales rail line from Derby to Manchester.  Stephen Chaytow of Manchester and East Midlands Rail Partnership (MEMRAP memrap.org). More details: www.memrap.org/news/public-campaign   All welcome - admission free . Tea & biscuits. Donations welcome.

How Creative Writing Helps Char is a poet and playwright and will perform some poems and talk about her work as as Writer-in-Residence for the NHS. Together with staff she has initiated changes  to make hospitals more humane places e.g. getting support staff more recognition; valuing people with dementia; recognising very elderly patients  as important human beings;  creating gardens for staff and patients; lighting up waiting rooms and corridors with creative projects.   She is also a Humanist celebrant and a new member of Red Leicester Choir.   All welcome - admission free . Tea & biscuits. Donations welcome. Image by cromaconceptovisual from Pixabay

A New Winter of Discontent? A Trades Council Perspective . Chris Willars   Britain is facing a winter of strikes as industrial action on the railways spreads to the health service and other key sectors of the economy. Such is the wave of discontent that more than 1m working days were probably lost to disputes in December, the most since 1989, during Margaret Thatcher’s final years in power. Leicester is caught up in this and Chris will talk about Leicester and District Trades Union Council, current industrial action, the reasons for it and the support of the LDTUC for the unions involved.   Chris is Chair of the Leicester and District TUC.   All welcome - admission free . Tea & biscuits. Donations welcome. Image by MasterTux from Pixabay