Texit: Keep Calm and Science On

You can catch flu – short for influenza – all year round but especially in winter. Each year, ‘seasonal flu’ causes 200,000 to 500,000 deaths worldwide. Occasionally, flu can also transfer from pigs, and potentially birds, to humans leading to a massive outbreak known as a pandemic. To date, there have been four documented flu pandemics, the most serious occurring in 1918 when ‘Spanish flu’ caused 50-100 million deaths. My research seeks to address why some flu strains cause so many deaths, whether another flu pandemic will occur and if we can produce a vaccine that protects against all flu strains.

Chronic or severe stress is a known risk factor for most psychological disorders, including depression. Interpersonal stress and trauma appear to be particularly harmful. Yet many people exposed to stressful experiences – including child abuse, neglect and bullying – do not develop depression. This talk will focus on research addressing key questions: Why are some people less likely to develop depression following interpersonal stress and trauma than others? Can we identify factors that help to protect at-risk people from developing depression?

Causation is complex, especially where it involves ‘the person’. Advances in science are made in the face of weak comprehension of causal frameworks. One problem is that the Scientific Method is weak in contrast to the model of understanding to which we aspire. Psychology highlights a further constraint; animals have evolved mechanisms that solve natural causation in a similar manner. There are implications for patient and practitioner as well as their interaction. The world is more complex than we acknowledge and we have evolved to think more simply than we might wish.

Animal flight, and particularly insect flight, has captivated many scientists over the years, and has inspired technology as we know it today. With the help of high speed cameras and modern computer software, Inés will take you on a journey that shows how much we can learn about an insect from its wings alone - and why you should care!