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Have you ever wondered where our beer and bread ingredients actually came from, or why we are more productive at certain times of day? Dr. Mark Chapman guides us through the transformative evolutionary journey undertaken by crops like wheat and barley to their present form! Then Dr. Herman Wijnen explains the biology of our body clock, and how working patterns and seasonal changes affect us!
From Darwin to DNA: 150 years of domestication research
Dr. Mark Chapman
(Associate Professor in Ecology and Evolution)
Darwin described domestication as “An experiment on a giant scale”, and used his findings as evidence that evolution proceeds through natural selection. Since this time, advances in archaeology, genetics and genomics have revealed when and where species were domesticated, and uncovered the genes that cause the dramatic transformations from wild to domesticated species. This talk will tour 150 years of research, from Darwin up to present day, focussing in some instances on those species necessary to produce your pint!
The Tick-Tock of Your Body Clock
Dr. Herman Wijnen
(Associate Professor in Biological Sciences)
Why is time measured in seconds, minutes and hours? What is sleep and why do we need it? Why is winter time depressing to some people? Why can shift work be bad for your health and waist line? What research won a Nobel Prize for the discovery of the body clock mechanism? Is daylight savings time good for us? If you are interested in the answers to some of these questions, come along to a talk by chronobiologist Herman Wijnen. Oh, and if you like, you can also find out whether you are better suited to an early bird or night owl life style.
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