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This evening will take you back in history! We'll hear how the analysis of molecules in archaeological findings like pottery can tell us what our ancestors had for dinner. And how did dinosaurs keep their joints lubricated so they could flee from a T-Rex?
Milk and molecules
or how small molecules from ancient pottery tell us what people were eating in in the past.
Julie will be talking about how small molecules extracted from thousands of years old pottery can be used to look at what people ate. Their molecular distributions and isotopic values will tell us what foods were cooked in the vessels. This has allowed us to build up a picture of when, where and how the first farmers started to drink milk and make butter, cheese and yoghurt. This is important because it is then that the human evolution of the lactase persistence gene occurs, allowing us to drink milk.
Julie will be talking about how small molecules extracted from thousands of years old pottery can be used to look at what people ate. Their molecular distributions and isotopic values will tell us what foods were cooked in the vessels. This has allowed us to build up a picture of when, where and how the first farmers started to drink milk and make butter, cheese and yoghurt. This is important because it is then that the human evolution of the lactase persistence gene occurs, allowing us to drink milk.
Nature’s secret lubricants: From dinosaurs’ knee joints to artificial hip replacements
The remarkable ease with which some biological tissue surfaces glide over each other (e.g. in eye blinking and knee joints) has long puzzled and humbled us. However, our understanding of the enigmatic mechanism for biolubrication remains limited. We propose a mechanism that points to the fluidity of water molecules as the key to unlock nature’s secrets in biolubrication.
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