The Social Life of Science

The contributions of many women, black, and marginalised people to science are often obscured from history. Shedding light on their little-known stories, long shadowed by more famous scientists’ lives, has never been more important. This talk explores some of my favourite forgotten contributors to science: from formerly enslaved men who influenced evolutionary discourses and vaccination programmes, to remarkable female scientists whose ideas were so revolutionary they were dismissed by their male counterparts. You might find that some of your scientific heroes had a dark, hidden side.

When you ask hairdressers to pick the best part of their job, they’ll almost invariably say it’s making people feel good about themselves. If you take out your phone, they will likely tell you stories about how social media have changed their working lives. But what has changed: clients, the job, salon life, or hairdressers themselves? How have hairdressers found themselves on the frontline of digital marketing? How does it affect their work? And how do we influence hairdressers' working life, online and in-salon? We'll try to unpick these tangles together in this Pint of Science talk.

What is the nature of the relationship between a foetus and its gestational carrier? Are they separate entities or is the foetus part of its gestational carrier? At first glance, perhaps most would say the former. In this talk I discuss why this container view has so wholly shaped our medical, philosophical and social understanding of pregnancy. I explain that, from a philosophical and biological view, it actually makes more sense to see foetuses as parts of their carriers and how this altered perspective of the metaphysics of pregnancy can re-evaluate the understanding of reproductive rights.