This research spotlight event is open to all students within the College of Life and Environmental Sciences.
Book your place now.
Join us for talks over two days, both from within your own subject area and from across the College. Explore a fantastic range of topics, discover new ones, and expand your horizons in your degree and beyond.
As part of UoB Xtra, we’ll be celebrating our themes of Lifestyle and Human Health and Resilient Environments and Health. With talks on everything from climate change to healthcare, hangovers, bacteria, elite athletes, and controlling pain, there’s something for everyone.
Programme
10:00-11:00: Optimising & safeguarding physical performance in a warming world: Applied physiology at work, Dr Rebekah Lucas
11:00-12:00: From gains to pains: The perils of anabolic-androgenic steroid dependence, Dr Barny Carter
'To some degree we have all heard of anabolic steroids, but do you really know what these synthetic compounds do to the body of those that administer them? During this session we will dive into the topic of the most prevalently used image and performance enhancing drugs, explore how they work, understand the undesired physiological and psychological effects associated with their misuse, and debunk several myths along the way.
12:00-13:00: Reaping the benefits of plant vaccination, Dr Estrella Luna Diez
13:00-14:00: ‘Making sense of climate: waves, weather and imaginary worlds’, Dr Ruth Geen
The Arctic has warmed faster than anywhere else on Earth, and some researchers have proposed that this warming will drive extreme weather across Northern Hemisphere land regions, including the UK, by making the midlatitude jet stream weaker and wavier. This perspective has been picked up and passed on by science communicators, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s social media. However, the underlying science remains unclear, and is a topic of significant debate in the climate research community. This talk will discuss the evidence for and against the ‘warmer Arctic -> extreme weather’ theory, and how we can use simple climate models to examine the basics of climate processes.
14:00–15:00: Daphnia as detective: exploring nanomaterials impacts using sentinel species, Prof Iseult Lynch
15:00-16:00: The Secrets of Sleep
16:00-17:00 Genetic therapy for crop plants, Dr Eugenio Sanchez-Moran