[ceevol] Next week's Seminar & Future Events
- From: "Williamson, Fiona" <f.williamson@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "gee-all@xxxxxxxxx (gee-all@xxxxxxxxx)" <gee-all@xxxxxxxxx>, "CEE Vol (ceevol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)" <ceevol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "London Evolution (londonevolution@xxxxxxxxx)" <londonevolution@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 09:36:24 +0000
Cognitive Perceptual and Brain Sciences Research Department
Memory of hunger: Cognitive scars of early-life adversity in European starlings?
Speaker: Professor Melissa Bateson Centre for Behaviour and
Evolution/Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University
Date & Time: Tuesday 26th November 2013 at 4pm
Venue: 26 Bedford Way Room 305
(map<http://crf.casa.ucl.ac.uk/screenRoute.aspx?s=1178&d=206&w=False>)
Host: Professor Kate Jeffery
(k.jeffery@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:k.jeffery@xxxxxxxxx>)
Abstract
People who experience harsh early environments are more likely to develop
affective disorders and behavioural problems such as addiction as adults,
suggesting a cognitive style involving increased pessimism and impulsivity.
People with these traits also have shorter telomeres in their leukocytes,
suggesting that telomere attrition is a biomarker of cumulative psychosocial
stress. The human evidence for these effects is correlational, and to show that
there is a causal relationship between early-life stress, telomere attrition
and adult cognition an experimental animal model is required. We have developed
the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) as a novel model for studying these
relationships. Starlings are long-lived, wild animals in which we can
manipulate the early environment easily, and for which we have already
developed many cognitive measures. I will present data from a cohort of
siblings that were raised in nests where they faced either high or low
competition for food. We show that increased competition is associated with
increased developmental telomere attrition. We also find cognitive differences
in adults including increased impulsivity, increased expectation of reward and
decreased dietary selectivity. This suite of traits is characteristic of hungry
animals, but at the time of our experiments, the birds did not differ in size,
weight, or deprivation. Thus, the birds that had faced early food competition
behaved as if hungrier than their siblings, even though their current states
were ostensibly the same. Our results demonstrate long-term effects of early
experience on personality variation, and establish telomere attrition as a
biomarker of condition. I discuss whether our findings represent an example of
adaptive developmental plasticity.
Refreshments will be available after the seminar
------------------------------------
GEE/CEE Seminar - Medawar Lecture
Dinosaurs in the Twenty-First Century: new life from old bones
Speaker: Paul Barrett (Natural History Museum)
Date & Time: Wednesday, 27 November at 5pm
Venue: Room 508, Roberts Building
(map)<http://crf.casa.ucl.ac.uk/screenRoute.aspx?s=1178&d=133&w=False>
Annual Medawar Lecture organised by the London Evolutionary Research Network
(LERN<http://londonevolution.net/>)
------------------------------------
UCL's Festival of Ageing
Solving the Mystery of the Biology of Ageing
Speaker: David Gems<http://www.ucl.ac.uk/iha/people/david-gems>,
Professor of Biogerontology, Institute of Healthy Ageing, UCL
Date & time: Thursday, 28 November (6pm - 7pm)
Venue: Cruciform Lecture
Theatre<http://www.ucl.ac.uk/estates/roombooking/building-location/?id=212>
(LT1), followed by a drinks reception in the North Cloisters, Wilkins Building,
UCL
Recent advances in biogerontology (the biology of ageing) have identified many
genes and pathways where intervention in animals can decelerate ageing, which
results in partial resistance to a wide spectrum of ageing-related diseases,
and an increase in healthy lifespan. This raises the prospect of a new,
preventative approach in humans to the disease that is ageing to improve
late-life health in the future. But despite such progress, the fundamental
mechanisms of biological ageing remain largely undiscovered, and their nature
constitutes one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in science. Recently, an
influential hypothesis in biogerontology - that accumulation of random
molecular damage causes ageing - has been challenged, and based on recent
discoveries in the field, new theories about what ageing is are emerging and
being tested in short-lived animal models such as fruit flies and nematode
worms.
Welcome and introduction: Filipe Gomes Cabreiro, Department of Structural and
Molecular Biology.
REGISTER HERE<https://solvingthemysteryofthebiologyageing.eventbrite.co.uk/>
This lecture forms part of UCL's Festival of Ageing and has been convened by
Nazif Alic and Matthew Piper, Institute of Healthy Ageing.
------------------------------------
15th Young Systematists' Forum: Systematics Association conference
Date&Time: Friday 29 November 2013, 0900hrs
Venue: Flett Lecture Theatre, Natural History Museum, London, UK
The annual Young Systematists' Forum represents an exciting setting for
Masters, PhD and young postdoctoral researchers to present their data, often
for the first time, to a scientific audience interested in taxonomy,
systematics and phylogenetics. This well-established event provides an
important opportunity for budding systematists to discuss their research in
front of their peers within a supportive environment. Supervisors and other
established systematists are also encouraged to attend.
Prizes will be awarded for the most promising oral and poster presentation as
judged by a small panel on the day.
Registration is FREE. Send applications by e-mail to
(YSF.SystematicsAssociation@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:YSF.SystematicsAssociation@xxxxxxxxx>),
supplying your name, contact address and stating whether or not you wish to
give an oral or poster presentation. Space will be allocated subject to
availability and for a balanced programme of animal, plant, algal, microbial,
molecular and other research. Non-participating attendees are also very welcome
- please register as above.
Abstracts must be submitted by e-mail in English no later than Friday 18
October 2013. The body text should not exceed 150 words in length. If the
presentation is co-authored, the actual speaker (oral) or presenter (poster)
must be clearly indicated in BOLD text. Institutional addresses should be given
for all authors.
All registered attendants will receive further information about the meeting,
including abstracts, by e-mail one week in advance. This information will also
be displayed on the Systematics Association website
(www.systass.org<http://www.systass.org>).
------------------------------------
UCL Biodiversity Forum and Seminar Series
Human impacts on 'natural' landscapes, past and present
Speakers: TBC
Date & Time: Tuesday, 17 December at 1600hrs
Venue: Room 432, No. 16 Taviton Road (fourth floor, UCL School
of Slavonic Studies building)
(map)<http://crf.casa.ucl.ac.uk/screenRoute.aspx?s=1178&d=167&w=False>
There are a large number of researchers at UCL working on biodiversity-related
topics, across Geography, the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research
(CBER), the Environment Institute, Earth Sciences, Anthropology, the Energy
Institute, Archaeology, Genetics, Evolution and Environment (GEE) and others.
The Biodiversity Forum and Seminar Series is a chance to talk across
departments and faculty, to foster greater collaboration (particularly now the
NERC DTP is funded which can facilitate cross-departmental PhD projects).
The forum is intended for UCL Researchers and collaborators.
Tuesday 21 January 2014. Planetary Boundaries: useful, an illusion, or both?
Tuesday 18 February 2014. Biodiversity responses to climate change
March 18th 2014. Biofuels and Biodiversity
Tuesday 15 April 2014. 4pm Tuesday 18 March 2014. Biodiversity & Geo-engineering
--------------------
Fiona Williamson
Executive Officer to Professor Andrew Pomiankowski
Department for Genetics, Evolution & Environment
Darwin Building (Room 111), Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT
Tel: 020 7679 2246 (internal ext 32246)
Fax: 020 7679 7193
E-mail: f.williamson@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:f.williamson@xxxxxxxxx>
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