Some face-to-face events are returning. Check carefully for any requirements.
Professor Trevor Young, Dean of the University of Toronto and world expert on bipolar disorder, is coming to Oxford to give a talk on “Your Brain Needs YOU: Why Psychiatry Is the Best Specialty for the Brightest Medical Minds”.
Venue: Blue Boar Lecture Theatre
Time: 6-7pm (please arrive promptly)
Cost: FREE!
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As an active clinician scientist, Dr. Young’s principal research interest includes understanding the molecular basis of bipolar disorder and its treatment, and how to apply these findings to the clinical setting. He is widely published and well funded by peer-reviewed granting agencies. His research is particularly focused on understanding the processes that lead to long-term changes in brain structure and function in patients with bipolar disorder and how these changes can be targeted by mood stabilizing drugs.
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Dr. Young was appointed Chair, Department of Psychiatry effective September 1, 2010. He received his medical degree at the University of Manitoba. This was followed by residency training at McGill University and the University of Toronto where he also completed his PhD in Medical Sciences. He completed a Research Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. His former roles include Physician-in-Chief, Executive Vice President Programs at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Professor and Cameron Wilson Chair in Depression Studies in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and Professor and Head, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. He was received numerous awards including the Douglas Utting Award for outstanding contributions in the field of mood disorders, the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology Heinz Lehmann Award, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He has led several large clinical programs including the Mood Disorders Program at Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital, which received the American Psychiatric Services Gold Achievement Award. In 2009, he was elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Dr. Young serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, effective January 1, 2015.

Join Great British Bake Off winner, Frances Quinn, as she demonstrates how to decorate gorgeous Confetti Cupcakes with beautiful Marzipan Bees while talking about her design background and Quinntessential Baking cookbook. Save up your questions during the demonstration and join in with a Q&A in which Frances will chat about all things baking and perhaps spill some Bake Off secrets along the way!

Date/Time: Monday 27 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com
Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short
introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.
Today’s session: Schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, bipolar disorders… get ‘a very short introduction’ to severe mental illness and dive into a thought provoking discussion with psychiatrist Tom Burns.

Date/Time: Tuesday 28 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: www.oxscifest.org
Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short
introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.
Today’s session: Get ‘a very short introduction’ to mental health during adolescence and dive into a thought-provoking discussion with psychiatrist Belinda Lennox and psychologist Peter Smith

Ludo, snakes & ladders and draughts are all popular pastimes, but in the past couple of decades a new generation of board games from designers with backgrounds in maths and science has begun to break the Monopoly monopoly. Perhaps the most successful of these is multi award winning Reiner Knizia, who joins mathematician Katie Steckles and board game lover Quentin Cooper to discuss how you develop a game which is easy to learn, hard to master and fun to play time after time. With a chance to have a go at some of Reiner’s latest creations and other top games afterwards.
Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/tuesday.html

Date/Time: Wednesday 29 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: www.oxscifest.org
Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.
Today’s session: Drugs can help patients suffering from various mental illnesses like depression, anxiety or schizophrenia. How do these drugs work in the brain? How to ensure the safety of patients? Get ‘a very short introduction’ to drugs for psychotherapy, and dive into a thought-provoking discussion with pharmacologist Les Iversen.

Date/Time: Thursday 30 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com
Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.
Today’s session: Mental health problems account for nearly 40% of all illness but only 13% of NHS funds are devoted to their treatment. How to best address the mental health challenge with limited resources? Get ‘a very short introduction’ to mental health services, and dive into a thought provoking discussion with psychiatrist David Clark.

Date/Time: Friday 1 July 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/friday.html
Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.
Today’s session: Why do we need sleep? What happens to our health when we don’t get enough, and how does our modern lifestyle impact our sleep quality? What causes the major sleep disorders? Get ‘a very short introduction’ to sleep and dive into a thought-provoking discussion with neuroscientist Russell Foster.

Join us for a sensational evening of cabaret – an alchemy of acts delivered by Science Oxford’s network of creative science performers. If you love science, stage and stand up, you’ll be in your element with our periodic table-themed cabaret including science presenter and geek songstress Helen Arney and compered by award-winning science communicator Jamie Gallagher. See the everyday elements that make up the world around us in a new light, watch in disbelief as gold is created before your eyes, and learn about their origins and how they behave inside our bodies. Get your tickets now – once they are gone they argon!

Imagine constantly worrying about something that you know is not real, or feel a deep anxiety that only repetitive (and often embarrassing) behavior can diminish. Now imagine this happening 24 hours a day for 365 days a year and you can begin to understand what it might be like to suffer from OCD. Join scientist Paula Banca who will discuss the OCD brain and why psychopaths never suffer from it, followed by artist Dan Holloway’s performance poetry inspired by his own experience. This event is part of the Storytelling Science project.

Ian Shipsey, Particle Physicist and Professor of Physics, Oxford University, has been profoundly deaf since 1989. In 2002 he heard the voice of his daughter for the first time thanks to a cochlear implant. These implants have instigated a popular but controversial revolution in the treatment of deafness. Learn the physiology of natural hearing, the function of cochlear implants, and experience speech and music heard through a cochlear implant. Ian Shipsey was one of the leaders of the experiments that discovered the Higgs particle in 2012.

Nicola Blackwood, local MP, is Chair of the Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons. Science and technology are central for the development of the region, and fundamental for the country: boosting innovation and enterprise,
developing employment, advancing health and promoting knowledge. Engage in a conversation chaired by Hannah Devlin, science correspondent for the Guardian. Get insights from your local MP and take part in a reflection about the future of science and technology in the UK.
Psychologist in the Pub events are completely free and open to everyone, so please join us on:
Thursday 7th July, 6:30 for 7pm start, with Dr Kinga Komarzynska & Dr Chelsea Slater
What can we learn from crime scene behaviour?
Crime linkage focuses on identifying crimes committed by the same offender using crime scene behaviour. Offender behaviour is used to distinguish between crimes committed by the same person and crimes committed by different people. The presentation will introduce this evidence-based approach to the detection of serial offenders and will be a brief introduction to the theory behind crime linkage as well as exploration of some of the empirical research that investigated behavioural consistency and change within a series of crimes perpetrated by serial offenders.
The talk will be held in the function room in Wig & Pen pub.
The venue is wheelchair accessible.

Colette Morgan works for SAFE! as the Child on Parent Violence Project Development Manager. Sadly, Child-on-Parent violence is on the rise and this fascinating talk will show us how SAFE! tackles this problem and works with families to cultivate respectful family relationships, for the benefit of all society.
We will even provide you with a free sandwich and a cuppa.
Get your game face on – it’s poker night at Science Oxford.
Brush off your pack of cards and outplay Lady Luck with an evening of poker probability and psychology. Learn more about the head games that define what happens at the poker table with mathematician and author of The Perfect Bet Adam Kucharski and psychologist Danielle Shore, who’ll show how your poker face can affect your opponents’ decision-making. Their talks will be followed by a friendly poker tournament – the perfect opportunity to put into practice the science of poker.
Chips included as part of ticket price.
‘Depression and the Brain’ will be discussed from the point of view of neuroscience, psychology/psychiatry and philosophy. Three eminent speakers will give talks and arising questions will be discussed under audience participation. Tea and coffee will be served at the interval.

Join us as we cook up a feast for Edward Jenner and explore the culture of eating and drinking in Georgian England. In this talk, food historians Marc Meltonville, Elena Griffith-Hoyle and Sarah Warren will examine the links between food and politics, society and the economy in the eighteenth century. There will also be a chance to sample a Georgian delicacy.
‘Developmental risk and resilience: The challenge of translating multi-level data to concrete interventions’
In these Loebel lectures Prof Essi Viding will use disruptive behaviour disorders as an illustrative example to introduce the challenges we face when we try to understand development of psychopathological outcomes. We classify disorders at the level of behaviour, yet individuals arrive at the same behavioural outcomes via multiple different developmental trajectories; a phenomenon called equifinality in the developmental psychopathology literature. A related concept is heterogeneity; we can find individuals with markedly different aetiology to their disorder within the same diagnostic category. The current diagnostic categories identify clinically disturbed functioning, but they do not identify a homogeneous group of individuals.
Getting better at individuating distinct pathways to a disordered outcome is only part of the challenge. Once risk factors for a specific developmental trajectory are identified, we still need to understand their modus operandi. There is no doubt that both biology and the social environment play a role in the emergence of psychopathology, but meaningfully studying their interplay is far from trivial. What are the key biological indicators of vulnerability and resilience? How can we isolate causal mechanisms? How do we model multiple social risk factors and their impact over development?
In Essi Viding’s Loebel lectures, as well as in the talks given by speakers in the accompanying workshop, the following questions will be considered:
How does ‘latent vulnerability’ (of either genetic or environmental origin) translate to a disordered outcome, or conversely what makes some individuals with ‘latent vulnerability’ resilient? To what degree are individuals agents in generating their own environmental circumstances? Do certain behaviours, which can appear disordered, represent adaptations to a specific social ecology? The workshop will also involve discussion between the speakers and the participants on the following issues:
i.what study designs can help us advance our understanding of the questions outlined above
ii.what implications can be drawn for prevention and treatment of psychiatric disorders
iii.what are the challenges of translating individual differences and group level data to bear on the treatment of a single individual
‘Developmental risk and resilience: The challenge of translating multi-level data to concrete interventions’
In these Loebel lectures Prof Essi Viding will use disruptive behaviour disorders as an illustrative example to introduce the challenges we face when we try to understand development of psychopathological outcomes. We classify disorders at the level of behaviour, yet individuals arrive at the same behavioural outcomes via multiple different developmental trajectories; a phenomenon called equifinality in the developmental psychopathology literature. A related concept is heterogeneity; we can find individuals with markedly different aetiology to their disorder within the same diagnostic category. The current diagnostic categories identify clinically disturbed functioning, but they do not identify a homogeneous group of individuals.
Getting better at individuating distinct pathways to a disordered outcome is only part of the challenge. Once risk factors for a specific developmental trajectory are identified, we still need to understand their modus operandi. There is no doubt that both biology and the social environment play a role in the emergence of psychopathology, but meaningfully studying their interplay is far from trivial. What are the key biological indicators of vulnerability and resilience? How can we isolate causal mechanisms? How do we model multiple social risk factors and their impact over development?
In Essi Viding’s Loebel lectures, as well as in the talks given by speakers in the accompanying workshop, the following questions will be considered:
How does ‘latent vulnerability’ (of either genetic or environmental origin) translate to a disordered outcome, or conversely what makes some individuals with ‘latent vulnerability’ resilient? To what degree are individuals agents in generating their own environmental circumstances? Do certain behaviours, which can appear disordered, represent adaptations to a specific social ecology? The workshop will also involve discussion between the speakers and the participants on the following issues:
i.what study designs can help us advance our understanding of the questions outlined above
ii.what implications can be drawn for prevention and treatment of psychiatric disorders
iii.what are the challenges of translating individual differences and group level data to bear on the treatment of a single individual
‘Developmental risk and resilience: The challenge of translating multi-level data to concrete interventions’
In these Loebel lectures Prof Essi Viding will use disruptive behaviour disorders as an illustrative example to introduce the challenges we face when we try to understand development of psychopathological outcomes. We classify disorders at the level of behaviour, yet individuals arrive at the same behavioural outcomes via multiple different developmental trajectories; a phenomenon called equifinality in the developmental psychopathology literature. A related concept is heterogeneity; we can find individuals with markedly different aetiology to their disorder within the same diagnostic category. The current diagnostic categories identify clinically disturbed functioning, but they do not identify a homogeneous group of individuals.
Getting better at individuating distinct pathways to a disordered outcome is only part of the challenge. Once risk factors for a specific developmental trajectory are identified, we still need to understand their modus operandi. There is no doubt that both biology and the social environment play a role in the emergence of psychopathology, but meaningfully studying their interplay is far from trivial. What are the key biological indicators of vulnerability and resilience? How can we isolate causal mechanisms? How do we model multiple social risk factors and their impact over development?
In Essi Viding’s Loebel lectures, as well as in the talks given by speakers in the accompanying workshop, the following questions will be considered:
How does ‘latent vulnerability’ (of either genetic or environmental origin) translate to a disordered outcome, or conversely what makes some individuals with ‘latent vulnerability’ resilient? To what degree are individuals agents in generating their own environmental circumstances? Do certain behaviours, which can appear disordered, represent adaptations to a specific social ecology? The workshop will also involve discussion between the speakers and the participants on the following issues:
i.what study designs can help us advance our understanding of the questions outlined above
ii.what implications can be drawn for prevention and treatment of psychiatric disorders
iii.what are the challenges of translating individual differences and group level data to bear on the treatment of a single individual

Martin Barker (Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at Aberystwyth University, Director of the Global Hobbit Project) will be visiting Oxford to discuss the results of the landmark Global Hobbit Project, a research initiative examining the popular reception of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit Film trilogy.
Synopsis:
“Tolkien aficionados may have disagreed somewhat among themselves about the value and achievements of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. But any frustrations – or celebrations – over the 2001-3 films were nothing compared to the overwhelming sense of let-down occasioned by the Hobbit trilogy. But your disappointments are, I am afraid, grist to the mill of an audience researcher like me. In 2014 I led a consortium of researchers in 46 countries across the world, to gather responses to Peter Jackson’s second trilogy. We managed to attract just over 36,000 completions of our questionnaire. Of course, when we conceived and planned the project, we couldn’t know what the films would be like, or what range of responses and debates they might elicit. In this presentation I will (briefly) explain why and how we carried out the research, and offer some of its major findings. These can act, I hope, as a kind of mirror to the depths, and also the significance, of the sense of disappointment experienced by even the most hopeful and forgiving viewers. And they open an important agenda about the changing role of ‘fantasy’ in our contemporary culture.”
Jenny Josephs & Why eating insects might soon become the new normal
By 2050 the global population will reach 9 billion and this will put ever increasing pressure on food and environmental resources. It will be a challenge to ensure global food security without further damaging the environment with intensified farming practices.
One UN backed solution is to focus on alternative sources of protein, such as insects for food and animal feed. About 2 billion of us already include insects in our diets, though it is still a growing trend in the west.
Insects are described as having a variety of different flavours, from mushroomy to pistachio or pork crackling. They are comparable to beef in protein and contain beneficial nutrients like iron and calcium. Their environmental impact is also minimal, requiring far less water and feed than cattle, and releasing fewer emissions.
During this talk, Jenny will explain how insects might replace some of the meat in our diets and also give some tips on how to cook them. You will be invited to sample some tasty bug snacks after the talk!
Bio: After completing a PhD in Visual Cognition at the University of Southampton, Jenny changed course and started The Bug Shack – a business promoting and selling edible insects. Jenny is a regular speaker at Skeptics events and science festivals and she recently returned from a trip to research attitudes towards eating and farming insects in Thailand and Laos.
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7.30PM start at St. Aldates Tavern, and entry is free, although we do suggest a donation of around £3 to cover speaker expenses. We tend to get busy, so arrive early to make sure you get a seat. Come along and say hello! All welcome. http://oxford.skepticsinthepub.org/Event.aspx/8101/Why-eating-insects-might-soon-become-the-new-normal
Join the Facebook event and invite your friends: https://www.facebook.com/events/1317127301666085/

Nearly 30 per cent of the world’s population is overweight and ‘diabesity’ is an increasing problem: diabetes, brought on by obesity, which in turn causes damage to the brain, heart, nerve and kidneys. So what can we do to prevent it or is it too late? Join ‘fat controller’ Ashley Grossman, professor of endocrinology, as he discusses potential ground-breaking medical techniques to lose weight effortlessly and what it may mean for the future of the human race. Ashley will be chatting to science broadcaster (and his daughter) Emily Grossman

Mary Keen, Paradise and Plenty – the How and Wow of Lord Rothschild’s private garden on the Waddesdon Estate
Mary Keen is a writer, lecturer and renowned garden designer and will talk about the garden, its dedicated gardeners, past and present, and her book, which celebrates the tradition of excellence at Eythrope.