October -November - December - January - February - March - April -May
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The Big Bang Machine: The Large Hadron Collider at CERN
Dr Brian Cox, Royal Society University Research Fellow, University of Manchester and CERN, Geneva
This month the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is due to be activated. By revisiting the beginning of time, scientists hope to unravel some of the deepest secrets of our Universe. Within these first few moments the building blocks of the Universe were created. The search for these fundamental particles has occupied scientists for decades but there remains one particle that has stubbornly refused to appear in any experiment. The Higgs Boson is so crucial to our understanding of the Universe that it has been dubbed the God particle.
Manchester Lecture Theatre, Manchester Metropolitan University, All Saint's Building, Oxford Road, Manchester
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Banquet Scenes in Ancient Roman Wall Painting
David Bellingham, Sotheby's Institute of Art
This illustrated lecture will examine images of wining and dining which have been found painted on several dining room walls in the houses and villas of Rome and Pompeii. These paintings offer a rare insight into this most important and intimate everyday ritual as practised by the people of ancient Rome.
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Wednesday 21 May 2008, 7.00pm
Genesis Machines: Engineering Life
Dr Martyn Amos, Department of Computing and Mathematics, Manchester Metropolitan University
The emerging field of biocomputing is forcing us to re-think fundamentally our notions of computation. By re-engineering living organisms to perform human - defined tasks, synthetic biologists are questioning the very nature of life itself.
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Tuesday 27 May 2008, 7.00pmChickens Come Home: Gypsies - Roma and Travellers
Arthur Ivatts OBE, Education Consultant to the Department for Children, Families and Schools, and former HMI for the Education of Travellers, Asylum Seekers and Refugees
One of the most significant and challenging social and political issues facing European governments and the international agencies is the treatment of Gypsy Roma and Traveller communities. This talk will focus on the circumstances of these communities in Europe and the tragic consequences of five centuries of abuse. Their history will be traced from the sixteenth century where it all went wrong for them, to the present time.
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