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Science in the Café
2008 CALENDAR
The listings are arranged chronologically with the latest café at the top.
Click on the DATE to find the details.
| DATE |
PRESENTER |
TITLE |
| 18-Sep-08 |
A/Prof Seah Kar Heng |
NUS & its FSAE Race Car Project |
| 16-Jul-08 |
Prof Federico Rosei |
What Type of Energy for the Future of Humanity? |
| 10-Jul-08 |
Prof John Villadsen |
Production of Single Cell Protein from Natural Gas |
| 1-Jul-08 |
Dr Bella S Galil & Prof Peter Ng |
Taking Stock: Inventory of Alien Species |
| 29-May-08 |
Dr Vladimir Mironov |
ORGAN PRINTING: Promises & Challenges |
| 14-May-08 |
Mr Lim Yeow Khee |
Aviation Safety |
| 27-Mar-08 |
Prof T Gregory Dewey |
Below the Gathering Storm: Discovery & Innovation in the Life Sciences Industry |
3-Mar-08
5-Mar-08 |
Prof Brian J Ford |
The Intelligent Cell |
| 27-Feb-08 |
A/Prof Louis-Philippe Demers |
Robots in Entertainment |
DETAILS
Date of Café Time & Venue
Presenter, Organisation / Sponsors
Title : Synopsis |
27 Feb 2008 7pm in Newton Room
A/Prof Louis-Philipe Demers / Interactive & Entertainment Research Centre, NTU
Robots & Entertainment ... Robots are progressively leaving the manufacturers’ assembly lines and appearing new environments. We are witnessing new markets and fields of research with surprising paradoxes in their labels: social robots, emotive robots and entertainment robots. Are we witnessing a paradigm shift in robotics? This presentation will look into the history of automata to shed light on our desire for machine replication in our own image. A history of representations, models and simulations of the living by means of mechanical objects will be traced. By looking at recent artwork with robots, how and why they can become an expressive medium will be discussed. Questioning the ontology of robots in entertainment leads us towards a broader questioning of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.
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5 Mar 2008 3pm in Maxwell Auditorium
3 Mar 2008 7pm in Newton Room
Prof Brian J Ford / British High Commission, Singapore
The Intelligent Cell ... What will preoccupy biologists after genetics? Prof Ford will present an extraordinary new view of life – that ingenuity and intelligence reside, not so much in our brains, but in every living cell. Even microbes reveal surprising levels of ingenuity. The presentation concludes with a remarkable sound recording that reveals, for the first time, how brain cells talk to one another.
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27 Mar 2008 7pm in Newton Room
Prof T Gregory Dewey / Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences
Below the Gathering Storm: Discovery and Innovation in the Life Sciences Industry ... A number of recent publications have presented a dire picture of innovation and competitiveness in American industry. These publications document a picture of America slipping behind and losing its status as world leader across a range of industries. The proposed fix to this problem is quite simple. America needs to educate more scientists and engineers, it needs to educate them better and it needs to invest more money in basic research. However, contrary to the common perception, basic discovery in the life sciences is actually progressing at an unprecedented pace. The current post-genomic era is arguably the golden age of the life sciences. Yet it is true that discovery is indeed not being translated into innovation that can be commercialized. The remarkable work at our research lab benches is simply not progressing to a bedside therapeutic. The cause of this lack of innovation is not a lack of scientists or of scientific research. Rather it is associated with economic models and a regulatory environment that inhibits innovation. This talk discusses the ongoing advances and discoveries in the life sciences, the nature of the constraints on innovation and finally puts forth a number of ideas for promoting innovation.
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14 May 2008 7pm in The Nexus, iSpace Gallery
Mr Lim Yeow Khee / Singapore Institute of Aerospace Engineers
Aviation Safety ... Every year, 20,000 commercial aircraft carry millions of passengers over millions of kilometres safely to their destinations. What is the secret behind this wonderful mode of transportation? The technology, the people and the organisation make up the safety environment we experience today. A brief history of aviation technology will be presented, followed by a discussion on the phenomenal growth of air travel over the last decade. Analyses of aviation safety statistics, what they mean, the challenges of maintaining the high standards of safety and some examples of air accident investigation will be presented.
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29 May 2008 7pm in The Newton Room
Dr Vladimir Mironov / Nanyang Technology University
Organ Printing: Promises and Challenges ... Organ printing (which is the biomedical application of rapid prototyping) also defined as additive layer-by-layer biomanufacturing, is an emerging transforming technology that has potential for surpassing traditional solid scaffold-based tissue engineering. Organ printing has certain advantages: it is an automated approach that offers a pathway for scalable reproducible mass production of tissue-engineered products; it allows the precise simultaneous 3D positioning of several cell types; it enables the creation of tissue with a high level of cell density; it can solve the problem of vascularisation in thick tissue constructs; finally, it can be done in situ. The ultimate goal of organ printing technology is to fabricate 3D vascularised functional living human organs suitable for clinical implantation. The main practical outcomes of organ printing technology are industrial, scalable, robotic biofabrication of complex human tissues and organs, automated tissue-based in vitro assays for clinical diagnostics, drug discovery and drug toxicity, and complex in vitro models of human diseases. This presentation describes the conceptual framework and recent developments in organ printing technology, outlines main technological barriers and challenges, and discusses potential future practical applications.
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1 Jul 2008 7pm in The Newton Room
Dr Bella S Galil, National Institute of Oceanography, Israel Oceanographic & Limnological Research, &
Prof Peter Ng, Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research / National University of Singapore
Taking Stock: Inventory of Alien Species... The study of biological invasions in the marine environment has grown over the past 3 decades, as it has been widely recognized that the littoral and infra-littoral biota in many regions had undergone rapid and profound changes caused by the introduction of alien species. Marine invasions are recognized as endangering global biodiversity, marine industries (including fishing and tourism) and human health. More than 580 alien species were listed from the Mediterranean Sea. The majority of aliens are thermophilic species originating from the Indo-Pacific or Indian Oceans, which have entered the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. However, the means of introduction differ greatly among the phyla, and the basins of the Mediterranean. The temporal records of the alien species reflect political crises, economic development and scientific interest in studying the phenomenon – in the past 2 decades, about 10 alien species (on average) new to the Mediterranean were recorded annually. Many have established durable populations and extended their range: 125 alien species have been recorded from 4 or more countries. Although no extinction of a native species is known, sudden decline in abundance, and even local extirpations, concurrent with the proliferation of the aliens, have been recorded. Examination of the profound ecological impacts of some of the most conspicuous invasive alien species underscores their role, among multiple anthropogenic stressors, in altering the infra-littoral communities. Local population losses and niche contraction of native species may not induce immediate extirpation, but they augur reduction of genetic diversity, loss of functions, processes, habitat structure, and increase the risk of decline and extinction, leading to biotic homogenization. The relevant environmental policy and management framework are discussed and the possible impacts of regulatory instruments and environmental management options are examined. ... What about Singapore? Unfortunately, we know very little about the number or immediate impact of alien invasives in Singapore’s marine waters. There have been reports of algae and sponges not supposedly native to the country, but there is no concerted effort as yet to have a national database for them. Linked to this is of course the need for a national database of native species which is still far from accomplished. Efforts by scientists from the Tropical Marine Science Institute and the Raffles Museum are slowly addressing these challenges. There is a growing awareness from National Parks Board about these problems as well. Freshwater invasives pose a different challenge – hundreds of alien fish, mollusc and other invertebrate species have entered the island via the aquarium trade and the number is set to grow. They pose innumerable challenges for the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources as well as National Parks Board as Singapore tries to conserve the indigenous fauna as well as encourage public use of our waterways.
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10 Jul 2008 7pm in The Newton Room
Prof John Villadsen, Technical University of Denmark / Embassy of Denmark, Singapore
Production of Single Cell Protein (SCP) from Natural Gas ... Expanding food and energy resources through the conversion of cellulose and complex carbohydrates in wastes into single cell protein (SCP) feedstuff for humans and animals, or into ethanol, is currently heavily researched. Large scale production of commodity chemicals by various fermentation routes is one of the fastest moving enterprises in the 21st century. Among the most promising processes is the production of animal feed from natural gas. This cafe will review the key features of the process, from the properties of the microorganism and the metabolism of the carbon source (methane or methanol) by the organism, to the issues relevant for the scaling-up of the process, eg: to 100 000 tonnes per year. It turns out that an important part of the process design is to ensure a good mass transfer between the gaseous reactants (methane and oxygen) and the liquid phase reactants, ie the biomass and dissolved substrates.
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16 Jul 2008 7pm in The Newton Room
Prof Federico Rosei / INRS, University of Quebec
What Type of Energy for the Future of Humanity? ... As the age of cheap oil and fossil fuels is coming to an end, humanity will face an energy crisis. Many alternative energy sources have already been identified. However, there is no optimal solution to replace fossil fuels on a short time scale with new sources that are economically viable and environmentally sustainable in the long term. History reports disastrous consequences for human societies that over-exploited their resources in a non-sustainable way [1], and arguably this is exactly what is happening today on a global scale. This presentation aims at describing a general picture of the looming energy crisis [2] outlining some possible solutions.
[1] Jared Diamond, Collapse, Viking Penguin (2005).
[2] N Armaroli, V Balzani, The Future of Energy Supply: Challenges and Opportunities, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 46, 52 (2007).
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18 Sep 2008 7pm in The Nexus, iSpace Gallery
A/Prof Seah Kar Heng / Mechanical Engineering, NUS
NUS & its FSAE Race Car Project ... You too can be involved in race cars and car-racing! NUS Engineering has been participating in the FSAE Race Car Project since 2001. Each year, engineering students and staff form a team to design, build and compete in the international race/competition. This presentation will feature and discuss the NUS FSAE race car(s), the various competitions particpated, the process of designing and building the cars, and videos of the NUS cars in action.
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