Despite a long history of preserving plants in herbariums, medicinal plants are often underrepresented in public-facing educational institutions such as museums. The Speculative Herbarium intertwines scientific practices used behind the scenes in herbaria with visual art and poetry, offering an insight into the important preservation work occurring in herbaria.
As use of AI grows and new applications emerge, so do questions around its ethics. What are the ethical dilemmas which have emerge? How do we use AI for good? What examples are there and how do we learn more about these issues? In these LASER Talks we explore these issues from a number of perspectives including crises facing the arts sector, inclusion and the environment. Proposed solutions owe much to games culture in terms of audiences and interactive experiences. New audiences can be reached with new meaningful experiences, marginalised groups can use AI to reach beyond their challenges and entirely new approaches to protecting the natural world can emerge.
It has been 165 years since Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, a landmark text in evolutionary biology. To mark this occasion, we invite you to join us on an expedition to Hilbre Island, a landmark in the river Dee estuary and our Galapagos in the North West of England. We embark on a creative investigation of the islands ecologies through storytelling, observational drawing, poetry and performance, looking closely at how the land, sea and humans interconnect. We will depart West Kirby on foot and walk to Hilbre island, listening to an audio guide that comprises a history of the island and oral histories from local residents. On the island, attendees will choose to take part in one of two workshops that observe and document the island: creative writing and charcoal rubbings will record the islands geology and generate a mapping of the islands geological history; a field sketching workshop will identify species of migrating birds visiting the island, before drawing an evolutionary (phylogenetic) tree. Finally, a poetry performance based on collected oral histories and poetry, will be performed in a costume that turns a performer into the native sea lavender. We will then walk back to West Kirby before high tide.
Covert techniques and specialist intelligence never appear to be far from the headlines - so why are they on the decline?
England’s dramatic rise in gang-related knife crime has been called a “disease” by the UK home secretary, Sajid Javid, and amid the daily drama of Brexit the prime minister, Theresa May, has called a summit of 100 experts to Downing Street to discuss the issue.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences, we asked some of the students who completed their PhDs with the Institute over the last 20 years to share their stories.
Prescription drugs pregabalin and gabapentin have been reclassified – but it won’t stop problem use
Whether they are working away in the farmer’s field or being used as evidence in court, maggots are helping us in our day-to-day lives in surprising ways. Isn’t it time you gave these misunderstood creatures the credit they deserve?
The LJMU student telling anxiety to jog on...
Post-match analysis on the World Cup game between Colombia and England from Science and Football students.