Tuesday 21st July 2020 Every day brings disturbing new stories and fresh evidence of the impact that climate change is having on the world we inhabit. Climate scientists have been highlighting the dangers for decades, but it is the rise of the Greta Thunberg generation that has finally brought the issues to the forefront for […]

Tuesday 18th August - 'Frontiers of Astronomy' concentrating on what will be happening in the next twenty years both from missions and observations. Chris Lintott is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Oxford, where he is also a research fellow at New College, working on topics from galaxy evolution, transient detection and machine […]

Tuesday 15th September  - Fred Landeg 'Animal Disease Threats to Global Food Security’ “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and. healthy life”. (World Food Summit, 1996). Infectious animal disease invariably […]

Tuesday 20th October - Samuel Hatfield The quiet revolution of numerical weather prediction Over the past 40 years there has been a monumental rise in the skill of weather forecasts. This has been achieved through a concerted international scientific effort and sustained investments in new technologies, including weather-observing satellites and number-crunching supercomputers. As a result […]

Tuesday 17th November - Richard Bull, 'Radiation-Hazards & Benefits' If you would like to receive joining instructions for this online talk - please email cafesci@didcotfirst.org Introduction to radioactivity and radiation, explaining some of the terms like half-life and radiation dose that are frequently used. I’ll describe how radiation interacts with living tissue—how it causes harm […]

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Dr Tom Hart, Penguinologist, University of Oxford - Counting in the wild – using drones, remote cameras and citizen science to observe penguins in a changing world. Tom Hart uses a variety of approaches to study penguins and their response to changing environments. He’ll discuss how remote sensing and citizen science […]

Dr Geof Haigh, Technical Consultant – FiMoS Ltd Tuesday 19th January 2021 - 5G: What is it and Why all the fuss?” What is 5G Mobile? How is it different from 4G (or 3G or 2G)? Why is it suddenly so important? What’s it got to do with Huawei? Will I be in the ‘digital […]

Tuesday 16th February 2021 Safe to Breathe? – A Short History of Gas Detection’ Speaker - Martin Willett  Martin's talk will touch upon a historical point of view, exploring the very old methods (canaries, Davy lamps, etc) as well as talking about the latest miniature sensors using semiconductor, optical and electrochemical methods. Martin Willett After […]

Tuesday 16th March 2021  Hugh Warwick Hedgehogs - why we should worry, and what we can do The nation’s favourite wild mammal, nature icon, animal - the hedgehog always tops the polls - is under threat. Startling population declines have been recorded. This illustrated talk will explore the reasons why the hedgehog has suffered so […]

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Dr Chris Pearson ARIEL and ALIEN Worlds: Enabling planetary science across light-years Less than 30 years ago the only planets known to exist were those found within our own Solar System. From the first confirmed discovery in 1992 - of a pair of exotic planets orbiting around a dead star - […]

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Magnetic Attraction: a History and Description of Magnetism   From prehistory to the modern day magnetism has fascinated mankind. Since Thales first written discovery of the properties of lodestone, the Chinese invention of the compass needle to magnetic recording magnetism has played an important role in technology. Despite this importance, a […]

Tuesday 15th June 2021  Peter Allen - Black Holes Dr Peter Allan is a space scientist and astronomer working at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). He did a PhD at Manchester University on the subject of black hole models of quasars and subsequently held research positions in astronomy at the University of Leiden in the […]

Tuesday 20th July 2021 My Nuclear Life, Ian Adsley I think many of you will know I organise most of the speakers for the Didcot Cafe Sci. I’ve always kept a reserve talk in the event that for some reason we ‘lose’ a speaker. This month we have ended up with such a gap and […]

Tuesday 17th August 2021 - Cafe Scientifique online  A routine eye test? The technology helping us look after our general health through the eyes. Most of us take for granted our sight and only book an eye test when we struggle with vision. What we don’t realise is that through a routine eye examination we […]

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Mike Landy COP26: humanity’s moment of truth?’ “Code red for humanity" declared the Secretary General of the UN following publication in August of the latest IPCC report on the status of climate science, which drew from over 14,000 peer-reviewed studies. Its verdict: human influence is "unequivocal", resulting in widespread and significant […]

Tuesday 16th November 2021, Hearing and Audiology - Hannah Gray Hearing is often a sense which we take for granted until something starts going wrong. For a person born with hearing, it is essential for everyday life. Most of our relationships, both personal and professional, rely in some way on our ability to hear. When […]

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Real-zero – embracing ubiquitous resources and solutions” Was COP26 a good COP or a bad COP? There is some consensus that the Glasgow conference offered practical solutions and good pledges but, in counterbalance, there are significant concerns that future action will be protracted. Of course, politics does not provide the solutions; […]

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Sally Povolotsky  - Plants Saving the Planet and Living Wall Carbon Sequestering Sally is the Director of Oxfordshires Living Laboratory ‘Living Oxford’ based in East Hendred and recently elected County Councillor for Hendreds & Harwell Division She is passionate about the natural world and how if allowed the space to ‘breathe’ […]

Tuesday 15th February 2022 - Dr Rachel Ward, GP - General Practice in Covid Times” Long gone are the days of crowded waiting rooms at your local GP Practice where an elderly person sat next to a child with a fever and a pregnant woman. Though services may appear different on the surface, our patients continue to […]

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Rhiannon Foster - Davies, Dentistry Dentistry for dummies! A whistle stop tour of modern dentistry and how we got here. The vast majority of the population have visited a dentist at least once in their lifetimes. Hopefully this has largely been for a pain free routine check-up, but for those who […]