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  • A Cultural History of the Vagus Nerve

    Michael Spence Building F23,Level 5, Room 501, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Abstract From the Latin vagus, meaning wanderer or vagrant, the vagus nerve – also known as the vagal nerve – is the tenth cranial nerve. The vagus nerve is a pair of nerves that acts as a key connector of brain, heart, lungs, and abdominal organs. It is the main component of the parasympathetic nervous […]

  • Weaving Genetics with Silk in Japan – Lisa Onaga

    Michael Spence Building F23,Level 5, Room 501, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Abstract When the history of raw silk is traced by following the thread of commodity formation and trade, our capacity to fully grasp the interactions among the insects, plants, and humans responsible for silk-making can become limited. The enormous economic significance of export-bound raw silk manufactured and directly traded from Japan mainly to US American […]

  • If peer review is broken, what can fix it? Some suggestions from the repliCATS project (Collaborative Assessments for Trustworthy Science) – Prof Fiona Fidler

    Michael Spence Building F23,Level 5, Room 501, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Abstract In many scientific fields, post-publication surveys of the literature find that peer reviewers routinely overlook methodological flaws and statistical errors, avoid reporting suspected instances of fraud, and commonly reach a level of agreement barely exceeding what would be expected by chance. Other studies expose the extent of gender bias in peer review, and questionable […]

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  • A Defence of Minimal-Rewrite Counterfactuals in the History of Science – Prof Gregory Radick – University of Leeds

    Michael Spence Building F23,Level 5, Room 501, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Abstract: What if,  at the 1927 Solvay conference, the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics had received a more sympathetic hearing?  What if Charles Darwin had died on the Beagle voyage and so had never lived to write On the Origin of Species?  What if the Oxford biologist W. F. R. Weldon hadn’t died of pneumonia […]

  • Quantifying the Human? – Dr Cristian Larroulet Philippi – The University of Melbourne

    Michael Spence Building F23,Level 5, Room 501, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Abstract: Quantitative measurement in the human sciences remains both widespread and controversial. Are depression scales, intelligence tests, etc. valid measurement instruments? Do they deliver quantitative or merely ordinal information? I discuss two approaches for understanding practices of quantitative measurement of theoretical attributes in the early stages of research. One uses causal notions to characterize dispositional […]

  • GenAI and mental health – Elena Walsh – University of Wollongong

    Michael Spence Building F23, Ground Floor, Auditorium 1, The University of Sydney, Australia

    Human beings are social and dependent creatures. We rely on friends, romantic partners, family, communities, therapists, and other confidantes for support, insight, and understanding. And yet, we have recently entered an era in which many now seek support from artificial agents powered by generative AI. These AI agents are increasingly used — by design or […]

  • The Ian Langham Memorial Lecture – Uncle Rob Cooley, Gamay Rangers

    Michael Spence Building F23,Level 5, Room 501, University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Bio: Uncle Rob Cooley is a saltwater man with connections to Gamay-Botany Bay and the NSW South Coast. Currently, Uncle Rob is Senior Ranger and Leader of the Gamay Rangers, a group of Indigenous Rangers who undertake natural and cultural resource management activities on cultural areas within Gamay and on conservation land owned by the La […]

  • Planetary Health beyond Spaceship Earth? – Warwick Anderson

    Carslaw Building Lecture Theatre 275 Carslaw Building (F07), Level 2, Room 275, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Abstract For more than ten years, concern about the impacts on human health of degradation of the earth’s life-support systems has been expressed in terms of ‘planetary health’. The current and future effects of climate change on health and well-being thus come under the rubric of planetary health. We realise now that the health of all […]

  • Jim Crow in the Asylum: Psychiatry and Civil Rights in the American South

    Carslaw Building 450 Carslaw Building (F07), Level 4, Room 450, The University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Abstract: “Jim Crow in the Asylum: Psychiatry and Civil Rights in the American South” documents the impact of racial segregation and the fight for medical civil rights in the state psychiatric hospitals in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi between 1948 and 1972. Drawing on extensive archival and legal records, as well as first-hand accounts, Kylie Smith explores the […]

  • Colonization Resistance and the Gut Microbiota ca 1960-1990: Persistence of an Ecological Paradigm in Medical Microbiology – Nicolas Ramussen (UNSW)

    Carslaw Building Lecture Theatre 275 Carslaw Building (F07), Level 2, Room 275, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Abstract: In the 1950s an alarming response to technocratic medicine emerged: patients were suffering severe, often fatal gut infections as a result of antibiotic treatment. This talk describes how in the 1960s-1970s, research into the problem revealed that the indigenous microbial flora of the gut play a major role in protection from disease, and thus established one […]

  • Our Microbial Lives: A Manifesto Against Eradication – Victoria Lee (Ohio University)

    Carslaw Building Lecture Theatre 275 Carslaw Building (F07), Level 2, Room 275, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Abstract: There is a growing recognition in the twenty-first century of our dependence on microbes for virtually every aspect of the way we live, including how we grow our food, heal our bodies, and sustain our environment. Yet, microbes are different from other targets of conservation, such as butterflies and elephants: We feel differently about […]

  • Pleonexia and the Public/Private Health Systems – Kathryn MacKay (University of Sydney)

    Carslaw Building Lecture Theatre 275 Carslaw Building (F07), Level 2, Room 275, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Abstract: ‘Pleonexia’ is an ancient Greek term that means taking or wanting to take more than is one’s due, or avoiding or wanting to avoid contributing what one justly owes. It is often translated as ‘greed,’ though it is more complex than an idea of greed like uncontrolled appetites, gluttony, or avarice. It is also […]