1 Natural groups
This introduction to the evolution of mammals considers Darwin’s observations on mammals, and how he noticed that species fell into natural groups. The unit looks at evidence from fossils and DNA to examine which mammals are most closely related to whales.
Doing research the Right Way: Problems and Pitfalls to Avoid
Dr. Regina Smith, Associate Vice President for Research
TV or Not TV: That’s Not the Question
While Alice Cahn cites evidence that traditional TV viewing is alive and well, her panelists line up to describe a TV industry under siege by digital competitors, and in the throes of major change. In the course of this session, which focuses on how television engages a young(er) audience, a generational divide springs up that h
The politics of Aids
Dr Peter Piot, Director of the Institute for Global Health, Imperial College, draws on his experience at the United Nations to explain why Aids needs business to provide the leadership of the future. Good leadership, he says, is about running programmes not based on opinion polls but on what is good for society.
Douglas Dixon, Manifest Technology: The Joys and Ploys of Little Toys
Lunch 'n Learn presentation: Gadget nirvana -- or device hell? Doug Dixon explores this messy world of consumer electronics, looking at developing trends, new technologies, and colliding markets:
- Connected home: Purchased content is becoming less encumbered, with DRM-free MP3 downloads and managed transfers within the connected home. But do you really want TV on your PC, or PC features on your TV? And who will control the box that bridges the two worlds, the cable company or Apple TV?
- Digi
Claire Gmachl, Jim Smith: Infrared Optical Sensing for Health and the Environment PDF - February 18,
Lunch 'n Learn presentation: The National Science Foundation has funded a multimillion-dollar Engineering Research Center based at Princeton University that is expected to revolutionize sensor technology, yielding devices that have a unique ability to detect minute amounts of chemicals found in the atmosphere, emitted from factories or exhaled in human breath.
The speakers will talk about the work of the center and discuss an atmospheric field campaign in Beijing this summer. The summer field c
Claire Gmachl, Jim Smith: Infrared Optical Sensing for Health and the Environment - February 18, 200
Lunch 'n Learn presentation: The National Science Foundation has funded a multimillion-dollar Engineering Research Center based at Princeton University that is expected to revolutionize sensor technology, yielding devices that have a unique ability to detect minute amounts of chemicals found in the atmosphere, emitted from factories or exhaled in human breath.
The speakers will talk about the work of the center and discuss an atmospheric field campaign in Beijing this summer. The summer field c
Keith Gresham, David Hollander: Creative Commons - Guilt-Free Reuse of Others' Work - February 25, 2
Lunch 'n Learn presentation: Current copyright law can create problems and generate confusion for members of campus who would like to incorporate existing photographs, illustrations, music, video, and other forms of creative content into their own publications, presentations, and projects. Creative Commons provides an easy-to-understand alternative to traditional copyright and is designed precisely to encourage people to share and build upon the work of others. Creators of content disseminated o
Keith Gresham, David Hollander: Creative Commons - Guilt-Free Reuse of Others' Work PDF- February 25
Lunch 'n Learn presentation: Current copyright law can create problems and generate confusion for members of campus who would like to incorporate existing photographs, illustrations, music, video, and other forms of creative content into their own publications, presentations, and projects. Creative Commons provides an easy-to-understand alternative to traditional copyright and is designed precisely to encourage people to share and build upon the work of others. Creators of content disseminated o
Matthew Botvinick: Computer Modeling of the Mind and Brain - May 6, 2009
Lunch 'n Learn presentation: Brain ==> Computation ==> Behavior. Matthew Botvinick's lab works at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology and computer science, seeking to clarify the computational and neural foundations of human behavior. In pursuit of this mission, they employ a diverse set of research tools, including functional neuroimaging (fMRI), behavioral techniques (reaction time, error, and decision analyses), and computational modeling (neural networks, reinforcement learning mod
Matthew Botvinick: Computer Modeling of the Mind and Brain - May 6, 2009 PDF
Lunch 'n Learn presentation: Brain ==> Computation ==> Behavior. Matthew Botvinick's lab works at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology and computer science, seeking to clarify the computational and neural foundations of human behavior. In pursuit of this mission, they employ a diverse set of research tools, including functional neuroimaging (fMRI), behavioral techniques (reaction time, error, and decision analyses), and computational modeling (neural networks, reinforcement learning mod
Szymon Rusinkiewicz: "Reassembling the Wall Paintings of Thera" - September 30, 2009
Lunch 'n Learn presentation: The archaeological site of Akrotiri on the volcanic island of Thera (modern-day Santorini, Greece) has yielded an unparalleled trove of artifacts and information from the prehistoric Aegean. The ancient civilization was destroyed by a volcanic eruption, which buried the remains of a flourishing Late Bronze Age (c. 1630 B.C.) settlement in ash. Among the most significant finds are numerous wall paintings, ranging from naturalistic and narrative scenes to abstract moti
Digital Inequality - December 7, 2009
Lunch 'n Learn presentation: In the Internet's early years, some observers believed that the new technology would reduce social inequality in at least two ways. First, by reducing the price of information, it would make information more available, and therefore level the playing field. Second, because young people appeared to have the inside track in mastering and using the new technologies (and because youth is negatively associated with wealth and uncorrelated with other indicators of socioeco
An App A Day: Tasty Apps for iPhone and Android - February 24, 2010
Lunch 'n Learn presentation: Smartphones are the new platform, and apps are the core. At the start of the new decade, Apple reported that the App Store for iPhone users has surpassed 100,000 applications, and users have downloaded over 2 billion apps -- not bad for a new market that was created only a year and a half earlier. Meanwhile, Google's Android Market doubled over the last quarter to around 20,000 apps.
In this talk Doug Dixon explores the range of apps being developed for these new pl
ANU Trevor Swan Distinguished Lectures in Economics: Consequences of Radical Reform - The Economic C
Using the French Revolution as a starting point, the presentation examines the economic effects of exogenously-imposed institutional change on countries following invasions by French Revolutionary and Napoleonic armies. Data is used to test whether institutions: (1) efficiently adapt to a society's characteristics, (2) 'evolved' institutions are inherently superior to those rationally designed, (3) institutions must be `appropriate' and cannot be `transplanted', and (4) the French Civil Code has
Deterring corrupt senior political figures through international anti-money laundering norms
Dr David Chaikin LLB/B Com (UNSW), LLM (Yale), PhD in Law (Cambridge) is a senior lecturer in business law in the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Sydney, and a practising lawyer specialising in transnational litigation. He has worked as a consultant with the Financial Action Task Force and the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, and has held senior positions in the Australian Attorney-General's Department and the Commonwealth Secretariat. Dr Chaikin spent seven years a
Shaping Up: Order, Change and Discontent in Asia's Security Future
Asia's strategic environment is in the midst of a major transformation, with a shifting distribution of power at the epicentre of this process. However, as long-standing security arrangements give way, there is great uncertainty about the kinds of dynamics that will come to define Asia's new security order in the coming years and decades. Can the US prolong its primacy? Will Asia's security environment resemble a traditionally rivalrous balance of power, or will it be more cooperative? Finally,
How Globalisation and Climate Change will Reshape Humanitarian Crises and Aid
Public Seminar hosted by the Department of International Relations and RegNet How Globalisation and Climate Change will Reshape Humanitarian Crises and Aid Peter Walker Rosenberg Professor of Nutrition and Human Security, and Director of the Feinstein International Center, Tufts University Date: Tuesday 9 February 2010 Time: 12.30 -- 2pm Venue: Centre for Arabic and Islamic Studies Al Falasi Lecture Theatre, Building 127, Ellery Crescent, ANU Peter Walker has been active in development and disas
Regulating crime and disorder hotspots: a biosocial perspective on policing
Regulating crime and disorder hotspots: a biosocial perspective on policing Professor Lawrence Sherman is an Adjunct Professor at the Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet), ANU and Wolfson Professor of Criminology and Director of the Police Executive Programme and Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental Criminology, Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, UK. In his seminar, Professor Sherman will present the design of a new hot spots patrol experiment to be launched by Greater Mancheste
Launch of the Australian National Institute for Public Policy by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
The Australian National University (ANU) will play a lead role in boosting Australia's expertise through enhanced teaching and research in public policy and will establish a new Australian National Institute for Public Policy to complement the enhanced role. The Commonwealth Government has committed a grand total of $111.7 million for this purpose. ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Chubb said: "The importance of teaching and research as a foundation for future policy will be highlighted by the d
