Our personal lives are key sites of consumption. How are we contributing to a more or less sustainable planet? In societies with high rates of digital connectivity and consumption, identities, social distinctions and inequalities are often expressed through digital communication and consumption - what we own, how we dress, what we eat and so on. Our personal lives are key sites of consumption contributing to the reproduction of social divisions or social change and to a more or less...

Newspapers across Britain (and elsewhere in the developed world) are closing by the month. Those that survive are cutting back on editorial staff, so the journalistic community is diminishing fast. Although newspaper company online platforms are racking up big numbers of readers, the newspaper business model, which depends on advertising revenue, has been wrecked. Newsprint pounds have been replaced by digital pennies. So the future looks bleak. Hoped-for replacements, whether they be...

Adequate, restful sleep is integral to our physical and mental health. Over the last 60 years we have learned more about sleep than we have over the previous 6,000 years. Culturally and philosophically we still maintain a predominantly Descartian view of what is in fact a highly differentiated, liminal state. Sleep is an active process that with ongoing research as to its function continues to illuminate our understanding of consciousness, wakefulness, unconsciousness, dissociation and states...

It’s normal and natural to think that how much we know, individually and collectively, grows over time. What could seem more obvious and unremarkable than the claim that, for example, I know more now than I did when I was 10 years old? Or that I know more now about Edinburgh than I did when I first moved here five years ago? Yet when we think carefully about what it is for knowledge to grow, about what an amount of knowledge is, and about what it is for one amount of knowledge to be more or...

Voters in advanced democratic countries are increasingly disillusioned with politics and politicians. This crisis of political trust appeared to reach new heights in 2016, which saw electoral breakthroughs for populist movements in a number of European countries and the US. One of the key features of this rejection of mainstream politics appears to be rising anxiety about immigration. Publics in many countries have lost trust in their governments to control immigration – whether in the form...

Have you built a woodland den recently? When was the last time you walked barefoot through the grass? Do you let your children climb trees? There is widespread acknowledgement that exposure to nature is crucial to our well-being and quality of life. Children with easy access to nature, for example, have been shown to be more able to cope with stressful situations and are happier, physically and mentally healthier, and more creative than their peers. There is growing concern, however, that...

Phase transitions are fundamental to all aspects of materials and daily life. A familiar example is the liquid to gas transition or the liquid to solid transition in water. These transitions are based on the breaking of a particular symmetry, and this is a general concept in physics that can be motivated by Noether’s theorem which states a symmetry of a system must lead to a conserved quantity. Physics, and in particular condensed matter physics, has historically been focused on the...

Most of us, understandably, are fearful of crossing the boundary from lucidity to psychosis or from legality to criminality. Some of us manage to cross both and these individuals we call mentally disordered offenders (MDOs). As a society we invest significantly in forensic mental health services to assess and treat these people but what do we get in return? The outcomes are good in terms of public safety but poor when we examine social connectedness and premature mortality. In forensic...

1 in 10 people live in extreme poverty around the world. Basic human rights such as clean water, health and education are not met. Climate change affects vulnerable communities the most and requires urgent action in relation to energy use while at the same time an estimated 1.2 billion people are still without access to electricity. Universities play a crucial role in achieving the global Sustainable Development Goals. Research, learning and teaching, and the way in which an organisation...

In this illustrated lecture Professor Jolyon Mitchell will explore how increasing numbers of separation barriers and dividing walls are represented and framed in a range of contexts. Drawing on his original research and peace building work in Jerusalem & the West Bank, as well as his experience as a former BBC World Service Producer and Journalist, Professor Mitchell will consider the growth in the number of these barriers, and how they are used to frame contested spaces. Drawing upon...

Few would dispute that among the greatest drivers in helping Our Changing World to change are science and technology. And yet conversely and perversely the image of scientists – along with engineers and technologists – remains remarkably fixed. When asked to draw a scientist, children – and many adults – tend to draw much the same male, bald, white-coated often slightly crazy figures now as they did half a century ago. This media reinforced stereotype is not only a misrepresentation –...

Professor Dave Reay gives his Our Changing World lecture on why we need global agriculture to be "climate-smart" to feed our ever-growing population. With up to 10 billion people to feed by 2050, climate change is the last thing we need. Global agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and also faces some of the most severe impacts of climate change. How can we produce more 'climate-smart' food and achieve a climate and food security win-win?'. Professor Dave Reay discusses...

Dr Isla Myers-Smith invites you to her Our Changing World lecture on how global warming is causing Arctic tundra to become more productive with increasing shrubs and other plants. Global climate change has been identified as a serious threat with profound impacts in tundra ecosystems. The tundra biome is responding more rapidly to climate change than any other biome on the planet, according to recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Recent evidence indicates that...

Is genetically engineering technology something to be scared of or can it contribute to the solutions society must find to address the challenge of global food security? The population of our world increases daily while land for agriculture remains constant. Tomorrow we will need to produce more food from the same acreage we used yesterday. We need to do this facing climate change and diversified demands on land and water resources. This will be challenging. Given this challenge science...

Hypertension is the silent killer driving the global public health burden of cardiovascular and renal disease. Blood pressure is strongly influenced by the distribution of sodium chloride (salt) between fluid compartments of the body and within tissues. Most societies consume 10 times more salt than is required by physiological need. This high salt intake is strongly linked to hypertension. The World Health Organisation targets a ∼30% reduction in salt intake in order to arrest the high...

Dr Kathryn Stewart from the Transport Research Institute at Edinburgh Napier University discusses how intelligent traffic management is shaping the world we live in for the better. Throughout recent history motor vehicle manufacturers have marketed cars by appealing to a driver’s sense of autonomy and self-fulfilment – adverts feature driving on open roads in appealing countryside rather than in congested cities and new drivers are enticed into car ownership with the promise that a car...

Dr. Rowena Arshad OBE, Head of the School of Education at the University of Edinburgh, discusses the evolving identities and diversities in black and minority ethnic youth during Black History Month 2016. Recent engagements with the Scottish and EU Referendum show that young people are largely outward looking, comfortable within themselves and far more accepting of diversity and differences. Have their views outstripped those who govern and make policy? How in particular are black and...

Dr Neil Thin proposes the theory that we are living in a uniquely happy time, but so much more needs to be done if societies around the world are to experience meaningful standards of living. Like planning for peace during a long war, anticipating the challenges of sustaining world happiness is surely a crucial part of development planning.

The relations of Scotland with Europe are now at the heart of today's national political discourse after the historic result of the EU referendum in June 2016. Is the nation's future to be found in Europe, either inside or outside the United Kingdom, is just one of the many questions which are now widely debated. This lecture by Professor Sir Tom Devine, Sir William Fraser Professor of Scottish History and Palaeography Emeritus in the University of Edinburgh, will seek to provide historical...