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The Science Basement

Poseidonia, greeks, non-greeks & religious cults: let’s talk archaeology!

Traditional historical and archaeological researchers have long thought that Ancient Greek colonies were ethnically and culturally exclusively Greek. In fact, they figured that Greek culture dominated over that of bordering nations and was immune to outside influences like neighboring non-Greek populations. But was that actually the case? The cult of goddess Hera in the Greek colony of Poseidonia, Southern Italy, offers a different perspective. Surprisingly, even religion, which is typically conservative as it defines its worshippers, showed signs of outside influence. This month Gianluca will share how he interprets offerings to the goddess Hera and excavation reports to piece together the potential dynamics of ancient Greek colonization, and to understand the role played by non-Greek populations in the life and development of “Greek” colonies.

The Earth’s Radiation Belts and their Space Weather Effects

Near-Earth space is full of high-energy particles that are trapped in the Earth’s magnetic field. These particles form the radiation belts and create an extremely hazardous environment that satellites must pass through. Understanding how radiation belt particles move, how they become energised and how these particles can be lost from the radiation belts is essential to protect satellites orbiting the Earth. In this talk, Harriet George will present an overview of the Earth’s radiation belts and its dangers.

Genetic Architecture – How do genes make us?

How do the differences in genes result in who we are today? Genes are stretches of DNA that contain the information to make proteins, and variants in these genes are what make us similar or different from one another. But how can tiny changes in discrete molecules of DNA result in the vast, continuous variation we see in humanity, like in huge range of heights between the shortest and tallest of us? In the early 1900s, this was the focus of a fierce debate in biology- between those who thought inheritance was continuous and those that thought it was discrete.

The surprising resolution of this debate still frames how we think about genetic variation and its effect on traits like height today- and how, with modern genetic sequencing tools, we can pinpoint exactly which variation affects these kinds of ‘complex’ traits. Understanding the map between genetic variants and traits, known as ‘genetic architecture’, can help us understand disease and develop better treatments for people with those diseases.