Science 2 Zoom Friday 20th November 2020
Thirty three members tuned in for this Zoom meeting. John Tedstone began our session with a presentation titled ‘Energy and how it relates to transport’. He explained that we get our electricity from a mix of a fossil fuels, nuclear and renewable – the balance is changing all the time, with the renewable (mainly wind and solar) now increasing share each year.
John then moved on to look at how rail transport has evolved from the early days of the Industrial Revolution.
The final question posed was what have we learnt. The answer probably is that if we’re going to move to a low/zero carbon economy, we need to plan much better, and for the longer term. Railways illustrate that if we don’t, we end up with less than ideal solutions.
Mark Jackson followed with a talk based on one of the Pint of Science meetings he attended in 2019 (those were the days…) The topic was an interesting one: Chrono-nutrition. It is widely known that: If Calorie Intake is more than Calories Burned = Weight Gain. When it comes to eating healthy, we talk about what’s on our plate, but not what’s on the clock (Chrono-nutrition). Our bodies are affected by our individual body clocks. That’s because our metabolism actually changes throughout the day because of our circadian rhythm. – The body’s clock, which tells the body to do the right thing at the right time. Basically it recommends not eating after dark or late in the evening. Colleagues who have experienced shift work shared their experiences which indicate that it is probably not as simple as that.
Finally Alan Ratcliffe spoke with great candour about his recent close encounter with Covid-19. Read more about this in the Newsletter.
Date of next Zoom Meeting: Thursday December 10th at 2.00pm
This will be open to all u3a members for a presentation by Professor Nicola Pitchford, University of Nottingham – ‘Using educational technology to address the global learning crises’. Again more details in the newsletter.
David Rose
