Some snaps from the LERN jaunt to Kew are available here at our 2008 photo page. We had a sunny Saturday exploring the Gardens and enjoyed a leisurely cruise back on the riverboat. More photos to be added!

LERN Annual Conference 2008
CALL FOR PAPERS
Deadline: 31 July 2008

The 6th Annual LERN Conference will be held on Friday 12th September 2008, at the Institute of Zoology, Regents Park, London. Mark your diary now!

The LERN conference provides an opportunity for postgraduate students working on any aspect of evolution to present their work to a diverse audience. Last year’s program, available here, demonstrates the broad range of topics showcased at the conference. We welcome applications from institutions beyond London.

The conference spans a full day, with four sessions and two keynote speakers.

Talks are 15 minutes long with five minutes for questions. Posters may also be submitted. Prizes are awarded for the best talk and best poster.

Registration is free, and there will be a drinks reception after the conference.

To apply to present a talk or poster, please complete the form questions below and email to conference@londonevolution.net by 31 JULY 2008.

You should receive an email confirming receipt of your application within three days. Please send your application again if you do not!

Further information regarding the conference, including keynote speakers, publicity posters, and timetabling, will be confirmed and circulated later in the summer.

Please bring the conference to the attention of anyone who may be interested, and contact us for any other conference enquiries on conference@londonevolution.net.

________________________________________________________

Name:
Institution and Department:
Program and year of study:

Abstract (no more than 200 words):

Would you prefer to present your work as a talk or a poster?

LERN Field Trip 2008
KEW GARDENS

This year’s LERN Fun And Educational At The Same Time Field Trip will be held on Saturday 14th June 2008.

We will be spending the day at Kew Gardens, London, ending with an afternoon local pub trip and a riverboat back to central London. We’ve secured free entry for 25 students, and four non-students, so make sure you get in quick!

Timetable:
10:30 Meet at Kew Gardens for group admission (necessary for freebies!) - place to be announced.
Roam the Gardens. Your Committee has a completely optional Digital Scavenger Hunt planned for extra botany-related fun.
13:00 Meet other LERN members for lunch if you wish - venue in park to be decided.
16:00 Depart for local pub.
16:30/18:30 Riverboats depart back to London. Timetables and prices available on the Thames River Boat website.

If you’d like to come along and meet other LERN members, stroll the gardens, and have a fun day in the sun (sun not guaranteed), please email info@londonevolution.net indicating your name, institution and student status. Partners and friends are welcome, although preferences for complimentary entry will be given to evolution students/researchers.

We’ll send out more information about meeting times/places once we have an idea of numbers.

Look forward to seeing you there!
Your LERN Committee

LERN Guest Lecture
Evolution in Protein Structures
Janet Thornton (EBI Hinxton)

18:00 Tuesday 6th May 2008

This event is free and everyone is welcome!

Abstract

Protein three dimensional structures include many patterns at all levels of structure. We are all familiar with the repeating alpha-helices and beta-strands. These combine to generate 3D motifs and superstructures, which recur in many unrelated proteins. Most recently
we have focused on the evolution of structural patterns related to function, and this talk will give an overview of our knowledge in this field.
Location
Gavin de Beer Lecture Theatre
Anatomy Building
University College London
Gower Street entrance
London WC1E 6BT

Information on how to reach UCL by public transport can be found here.
Click here to see a map of UCL.

LERN Guest Lecture
Mosquito immunity, evolution, and malaria control
Jacob Koella (Imperial College London)

18:00 Tuesday 1st April 2008

This event is free and everyone is welcome!

Abstract
Genetic manipulation of mosquitoes for malaria control continues to attract much attention (and funding). One idea is to transform
mosquitoes with genes enhancing their immune response against malaria (and that can spread though natural populations). Such a strategy can be successful only if natural immunity is low and if the parasite cannot counteract an increased immune response. I will use field observations, experiments and theory to discuss aspects of the evolution of immune responses against parasites that suggest that these prerequisites are not met.

The main idea relies on the distinction between immunity and resistance. Molecular biologists focus on the genes underlying immunity, while malaria control requires resistant mosquitoes. However, immunity and resistance describe fundamentally different characteristics: the immune response is a property of the host, while resistance is the result of an interaction between the host and its parasite. In contrast to evolutionary models (where only the host evolves) co-evolutionary models of the host’s and parasite’s interaction suggest that resistance to malaria depends on the intensity of transmission. If transmission is weak, the host should have a fairly strong immune response, but the parasite should evolve to suppress it. The outcome is an intermediate level of resistance. In areas with intense transmission, co-evolutionary stability is reached when the host has no immunity and there is thus only very little resistance.

Thus, in areas with weak transmission, immune genes are likely to be fairly effective before any attempt at boosting them via genetic manipulation, while in areas with intense transmission, any increase of immunity is expected to lead to a substantial counter-response by the parasite. So that genetic manipulation may be a useful tool for malaria control, mosquitoes should be transformed with other genes than those leading to a better immune response.

Location
JZ Young Lecture Theatre
Anatomy Building
University College London
Gower Street entrance
London WC1E 6BT

Information on how to reach UCL by public transport can be found here.
Click here to see a map of UCL.

LERN Guest Lecture
The reality of DNA-based approaches in taxonomy
Alfried Vogler (Imperial College London & Natural History Museum)

18:00 Tuesday 4th March 2008

This event is free and everyone is welcome!

Abstract
The advent of DNA taxonomy and DNA barcoding has stirred up emotions widely among biologists, maily because of sensitivities in the taxonomic research community and the inadequate evolutionary theory of early procedures. Is there a common ground for these DNA approaches and the traditional taxonomy? This talk will attempt to cut through the morass of opinions and demonstrate the emerging results obtained with DNA-based approaches. What we have learned so far is extremely promising and suggests that taxonomy will be largely based on DNA sequences in the future. However, consensus has not been reached, and this talk will therefore also address the (very short) history of this field and the ongoing battle over funding, recognition, and (occasionally) scientific ideas when a new paradigm emerges.

Location
JZ Young Lecture Theatre
Anatomy Building
University College London
Gower Street entrance
London WC1E 6BT

Information on how to reach UCL by public transport can be found here.
Click here to see a map of UCL.

The postgraduate session has been postponed until later in the year.

Please email Hugo Parker on h.parker@qmul.ac.uk if you have any queries.

Continue Reading »

LERN Guest Lecture
From Wrangel to Flores: size evolution on islands
Shai Meiri (Natural Sciences, Imperial)

18:00 Tuesday 15th January 2008
This event is free and everyone is welcome!

Abstract
Islands are often portrayed as weird and wonderful places where, free from pressures of factors such as competition and predation, animals can quickly evolve some truly fantastic forms. A key trait that is often said to evolve quickly and drastically on islands is body size, surely among the major determinants of animal life history, physiology, anatomy and ecology. Body size was thought to evolve in a regular fashion on islands, with small animals growing larger while large animals dwarf.  This has even led to a notion that medium body sizes, such as those supposedly found on the benign insular environment, is an optimal evolutionary attractor that all life form “aspire” to. Some of my work seem to show, however, that far from a uniform and well predicted response, insularity results in widely divergent trajectories of body size evolution, that differ between different taxa, according to the biology of the focal organism and its interaction with the autecological conditions prevailing on different islands.

Location
A V Hill Lecture Theatre
Medical Sciences Building
University College London
Malet Place entrance
London WC1E 6BT

Information on how to reach UCL by public transport can be found here.
Click here to see a map of UCL.

Annual LERN/CEE Medawar Lecture
Darwin’s Compass: Why evolution is very far from random
Simon Conway Morris (Cambridge Earth Sciences)

16.30, 28th November 2007
This event is free and everyone is welcome!

Abstract
Received wisdom is that evolution is effectively open-ended and inherently unpredictable. Jared Diamond points to the uniqueness of woodpeckers and extrapolates to the human, while on a yet wider stage Steven J. Gould famously claimed that to re-run the tape of life would produce an entirely different world, again without humans. I will argue the exact opposite, drawing on examples of evolutionary convergence that span molecular biology (carbonic anhydrase) to behaviour (gin and tonic), and that also point to the inevitability of not only intelligence but the emergence of very similar cognitive maps. Evolutionary convergence is not only a strong indicator of an inherent predictability, (er, like physics), but also suggests that there are deeper principles involved. Darwin understood the motor, I want to understand the substrate.

Location
Darwin Lecture Theatre
Department of Biology
University College London
Gower Street
London WC1E 6BT

Click here to download a poster for this event.

Information on how to reach UCL by public transport can be found here.
Click here to see a map of UCL.

LERN/CECD Postgraduate Workshop
Modern approaches to investigating cultural evolution

>> UPDATE: Photos from this event now up. <<

9.30-17.30, 9th November 2007
This event is free but registration is essential.

Location
Darryll Forde Seminar Room
Department of Anthropology
University College London
14 Taviton Street
London WC1H 0BW

The schedule for the LERN/CECD workshop has been finalised. Talks will last 15 minutes with 10 minutes after each talk for questions and discussion. Discussion is also strongly encouraged during the coffee and lunch breaks, and the wine reception after the talks. Refreshments, including a buffet-style lunch, will be provided during the day free of charge. Spaces are limited but there is still time to register for attendance, or to submit an abstract for a poster. Deadline for poster submission is Thursday 25th October.

Contact Tom Currie (t.currie@ucl.ac.uk) to register and for more information about this event.
Click here to download a booklet with the schedule for the day, talk abstracts, and some details about how to get to the workshop.

Information on how to reach UCL by public transport can be found here.
Click here for information on future events.

Workshop schedule
Continue Reading »