‘Spotlight on Science’ continues with two talks tonight, both taking place at the Babbage Lecture Theatre.

At 6pm, Dr Nicola Clayton, Reader in Comparative Cognition, from the Department of Experimental Psychology will give one of the two ‘Spotlight of Science’ talks tonight, addressing the subject of episodic memory and mental time travel: the ability to re-live our episodic memories of past experiences and plan for our future.

Dr Clayton’s talk will touch on two important issues: episodic memory - why mental time travel is such an important part of our normal daily lives and why loss of it in humans can be devastating, and whether episodic memory is unique to humans.

Traditionally episodic memory has been considered to be a quality unique to humans, but Dr Clayton will argue that we share this ability with some animals. Surprisingly the evidence comes not from our closest ancestors, the apes, but from a bird, the western scrub-jay.

At 7.30pm Professor of Regenerative Medicine, Roger Pedersen, will talk about the potential medical benefits from stem cell research.

Stem cells are the building blocks for every type of cell in the body, capable of maturing into any tissue type including blood, bone or neuronal cells. Research on stem cells is likely to lead to innovative cell transplantation therapies.

“Stem cell research will also have a major impact on understanding the developmental and regenerative capacity of the human body as a whole. Most importantly it has profound potential for treating currently debilitating diseases, such late-onset conditions as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancers, heart and blood diseases, and thus has the capacity to markedly improve the quality of life," commented Professor Pedersen.

For more information on the talks or The Cambridge Science Festival, please phone 01223 766 766.

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