As a part of its 10^th year celebrations, IISER Pune in collaboration with the British Council brings you Science and Beyond — a lecture series by eminent writers, scholars and historians of science from the UK, who will take you beyond science as you know it!

In the first leg of this series are talks by science writer Jon Turney. His talk at Kerala University, Palayam is titled LIFE AS A SUPERORGANISM: Getting to know the human microbiome.

Find talk details below.

Date: Wednesday, November 4, 2015

Time: 4:00 pm

Venue: University Senate Chamber, Kerala University, Palayam

Summary: Reading genomes has already revealed a new dimension of our connection with the rest of life, in the genes we share with every other organism. Getting to know our own microbes shows yet another. Will we end up valuing them more, even admiring them? In a world of antibiotics, antisepsis, disinfection, and pasteurisation, will we try to look after them better? Or can a superorganism look after itself?

About the author: Jonathan Turney has been a science writer, reviewer and editor since the early 1980s. He is the author of I, Superorganism: Learning to love your inner ecosystem (2015) about the human microbiome, The Rough Guide to the Future (2010), which was shortlisted for the UK Science Book Prize, Lovelock and Gaia: Signs of Life, and Frankenstein’s Footsteps: Science, Genetics and Popular Culture (1998), which won the British Medical Association Award for Popular Medical Book of the Year. He has worked for the Times Higher Education Supplement and Penguin Books, and taught at University College London and Imperial College. He enjoys writing and editing on assignment, especially around life sciences, futures, science and society and policy issues and has written for a wide range of audiences, producing everything from books to museum exhibition guides to school resources.

Source: http://​www​.iis​er​pune​.ac​.in/​e​v​e​n​t​s​/​S​c​i​e​n​c​e​+​a​n​d​+Beyo…