Cafe Scientifique

Date:	Monday 15th March 2010
Title:	Serious playtime: computer games for education, therapy and research
Speaker:	Simon Scarle
Description:	Computer games are rapidly becoming a ubiquitous form of entertainment, so much so that even educators and scientists are starting to notice – as shown by the rapidly expanding field of Serious Games, where games are used for more serious purposes other than fun. This began as being seen as useful for education and training, but has moved on to produce games and game-like virtual worlds for therapeutic uses and carrying out research. Also as games consoles themselves have become ever more powerful with each generation, there has been increasing interest in their use to directly carry out serious scientific calculations. Simon will be talking about his work as Senior Programmer for a Serious Games project at the International Digital Laboratory, University of Warwick, and about the broader field of Serious Games. He will also talk about the serious use of Games hardware with his work on using an Xbox 360 to simulate the heart.

Date:	Monday 19th April 2010
Title:	Homeopathy: dispelling the myths, establishing the facts
Speaker:	Steven Cartwright
Description:	Despite being used by millions of people worldwide, homeopathy remains highly controversial in western medicine. This is primarily because homeopathic medicines are produced by a process of sequential succussion (shaking) and dilution of solutions well beyond the point at which any molecules of the original pharmaceutical remain. Without molecular evidence to demonstrate how it works, conventional science is sceptical of homeopathy. Steven will present the results of work he is carrying out aimed at elucidating the possible physico-chemical identity of homeopathic medicines. Results indicate that prolonged succussion imparts a subtle ordering in the solvent which is not dissipated by dilution and can, moreover, be transfered to solutions that have not themselves been succussed. These results will be discussed in relation to the unique kinds of clinical responses seen with homeopathy. Hopefully, many of the myths surrounding homeopathy can be dispelled and you will see that homeopathy is indeed worthy of scientific investigation. Steven Cartwright (PhD, MARH) is a research biochemist and homeopath. He is currently carrying out in vitro research on homeopathic medicines at the Cherwell Innovation Centre, Oxford.