Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb’s effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave...The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks captures the beauty and drama of scientific discovery, as well as its human consequences. - from GoodReads.com

https://www.facebook.com/events/132715466912210/

 It's the 142nd day of the year and what better reason can there be for a get together with the super and skeptical people from Birmingham SitP?

If you've never been before it's a good chance to chat with people in a relaxed atmosphere. We usually congregate on the raised area at the far end near to the disabled entrance, but we'll post in here and tweet on the night where we are if we end up in a different corner.

If you're coming on your own and would feel more comfortable being met then let us know  via Facebook, Twitter or email (all links can be found on this site) and we'll arrange too meet you.

If you're on Facebook let us know you're coming via this link:

https://www.facebook.com/events/501480629901774/

See you there.

Jonny Scaramanga attended a fundamentalist Christian school in the '90s where he learned that the Loch Ness Monster disproved evolution, God disapproved of the NHS, and homosexuals were an abomination to God. He talks about what students learn in these schools today, and what we should do when the parent's right to freedom of religion conflicts with the child's right to a sound education. 

All talks are free and open to the public but we do suggest a £2 donation on the night to help us to cover expenses.

 The notion that one can judge a person’s character on the basis of their facial appearance is an idea that dates back to the ancient Greeks and for a short period, the practice of physiognomy was considered scientific. Despite the fact that this ancient practice has long been discredited, the idea that one can “read” a person’s character simply by looking at their face still persists within folk psychology. In fact, this belief and our natural tendency to judge people on the basis of facial appearance has a surprisingly pervasive effect on all of our lives.

            In this talk Kathryn Ford will look at the modern face of physiognomy trying to answer questions such as; why do we judge people as soon as we see them? How accurate are these judgements? And does facial appearance effect how people are treated within the criminal justice system? <:p>

Warning: This talk will involve some discussion of rape.

 Kathryn Ford received a BSc in Neuroscience and Psychology from Keele University in 2011 and an MSc in Evolutionary Psychology from Brunel University in 2012.

All talks are free and open to the public but we do suggest a £2 donation on the night to help us to cover expenses.

The talk details will be posted up soon, until then here's a bit of bio to whet your appetite:

Stevyn is a former member of the Met Police Problem Solving Unit, which developed creative and innovative approaches to issues that did not respond to traditional policing methods. He is an expert on problem-oriented policing and has lectured extensively throughout the UK and US. Stevyn is also an artist, writer and a QI Elf!

All talks are free and open to the public but we do suggest a £2 donation on the night to help us to cover expenses.

The last one was such a success that we've decided to take the risk of throwing open our microphone and stage to you lot once more. So if you have ever sat in our audience listening to the speakers and thinking "I could do that", well here's your chance.

You have between 10-15 minutes to fill, with whatever you want on a sciencey/skeptical theme, that's about the limitation. It can be a beat poem about Big Foot, an analysis of some some scientific wonder or even the origins of the universe set to mime. Serious, funny, artistic or however you like is fine as long as it fits on our stage and into the time slot.

Email us with your suggestions as soon as possible and some time midway through August we'll hopefully confirm the lineup from those that volunteered.

birminghamskeptics@gmail.com

If you missed the last one and want a chance to see just how good it was you can get it from our vide store:

http://skepticaldvds.blogspot.co.uk/

Right, get thinking and get letting us know.

 For years, journalist Will Storr has been writing about people with strange beliefs: demon hunters, UFO spotters, homeopaths and a couple who swore they've met the Yeti in some woods outside Ipswich. One afternoon, he was sitting at a Creationist lecture in the far north of Australia when he asked himself a question that he couldn't even begin to answer. Why don't facts work? The people that he had met, in his ten years of reporting, were often not stupid. Many were demonstrably intelligent. So why didn't superior information fail to replace the inferior. Why did logic fail?

The answer was to lead him on a journey which is recounted in his new book: The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science (Picador, 2013). Along with a spectacular cast of characters - including climate skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton and controversial historian David Irving - and some of the planet's most celebrated experts in brains and thinking, Storr finds his answer in what he calls 'The Hero Maker' : the collection of neural illusions by which we understand the world to be a narrative struggle which are at the centre of. We populate this narrative with heroes and with villains, and we flatter ourselves that we are the most important character in it. We are not agents of reason, but storytellers.

Will Storr is an award winning journalist and a novelist. For more information, please see: www.willstorr.com

All our events are free to enter but we do ask for a donation of around £2 to solely cover the speaker expenses and the running of the SitP. There's no need to buy a ticket just turn up and find a space and we'll be happy to see you.

 Details of the talk will be posted closer to the time but here's a bit of bio to be going on with:

Dr Tim Grant is Deputy Director of the Centre for Forensic Linguistics at Aston University where he teaches English Language linguistics.  He previously lectured in forensic psychology at Leicester University.  His consultancy primarily involves authorship analysis of threatening and abusive communications and he has worked in civil and criminal contexts including investigations into sexual assault, murder and terrorist offences. His evidence has been used in cases across the UK as well as in South Africa and Pakistan.  He publishes on forensic linguistics and forensic psychology and his research into text messaging analysis was awarded the 2008 Joseph Lister Prize by the British Science Association.  UK media work includes involvement in BBC Crimewatch appeals, appearances on the BBC Radio 4 Word of Mouth programme and feature articles in the Independent newspaper.

All talks are free and open to the public but we do suggest a £2 donation on the night to help us to cover expenses.