23 Oct 2014
‘Personal Genomes: From Ancestry and Identity to Health’ – Café Science event on 27th October
The University of Dundee’s Professor Colin Palmer will next week explain how genomic information is playing an increasing role in everything from tracing ancestry to scientific research. Professor Palmer will lead the next event in the Café Science series to take place at Avery & Co, South Tay Street, Dundee, at 7pm on Monday, 27th October. The genetic blueprint for our bodies contains over 3 billion letters, and scientists have only just started to unravel the meaning of these genomic instructions. With many companies offering to analyse genomes, both for ancestry and health-related pur...
22 Oct 2014
Founding editor of 2000AD to headline Comics Day
The legendary Pat Mills, often described as the godfather of British comics, will headline this year’s Dundee Comics Day. The event takes place at the University of Dundee’s Tower Building on Sunday, 26th October as part of the 2014 Dundee Literary Festival. Comics Day will celebrate comics and their relationship to other media, including literature, film, television, theatre, games and the internet. Mills began his career at DC Thomson, where he met John Wagner. Together the pair are credited with revitalising British boys comics in the 1970s, before Mills was headhunted to be the first edit...
22 Oct 2014
School pupils to sample University life at WWI conference
Dozens of senior school pupils will get the chance to sample life in academia next week when they take part in a conference on World War I at the University of Dundee. The Great War 1914-1918 Schools Conference takes place at Dundee University Students’ Association (DUSA) from 10am-3pm on Tuesday, 28th October. Around 80 pupils from Braeview Academy, Harris Academy, Menzieshill High School and St Johns High School who are currently studying the conflict will be attending the conference. Historians involved in Great War centenary event projects on the Scottish and Russian experiences of the conflict...
21 Oct 2014
Peanut in house dust linked to peanut allergy in children with skin gene mutation
A new study led by King’s College London in collaboration with the University of Manchester and the University of Dundee has found a strong link between exposure to peanut protein in household dust during infancy and the development of peanut allergy in children genetically predisposed to a skin barrier defect. Around 2 per cent of school children in the UK are allergic to peanuts. Severe eczema in early infancy has also been linked to food allergies, particularly peanut allergy. A major breakthough in our understanding of eczema has developed with the discovery of the FLG gene which codes for the s...
21 Oct 2014
Festival spreads its wings across the city
This week’s Dundee Literary Festival is set to burst out of its home in Bonar Hall and land in libraries, pubs, and other venues across the city. BBC Scotland Political Editor Brian Taylor, himself a proud Dundonian, will be discussing his favourite books and writers at Coldside Library, Strathmartine Road at 11am on Saturday. Another of the city’s historic reading rooms, Blackness Library, will play host to Hannah Englekamp and her ‘Seaside Donkey’ at the same time the day before. Saturday will also see a Comics Lab hosted by Dundee Contemporary Arts ahead of the annual Comics Da...