TOOLS OF SCIENCE
A series of meetings
hosted by The Physics Museum,
The University of Queensland
For students, scientists,
engineers, historians of science and technology, teachers,
collectors, and all those fascinated by old scientific instruments
| March
4 Simon Manley |
Electronics Then and Now: How the revolution in biology since WWII was driven by advances in electronics |
The first Tools of Science meeting for 2008 will be held at 6pm on Tuesday March 4 in Parnell (7) LR222 The speaker will be Simon Manley and the topic Electronics Then and Now: How the revolution in biology since WWII was driven by advances in electronics The talk will illustrate how progress in amplifer performance from the microamp input currents of vacuum tube technology through to the femtoamp currents of FET-input operational amplifiers has enabled successively more sophisticated biological problems to be studied. Examples commence with the legendary Giant Squid Axon which began our understanding of signalling in nerves, and culminate with the analysis of ionic channels in cell membranes by recording currents flowing through single protein molecules. Many of the illustrations are from his own research career, focussing on disease of the thyroid gland which makes a hormone regulating metabolism. Fundamental physical principles feature strongly in this story, such as the statistical mechanics of amplifier noise, the physicist's (rather than the chemist's) interpretation of osmotic pressure, and the intimate mapping between the abstract world of mathematics and the practical world of the laboratory bench. (Although the topic is inherently quite mathematical, the focus will be light-hearted, with plenty of amusing photographs, as befits an evening audience. Refreshments will be served afterwards.) Simon Manley is Honorary Professor in Biomedical Sciences at The University of Queensland. Prior to his retirement in 2001, he was Professor of Physiology. He maintains research links with the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, and has an ongoing interest in medical education. For a retirement hobby, he investigates one of the several phenomena in near-field electromagnetics which involve superluminal group velocities. |
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