Maryrose Lyons blogging since 2003...

Robert Winston in the Science Gallery This Thursday

April 1, 2010 at 5:14 pm

I have a science hero and he’s coming to Dublin’s Science Gallery next week. Whoever comes up with the talks and speakers down there needs a prize, they’re always interesting to a wide and varied audience. You might know Robert Winston not as a gangster actor but as the mustachoio’ed gentleman who presented “Child of Our Time” on BBC TV around 2000. He’s in town next Thurs (8 April) giving a talk about:

BAD IDEAS? An arresting history of our bad inventions

Professor Winston will take a fresh look at man’s greatest discoveries and innovations and asks whether our dependence on science and technology has led us into a precarious situation which is doomed to become worse before it gets better? As well as tracing the history and fall-out of our very worst ideas, he also advocates the merits of scientific progres.

Professor Winston has an international reputation for his researches into human reproduction and has pioneered advances widely used in fertility and IVF treatment. He is committed to scientific education and regularly writes or hosts popular science programmes for the BBC, Discovery and ABC networks.

I’m personally interested for two reasons:

I am surprised that it’s not possible to save stem cells from the placenta when one has a baby in this country. I would have thought that if the technology is available that people would go for it. I see it as an insurance policy against awful diseases that mother nature can throw at your little one, but it seems I’m alone in my thinking. I wonder what Robert has to say on this subject – I shall listen carefully.
I love learning about child psychology and when Prof Winston’s “Child of Our Time” was on BBC some years ago I watched it religiously. I’ve even been known to quote some of the experiments! Now that I’m about to have my own child, I’ve been trying to get a hold of a copy of this DVD – but have not been able to. Not even Dublin City Library has a copy – or the dustiest corners of Ebay. If you know of anyone who has a copy of Child of Our Time, please lend it to me.

UPDATE: how funny and Freudian… I just wrote the whole post about Ray Winston coming to town thinking “I mustn’t mix up Ray and Robert cos it’ll make me look really stoopid… it’s alright to do that kind of thing in my head, but no way in blogland” – until John Braine (check out his blog – the pic re. the passport office is so funny!) kindly pointed out the error of my ways. Just so you get how poles apart these two are, here’s Ray (on the left) and a rather more kindly looking Robert (on the right). I’m playing the Pregnancy Brain card on this one.