Lunch hour lectures repository Autumn 2010
- Incest and folk-dancing: why sex survives
- Eyeing the brain
- Bubbles in the blood: from the 'bends' to magic bullets
- From dust to diamonds
- What does London owe to slavery?
- Breast screening: some inconvenient truths
- Piracy: The law of the high seas
- Doomed to fail? The challenges of coalition government for Westminster and Whitehall
- Who or what killed Franz Ferdinand?
- Energising the city
- Philosophy and public policy
- Light and darkness in the accelerating universe
- Can HIV treatment stop the AIDS epidemic?
- The missing 650 million?
- Listening to foreign judges from far away places: Why the European Court of Human Rights is a good idea
- Angels, putti, dragons and fairies: A biological dissection
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Angels, putti, dragons and fairies: A biological dissection
15 December 2010
Thursday 9 December 2010
Professor Roger Wotton (UCL Biology)
Representational art - painting, cartoon film, etc makes myths appear real; with mythological creatures and objects often placed within familiar and naturalistic scenes. One of the myths is that of flying beings. Angels, putti, fairies and dragons are all shown as having wings and an otherwise naturalistic form that we recognise readily. Yet, are they able to fly? If not, why do we wish to suggest they have the same powers of flight as real flying animals?
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