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UCL News podcast - 1 March 2012

2 March 2012

UCL News has launched a new podcast to give you the opportunity to listen to the latest news and research from around UCL every fortnight.

Split up into three parts, you can either listen to the podcast all in one go, or save features for later listening. 

On this podcast we have a selection of the most recent UCL headlines, along with Dr Nichola Raihani talking about strange behaviour in Cleaner fish. We also find out a bit more about Jeremy Bentham, his auto-icon, and that famous mummified head.

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Part 1 - News

News stories include Henry Rummins, UCL Media Relations Manager for Enterprise, talking about the Wilson Review, a report commission by the government on how business and universities can collaborate to improve innovation and university spin-outs. 

We also hear about Oxfam's new 'Shelflife' mobile phone app that lets customers find out the stories behind second-hand goods it sells. Developed from a scheme called Tales of Things and Electronic Memory by Andy Hudson-Smith (UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis) and colleagues, it uses QR Codes to let shoppers find out more about an individual item's past. 

Last but not least, good news for those of a rebellious nature, as researchers lead by Professor Chris Frith (UCL Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging) have found a link between the amount of grey matter in one specific brain region and an individual's likelihood of conforming or reacting to social pressures.

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Part 2 - Cleaner Fish

Familiarity with your partner is usually thought to promote teamwork, but a new paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, has found that, at least in Cleaner fish, familiarity in fact breeds contempt. To find out more about this intriguing finding, we went to chat to lead author Dr Nichola Raihani (UCL Research Department of Genetics, Evolution & Environment) about these peculiar fish and the role of cooperation in nature.

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Part 3 - Jeremy Bentham 

At UCL it's difficult to avoid Jeremy Bentham, whether it's his contribution to the foundation of UCL, his philosophical work, or the auto-icon that takes pride of place in the Cloisters. With a history that is very much intertwined with that of UCL, we spoke to Professor Philip Schofield and Dr Tim Causer from the Bentham Project, to find out more about the man, and his many myths.

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Links: 

Oxfam Shelflife
Tales of Things and Electronic Memory
Andrew Hudson-Smith
Wilson Review
Wellcome Trust Press release
Professor Chris Frith
Nichola Raihani
Cleaner fish press release
Bentham Project