(OT) great local talks

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

I know some TLUGers are interested in these things so I hope you will 
forgive this non-LINUX posting.

=============================

The Royal Canadian Institute puts on talks about science each Sunday 
afternoon that are 
(1) by experts in their field
(2) aimed at an educated but non-expert audience

Here's a list of this Fall's lectures: 
http://www.yorku.ca/rci/Site/Fall_11.html

I missed the one yesterday.  I would have liked to attend: Leonardo
and Steve: How Fibinacci beat Apple to Market by 800 Years.

TLUGer Alan Rocker is quite active in RCI.  I'm a life member but not
that active.

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The Gairdner Foundation gives out awards in medical sciences every
year.  These turn out to be good predictors of who will later win
Nobel Prize (for example, two of this year's Nobel Laureates had
earlier won Gairdners).

Each year they run a symposium with award winners and others.  It is
several days long and open to the public.  I've attended a few times
and learned a lot.  Not all lectures are suitable for non-researchers.

This year's symposium almost completely overlaps FSOSS :-(

Wednesday Oct 26 is a day-long symposium on diabetes.  This was the
topic of an earlier symposium that I found eye-opening.  The concept
of insulin resistance and obesity and other metabolic problems seems
really important.  My guess is that these are going to be a bit hard
to follow.

<http://www.gairdner.org/calendar/diabetes90yearsafterthediscoveryofinsulin>


Thursday's symposium is by the awardees.  I think that they will be
understandable to a wider audience.

<http://www.gairdner.org/calendar/2011-minds-that-matter-awardees-symposium>


Friday's symposium is about immunology and inflamation.
<http://www.gairdner.org/calendar/advancesinimmunityandinflammation>
Interestingly, diabetes is probably an immunological disease.

Notes:

- all are free

- at least the first symposium requires (free) registration

- all these are on the U of T downtown campus

- There are other events at other universities, but not nearly as much
  <http://www.gairdner.org/calendar>
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