List of Science Talks (2021-22)

Science and Humanity

Understanding the Physics of Nature

ST0004
Understanding Cancer

By School of Biomedical Sciences
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Biology

Cancer is a genetic disease caused by alterations in oncogenes and other related genes. This talk will first introduce the ground-breaking discovery of oncogenes that was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1989. How a normal gene might become an oncogene through mutations and the mechanisms will be introduced. Examples will be given to illustrate how our understanding of the function of oncogenes leads to a revolution in the design and development of highly specific and effective anti-cancer drugs that target oncogenes.

ST0150
Understanding COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2

By School of Biomedical Sciences
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Biology

The pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is still ongoing. In this talk, Professor DY JIN will give a brief introduction to the science of COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2. The talk will cover all important areas including the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the life cycle of the virus, the COVID-19 disease, diagnosis, treatment and vaccine development. Particularly, he will explain how HKU scientists made a difference in the fight against COVID-19. He will also provide an answer to many key questions such as whether SARS-CoV-2 is man-made, how vaccines are made, as well as how safe and effective existing vaccines are.

ST0147
Microbial electron transfer for a sustainable and renewable world 

By Faculty of Science
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Biology, Chemistry and Physics

Microorganisms such as bacteria depend on electron flow processes for the formation of electrochemical gradients in the cells to sustain key cellular functions. To gain energy and survive, bacteria obtain electrons by oxidizing organic/inorganic compounds and discard the respiratory electrons to a terminal electron acceptor such as oxygen. Some bacteria have remarkable abilities to transfer electrons, outside of the cells, to solid-state electron acceptors such as oxide minerals and synthetic electrodes. We will explore the science behind this amazing extracellular electron transfer (EET) process of some capable bacteria and discuss the associated practical applications such as electricity generation, wastewater treatment and bioremediation, potentially for a sustainable and renewable world.

ST0160
How may Artificial Intelligence Change our Society?

By Faculty of Science
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Economics and Liberal Studies

Artificial Intelligence is no longer a postulate about the future, but is already bringing noticeable impacts to our current society. Will the AI revolution lead to a reform in our economy? Is it simply another Industrial Revolution? We will address these questions in the talk. 

ST0110
Noise Annoys: Understanding the Effects of Noise Pollution on Human and non-Human City Dwellers

By Department of Earth Sciences
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Biology and Geography

Cities are noisy environments, and this noise pollution has negative effects on all residents of a city, including humans. In this talk, we will explore the greatest contributions to noise pollution in cities, the unique auditory environment that exists in modern cityscapes, and learn how this noise affects both humans and wildlife within the city boundaries.

ST0111
The Anthropocene: Are We Causing the 6^th Mass Extinction Event?

By Department of Earth Sciences
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Biology, Geography and Liberal Studies

As the human population grows, our increasing need for resources leads to a major impact on the environment. In this talk, students will learn about how human activities are changing the processes and cycles of life on Earth and what effects these changes are having upon the Earth.

We will look specifically at the causes of the previous five mass extinction events and discuss whether human activities are causing animals to go extinct at equal rates, potentially leading to the 6^th mass extinction event.

ST0112
Darwin in the City: Understanding Evolution in an Urban World

By Department of Earth Sciences
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Biology and Geography

We live in an increasingly urbanised world —— more than half of the human population now lives in cities. This talk will discuss how new urban environments change the evolution of urban-dwelling species, from plants to birds to humans. For example, we will discuss why mammals are often bigger in cities, why birds are becoming more and more active at night, and why cities are becoming more and more similar in terms of the species found in them.

ST0119
Scientific Health Risk Assessment of Persistent Organic Pollutants at Intensive Electronic Waste Recycling Sites

By School of Biological Sciences
Level: F.5 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Biology, Chemistry and Liberal Studies

Electronic waste has become one of the emerging environmental issues to be tackled worldwide. Approximately 54 million tonnes of e-waste were produced in 2012. Despite increasingly strict international regulations and control programmes, a substantial part of e-waste generated in consumer societies is exported to developing countries, where it is often recycled through environmentally harmful methods or dumped in unprotected areas, causing severe environmental and health damage accompanied by a range of socio-cultural problems. In this talk, students will be able to learn the basic principles of conducting scientific health risk assessment of persistent organic pollutants, local and global issues of e-waste and the adverse impacts of primitive e-waste recycling in developing countries.

ST0162
The Earth is Round

By Faculty of Science
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Physics

From an early age, we all learn that the Earth is round. How do we know this is true? Why do some think that the Earth is flat? In Ancient Greece, astronomers not only knew that the Earth was round, but were able to make accurate predictions of its size. Yet, in the middle ages of Europe, many insisted it was flat. Even today some popular musicians and athletes maintain that the Earth is flat. This talk will explore what evidence we can find in our daily lives that convinces us that the Earth is round.

ST0148
Science of Food and Nutrition: What and Why do we Eat?

By School of Biological Sciences
Level: F.5 & F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Biology, Chemistry and Geography

Why do we need to eat certain food? Is it safe to eat? How can we sustain and secure the food we eat? Recommendations in human nutrition can no longer make be focused on a single part of a human diet; to be most effective, one needs to understand the links among food, nutrients, and human health. Nutrition is defined as the 'Science of food, the nutrients and other substances therein, their action, interaction, and balance in relation to health and disease and the processes by which the organism ingests, digests, absorbs, transports, utilizes and excretes food substances.' The understanding of nutritional science began from macro-nutrients and the physiology of energy, to the current discovery of essential nutrients -- the vitamin and minerals and the emergence of functional foods. In this talk, the speaker will discuss some of the current issues in nutrition and health sciences.

ST0039
Interesting Things about Interest Rates

By Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
Level: F.5 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Mathematics

This talk will introduce some basic concepts and characteristics about the operation of interest rates. The speaker will also briefly look into the relationships between interest rates and other economic variables.

ST0101
Misuses of Statistics

By Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Mathematics

Statistics is used everywhere in our daily lives, from research reports and scientific articles to newspaper reports and magazines. Unfortunately, the misuse of statistics, either accidentally or purposely, is very common. This talk will discuss some real life examples on how statistics are misused, and how not to commit and not be misled by these misuses.

ST0151
Machine Learning

By Department of Mathematics
Level: F.4
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Mathematics

The talk will introduce what Machine Learning is and how to implement a simple programme to teach a computer recognizing your own commands. The definition of Machine Learning will first be introduced, then the speaker will present three important applications:

1. Self-driving technology 
2. Master the Game of Go 
3. Face detection

A small program designed by the speaker will be used to demonstrate how to control the fan and lamp in the room by commands - present as many examples as possible to turn on/off the fan/lamp; the computer learns our commands from our examples and write a very short code to check its performance. 

ST0153
What the Man who Knew Infinity Knew

By Department of Mathematics
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Mathematics

You may have seen the recent movie "The man who knew infinity" about the Indian mathematician Ramanujan (and his interactions with G.H. Hardy and Littlewood, among others). In this talk, we'll introduce some of what Ramanujan studied and discuss a bit about his impact on the mathematical world since that time.

ST0154
Statistics in Mahjong

By Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
Level: F.5 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Mathematics

Mahjong has long been a popular board game among Asian culture. Different people have developed their own strategies in terms of winning the game based on experience. This talk will explore how statistical tools could be useful for a more subjective analysis. 

ST0155
Role of Statistics in Health Sciences

By Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Mathematics

Statistics plays a crucial role in the health sciences, including epidemiology, publuc health, medicine, and clinical research. This talk will be about how statistical methods are applied in health sciences and used to solve real-world problems. 

ST0161
The Mathematics of Voting 

By Faculty of Science
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Mathematics

Often in our lives, we require some way to make decisions as a group even when the preferences of those in the group may not align. From a group of friends deciding in which restaurant to dine to nations electing their leaders, voting systems allow us to move from individual preferences to a social choice. It is often desirable that whatever voting system we use be fair. This talk will explore what we mean by fair and examine whether popular voting systems fulfill those requirements.

ST0037
The Sun: Our Nearest Star

By Department of Physics
Level: F.5 - F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Physics

This talk will introduce the properties of and recent observational results regarding the Sun – our nearest star. The focus is on how astronomers find them out rather than simply a talk on "known facts".

ST0137
Cosmic Fireworks

By Department of Physics
Level: F.4 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Physics

Have you ever wondered where do elements on Earth come from? The heavy metals, including gold, iron, and even calcium in our bones are indeed star dusts released in supernova explosions when massive stars die. This talk introduces these most energetic events in the Universe, which do not only produce heavy elements, but also trigger new stellar formation, and could even have played an important role in the origin of life on Earth.

ST0158
The Violent Universe

By Faculty of Science
Level: F.5 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Physics

When we look up to the night sky, we think that the Universe is clam. But isn’t it? It’s far from the truth! The are in fact many kinds of astrophysical objects in the Universe, some of them emit deadly radiations like X-rays and Gamma-rays. The talk will cover the discovery and physics of various interesting astrophysical objects, e.g., pulsars, black holes, gamma-ray bursts, and the recently hot research topic of fast radio bursts. And many more. Are you ready to look at the Universe in a different perspective?

ST0166
The Galactic Graveyard and the ultimate fate of our Sun 

By Department of Physics
Level: F.4 
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Physics

Planetary nebulae (PNe) are nothing to do with planets but their ghostly shells resembled the Jovian planets to early astronomers. They are the ejected shrouds of dying, low mass stars. Our Sun will go through such a brief ~30,000 year phase in the distant future. PNe form when the bloated, outer envelope of an evolved star gets expelled. The remnant core heats up, generating a UV radiation field that causes the ejected gas to glow with rich emission lines. In this lecture you will come to understand the complex nature and interesting physics that makes these beautiful celestial phenomena such an important window into late stage stellar evolution.

ST0159
The Forgotten Member of the Science Trinity

By Faculty of Science
Level: F.4
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Biology, Chemistry and Physics

Three domains of science that are critical to developing scientific literacy have been identified. Of the three, science as body of knowledge, is the most familiar and includes scientific facts, concepts, theories, etc. Scientific methods and processes comprise the second and describe the variety of methods that scientists use to generate knowledge. The third and often neglected aspect, the nature of science (NOS), seeks to describe the nature of the scientific enterprise, and the characteristics of the knowledge it generates. This talk will use simple demonstrations to introduce and strengthen students’ understanding of NOS.

ST0167
A Hungry World: Can science and technology help? 

By Faculty of Science
Level: F.4
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Biology, Geography and Liberal Studies

Television images of undernourished children in the “Horn of Africa” make news headlines time and again. The global food system has failed to provide adequate calories for everyone on the planet and children are always the main victims with hunger and malnutrition causing 3.5 million child deaths every year. In this talk, we use a reflective approach to understand, amongst other issues, 1) why on a planet with sufficient food for all, a billion people go hungry; 2) the role that science and technology can play to ensure global food security as the global population rises to about 9 billion by 2050.

ST0135
The World of Particles

By Department of Physics
Level: F.5 – F.6
HKDSE Related Subject(s): Physics

Particle physics is the study of fundamental particles and their interactions. Fundamental particles are basic elements of matter and fundamental force carriers. The standard model describing the law of the fundamental particles and their interactions has been very successful in explaining and predicting various experimental results. However, it is not the ultimate theory of particle physics because it fails to answer some fundamental questions: What is the cause of electroweak symmetry breaking? Can strong, weak and electro- magnetic forces be unified? What are dark matter and dark energy? Why is there more matter than anti-matter in the universe? In order to answer these questions, particle accelerators, very important tool in particle physics, are used to mimic the conditions of the early universe and produce heavy fundamental particles, that rarely exist in the current universe. In a scientific breakthrough in 2012, the Higgs boson was discovered at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, which is located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).