Lecture by Professor John Stein (Mon 12th Sept)
On Monday 12th September, the New Hall was packed for a lecture by eminent Oxford University neuroscientist Professor John Stein, who came in to talk about his work and the value of animal experimentation. The Professor covered subjects as diverse as the structure of the brain, the effects of drugs, phantom limbs, obesity, how to treat Parkinson's disease with the help of monkeys, the value of fish oil and the causes of dyslexia. In other hands, these topics would have sailed over the heads of many of the boys, but he pitched his talk perfectly and spiced it with visual aids, not least an X-ray of a woman who arrived at hospital with a carving knife through her head. The boys' questions were enthusiastic and dazzlingly perceptive, spanning the risks from animal rights extremists; the implications of neuroscience for MS sufferers; the challenges of studying pain when animals have to be anaesthetised; to the practical issues of how to remove a brain. Enormous thanks to Professor Stein, who achieved the seemingly impossible by receiving three rounds of applause, thereby bettering defending champion James May.
