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The walking dead of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Last week I watched Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and came away with a rather warm feeling in my offal. Released in time for Valentine’s day, this movie has a great deal of cerebral appeal, a lot of heart, and some period ladies venting spleen to serious (tongue through cheek) comedic effect. The film is based …

Designer dragons and transgenic triffids

Sean May from our School of Biosciences discussed the genetic imagination in his recent Popular Culture lecture.  How might we build a dragon? Or dinosaur? Or triffid? First we need to set some design parameters: Feathered serpents are found in the myths, religions and heraldry of all populated continents: From Quetzalcoatl in the Aztec west; through …

Science fiction vs. science fact

Dr Catrin Rutland from our School of Veterinary Medicine and Science introduces the lecture she’ll be giving this week as part of the Popular Culture series. In the 1950’s a new science was born, yet scientists and the literature had long been fascinated with what we now call ‘Genetics’. Long before the term genetics existed, writers …