Safe robots, the healing power of song - and why our hospitals may be harming our health: York scientists talk about their research

These are just some of the questions researchers at the University of York are grappling with. And tomorrow, in a day of free public lectures, they'll be talking about their work to anyone who wants to come along and listen. There will even be a chance to ask questions yourself...

The annual 'York Talks' day, in which university staff talk about their research in plain language, will be held throughout the day on Wednesday (January 8) at the Sir Ron Cooke Hub at the university's Heslington East campus. There will be 16 15-minute talks in all, organised into four sessions, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Topics range from the potential of sewage as a source of green energy to the world of competitive video-games and the problem with modern hospital designs.

Joan Concannon, the university's director of external relations, said: “YorkTalks is an excellent way to engage with our researchers and learn more about how our academics are working to tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. The talks are aimed at a non-academic audience and there really is something for everyone."

All the talks are free - though it is best if you book beforehand, by visiting york.ac.uk/research/events/yorktalks/

Here is a 'taster'...

The healing power of song

Dr Helena Daffern of the university's Department of Electronic Engineering, a former opera singer and chorister, is using cutting edge digital technology to understand why singing together has such a powerful therapeutic effect. Her talk will take the audience from the summit of Great Gable in the Lake District, where a choral group sing at the top of their voices to experience the benefits of the natural environment and group singing, down to the inner recesses of York’s high-tech AudioLab, where she is using virtual reality to understand why singing together has such a profound impact on participants.

The laws of robotics

We're entering a future where sophisticated robots will interact more and more with our everyday lives - whether they're driverless cars, 'smart' homes, household gadgets or healthcare technology. But how can we ensure the robots we will depend on are both safe and reliable? Professor Ana Cavalcanti of the Department of Computer Science, an expert in robotic software development, is on a mission to ensure that, unlike the computer, the robot never says no: that it does the right thing at the right time, every time.

Through the use of simulations and modelling, she and her team hope to develop a 21st-century toolbox for robot-control developers that would enable the safe use of socially beneficial robotics - allowing the UK to tap into a multibillion dollar global robotics market.

The carbon dioxide refinery

Can we change our carbon emissions from a harmful, climate-changing threat to a useful resource? Professor Mike North of the Department of Chemistry believes so. His talk will look at how green chemists in York have developed a carbon capture and utilisation process that converts CO2 from a waste into a valuable resource to produce chemicals and fuels that would otherwise be made from crude oil.

In just over a decade he and his team have taken the idea from proof of concept in the laboratory to a technology that has been licensed to a European company who are currently designing and raising the funding for the first production facility.

Energy down the drain

Do you ever think about the value of what you flush down the loo? Professor James Chong and his colleagues in the Department of Biology do. The UK disposes of more than a million tonnes of 'solid material' through its sewers each year. Treating this is expensive and wasteful. In collaboration with leading water industry figures, Professor Chong and his team are exploring how smart anaerobic digestion - a biological process where organic material is broken down by microbes without oxygen - could be used to recover energy and resources from sewage.

Bodies, bugs and hospital architecture: healthcare for the post-antibiotic age

The rapid growth of bacteria and other microbes that are resistant to drugs has been identified by the World Health Organisation as one of the greatest threats today to global health. Social anthropologist Professor Nik Brown of the Department of Sociology heads a multidisciplinary team looking at how contemporary hospital design could actually be making the problem worse rather than better. In the ‘pre-antibiotic era’ infections were managed in healthcare buildings designed to maximise sunlight, fresh air, open space and access to the natural environment.

The increasing use of antibiotics from the mid-20th century onwards made possible the development of densely-packed, high-rise, industrial-scale hospitals. But these are often enclosed, poorly lit and artificially ventilated buildings which rely on medicines rather than their environment to control infections. In the 'post-antibiotic age' that may be coming, in which we can no longer rely on drugs, do we need to look again at the way our hospitals are designed?

Stephen Lewis