Event details

Archbishop Holgate's Annual Science Lecture

Analytical chemistry can take you to strange places - for Dr. Kirsty Penkman, it has been to the bottom of a quarry, being covered in dirt, excavating sesame-seed sized fossils that allow us to work out when prehistoric creatures such as mammoths and Neanderthals roamed Europe.  Being able to identify (and isolate) a fraction of the protein contained within particular fossil shells which breaks down at predictable rates has allowed us to date back to at least 2.8 Ma.  With analyses of protein in fossil material ranging from Great Barrier Reef corals to South African ostrich eggshell and Antarctic ice cores, amino acids have helped us unravel the complexities of our past climate, as well as providing insights into how organisms build their skeletons.