Did you know that humble algae – aquatic plants that range from tiny, single-celled diatoms to giant kelp seaweed – could hold the secret to helping us tackle climate change?

Or that scientists in York have developed a tool for tracking the relationship between the global pandemic, lockdown and air pollution?

And what do you think about judges? Have they been staunch defenders of democracy during the debates over Brexit and how to tackle the pandemic – or ‘vandals in ermine?’

York academics will be going online to tackle these and many other questions on Wednesday.

The University of York’s annual ‘York Talks’ event gives some of its top academics the chance to talk about their work in public.

This year’s event – which takes place all day on Wednesday – will be no different, even if this year all the free talks are online.

Fifteen of the university’s top academics have been given 15 minutes each to explain their work.

Organised in four sessions throughout the day, the topics will include:

  • Could algae help save us from ourselves? Algae helped make the earth a home fit for humans. But could they help protect the planet from us? Prof Luke Mackinder of the Department of Biology says that algae – simple aquatic plants that range in size from tiny single-celled diatoms to giant seaweeds - are removing close to 50 per cent of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, at a rate five times faster than humans are releasing carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. But not just content with helping tackle climate change, Prof Mackinder believes algae could also become crucial allies in raising crop yields by as much as 60 per cent.
  • Air pollution and the global pandemic. Prof Mathew Evans of the Department of Chemistry on how he and his colleagues have worked with researchers at NASA to develop an algorithm that reveals the links between the global pandemic and the planet’s atmosphere. Using machine learning techniques along with NASA’s immense computing power, they collated data from almost 6,000 air quality monitoring sites in 46 countries around the world. They found a massive and almost immediate drop in air pollutants as the first wave of lockdowns began to bite last year. But what can we learn from this?
  • Judges in the dock: defenders of democracy or vandals in ermine? With members of the public still deeply divided over Brexit and increasingly frustrated with the government’s attempts to contain the coronavirus, the role of the judiciary in holding the executive to account becomes ever more important, says Prof TT TT Arvind of York Law School. “From the proroguing of Parliament to the exercise of pandemic emergency powers, the government appears to be taking the law into its own hands. But can we trust the judges to defend the citizen against an over-mighty state? Or are they politically biased in favour of our rulers?

York talks runs throughout the day on Wednesday, in four sessions from 9.10am to 5.15pm. Book your free tickets here