ONE of Britain’s leading scientists is giving a talk at Bishop Wordsworth’s School in Salisbury on March 7.

Professor Colin Blakemore is a fellow of the Royal Society and of the Academy of Medical Science.

He is currently professor of neuroscience and philosophy at the School of Advanced Study in London, a member of ten other academies of science and the winner of awards in Britain, America, France, Switzerland, Ireland and the Czech Republic. Prof Blakemore studied medical sciences in Cambridge before doing a PhD at Berkeley, California.

He worked in Cambridge and then Oxford, and has been a visiting professor at many of the world’s universities and research institutes.

Prof Blakemore directed the Oxford Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience and he was the chief executive of the Medical Research Council.

He is also a broadcaster and writer, and the youngest person to give the Reith Lectures.

He won the Royal Society’s Michael Faraday Award for science communication and has written, presented or contributed to hundreds of television and radio programmes, including the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures and The Mind Machine.

The title for his lecture will be The Unbearable Lightness of Seeing and it is about visual perception - the difference between the sort of information reaching the brain and the way in which we actually see the world. The 2014 Mullins Lecture will start at 7pm, with a question and answer session to follow.

Entry to the lecture is free, but places must be booked in advance on 01722 333851 or rec@bws.wilts.sch.uk.