Matthew Cobb

Matthew Cobb (born 4 February 1957) is a British zoologist and professor of zoology at the University of Manchester. He is known for his popular science books The Egg & Sperm Race: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unravelled the Secrets of Sex, Life and Growth; Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code; and The Idea of the Brain: A History. Cobb has appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Infinite Monkey Cage, The Life Scientific, and The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, as well as on BBC Radio 3 and the BBC World Service.

Matthew Cobb
Matthew Cobb in 2019
Born (1957-02-04) February 4, 1957
Alma materUniversity of Sheffield (BA, PhD)
Awards2021 JBS Haldane Lecture
Scientific career
FieldsZoology
InstitutionsUniversity of Manchester

Education

Cobb earned his BA in Psychology at the University of Sheffield. During the second year of his undergraduate studies he read an article about the recent discovery of the Drosophila melanogaster dunce mutant in New Scientist and decided to focus on behaviour genetics in fruit flies, later saying he, "went on to do my PhD there, in Psychology and Genetics, looking at the mating behaviour of seven species of fruitfly. Psychology in those days was as much about animal behaviour as it was about human psychology, and I was lucky enough to be in one of the few places in the UK that studied [it]”.[1]

Career

From 1981 to 1984, Cobb conducted twin studies at London's Institute of Psychiatry (now the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience), research he later described as trying "to get human twins drunk".[2] He has said, "This was interesting, but convinced me that I did not want to do research on human beings".[1] In 1984, he obtained funding through the Royal Society's Science Exchange Programme to work with Jean-Marc Jallon in Gif-sur-Yvette, France, where he was introduced to the use of pheromones and smell by animals as a means of communication.[1] Once his Royal Society grant finished, Cobb spent a year and a half working at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord in Villetaneuse, where he lectured in psychophysiology. In 1998, Cobb joined the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), working first at its Orsay facility, utilising Drosophila maggots to study the sense of smell, and from 1995 at its Laboratoire d'Ecologie in Paris where he investigated olfactory communication in ants.[1]

Since 2002,[3] Cobb has worked at the University of Manchester, initially as a lecturer in animal behaviour and later as professor of zoology.[4]

Communicating science

Cobb has become known to a wider audience through his books for the general public. In 2007, his book The Egg and Sperm Race: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unravelled the Secrets of Sex, Life and Growth won the Thomson Reuters/Zoological Record Award for Communicating Zoology.[5]

Life's Greatest Secret: The Story of the Race to Crack the Genetic Code, was shortlisted in 2015 for the £25,000 Royal Society Winton Prize.[6][7][8]

In 2020, Cobb's book The Idea of the Brain was the only science work to be shortlisted for the £50,000 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.[9] It was also chosen as one of The Sunday Times' Books of the Year[10] and The Daily Telegraph listed it as one of its "50 best books of 2020".[11]

Cobb has made many appearances on radio, including appearances on the BBC science programmes The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry,[12] Inside Science,[13] and the The Infinite Monkey Cage.[14] In March 2020, he was the subject of the BBC Radio 4 programme The Life Scientific.[15]

Cobb has written and provided expert comments for publications including New Scientist[16][17] and The Guardian,[18][19] translated five books from French into English,[3] and written two books on the history of France during World War II.[20][21]

In December 2020, The Genetics Society said that it was "delighted to announce Professor Matthew Cobb as the winner of the 2021 JBS Haldane Lecture" adding that he is expected to present his lecture at the Royal Institution, in November 2021.[22]

Books
  • Cobb, Matthew (28 May 2020). Smell: A Very Short Introduction (Paperback ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198825258.
  • Cobb, Matthew (12 March 2020). The Idea of the Brain: A History (Hardcover ed.). Profile Books. ISBN 978-1781255896.
  • Cobb, Matthew (11 June 2015). Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code (Hardcover ed.). Profile Books. ISBN 978-1781251409.
  • Cobb, Matthew (11 April 2013). Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944 (Hardcover ed.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0857203175.
  • Cobb, Matthew (27 May 2010). The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis (Paperback ed.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1847391568.
  • Cobb, Matthew (2 April 2007). The Egg and Sperm Race: The Seventeenth-Century Scientists Who Unravelled the Secrets of Sex, Life and Growth (Mass Market Paperback ed.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1416526001.
  • Cobb, Matthew (8 August 2006). Generation (Hardcover ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1596910362.

As translator
  • Morange, Michel (26 June 2020). The Black Box of Biology: A History of the Molecular Revolution. Translated by Cobb, Matthew (Hardcover ed.). Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674281363.

As editor
  • Marion-Poll, Frédéric (1 September 2008). Newland, Philip; Cobb, Matthew; Marion-Poll, Frédéric (eds.). Insect Taste: Vol 63 (Society for Experimental Biology) (Hardcover ed.). Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0415436397.

References
  1. "University of Manchester: Prof Matthew Cobb BA, Habilitation, PhD: Professor of Zoology: Overview: Biography". University of Manchester. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
  2. Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili; Producer: Anna Buckley (3 March 2020). "The Life Scientific: Matthew Cobb on how we detect smells". The Life Scientific. 7:30 minutes in. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
  3. "Matthew Cobb: About The Author". Simon & Schuster. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  4. "Matthew Cobb". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  5. "Thomson Reuters/Zoological Record Award for Communicating Zoology: Winners" (PDF). Zoological Society of London. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  6. Campbell, Lisa (5 August 2015). "Winton Prize for Science Books shortlist revealed". The Bookseller. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  7. Amos, Jonathan (26 September 2015). "Gaia Vince wins Royal Society Winton science book prize". BBC News Online. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  8. Interviewer: Marnie Chesterton; Interviewed guest: Matthew Cobb (20 August 2015). "BBC Inside Science". Inside Science. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  9. "The Baillie Gifford Prize 2020 shortlist announced". The Baillie Gifford Prize. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  10. McConnachie, James (29 November 2020). "Best philosophy and ideas books of the year 2020". The Times. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  11. "The 50 best books of 2020". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  12. Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford; Producer: Michelle Martin (4 December 2019). "The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry: Series 14: The End of the World". The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  13. Presenter: Adam Rutherford; Interviewed guest: Matthew Cobb; Producer: Fiona Roberts (16 January 2020). "Reproducibility crisis in science; Aeolus wind-measuring satellite; electric cars". Inside Science. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  14. Presenters: Brian Cox, Robin Ince; Guest: Matthew Cobb; Producer: Rami Tzabar (23 December 2013). "The Infinite Monkey Cage: Science and Spin". The Infinite Monkey Cage. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  15. Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili; Producer: Anna Buckley (3 March 2020). "The Life Scientific: Matthew Cobb on how we detect smells". The Life Scientific. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  16. Cobb, Matthew (18 October 2017). "Is evolution about chance or fate? Well, it depends". New Scientist. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  17. Cobb, Matthew (15 March 2017). "How did the zebra get its stripes?". New Scientist. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  18. Cobb, Matthew (27 February 2020). "Why your brain is not a computer". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  19. Davis, Nicola (14 July 2017). "Tardigrades: Earth's unlikely beacon of life that can survive a cosmic cataclysm". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
  20. Cobb, Matthew (11 April 2013). Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944 (Hardcover ed.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0857203175.
  21. Cobb, Matthew (27 May 2010). The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis (Paperback ed.). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1847391568.
  22. "JBS Haldane lecture 2021 – Matthew Cobb". The Genetics Society. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
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