Noor Inayat Khan was in the midst of a desperate escape.
She had been imprisoned for her activities as an Allied spy, but with the help of a screwdriver and two other prisoners, she was back under the Parisian stars.
As she began to run, her thoughts leapt to the whirlwind of events that had brought her here… Born in Moscow in 1914 to an Indian Muslim father and an American mother, Noor was raised in a profoundly peaceful home.
Her parents were Sufi pacifists, who put their faith in the power of music and compassion.
They moved to Paris, where Noor studied child psychology and published children’s books.
But all this changed with the advent of the Second World War.
In May 1940, with the German army ready to occupy Paris, Noor and her brother were faced with a difficult choice.
As pacifists, they believed that all disputes should be settled non-violently.
But witnessing the devastation across Europe, they decided that standing on the sidelines was not an option.
Traveling to England, Noor volunteered for the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and trained as a radio operator.
She immersed herself in wireless operations and Morse code– unaware that she was being monitored by a secret organization.
The British Special Operations Executive was established to sabotage the Germans in Nazi-occupied countries.
As a trained radio operator who knew Paris well and spoke fluent French, Noor was an attractive recruit.
In her interview, she was warned that wireless operation was some of the most dangerous work in the intelligence field.
Operators had to lug a conspicuous transmitter through enemy territory, and the clandestine agency couldn’t protect her if she was caught.
Noor accepted her assignment immediately.
While she was determined to take her pacifist principles as far as possible, Noor had to learn the art of espionage.
She learned how to contact intelligence networks, pick a lock, resist interrogation and fire a gun.
In June 1943 she landed in Angers, south of Paris, and made her way to the city armed with a false passport, a pistol and a few French francs.
But her network was compromised.
Within a week of her deployment, all her fellow agents were arrested, and Noor was called home.
She convinced her supervisors to let her stay– which meant doing the work of six radio operators singlehandedly.
Over the following months, she tracked and transported supplies to the French resistance, sent reports of Nazi activity back to London and arranged safe passage for allied soldiers.
This work was essential to building the French resistance and Allied intelligence networks– and, ultimately, ending the war.
Protected only by her quick thinking and charisma, she frequently talked her way out of questioning.
When the Gestapo searched her on the train, she gave them a casual tour of her “film projector.”
When an officer spotted her hanging her aerial, she chatted about her passion for listening to music on the radio– and charmed him into helping her set up the cable.
In her entire four month tenure, her sharp wits and stealth never failed her.
But her charm had inspired lethal jealousy.
In October 1943, the sister of a colleague, in love with an agent that loved Noor, sold her address to the Gestapo.
Noor refused to give away any information, focusing instead on her escape.
Secreting a screwdriver away from the guards, they were able to loosen a skylight and slip out into the night.
But just as the prisoners began to run for their lives, an air raid siren alerted her captors.
Noor was caught once again and sent to a German prison.
Then, on to Dachau concentration camp.
Despite being tortured, deprived and isolated, Noor gave nothing away.
In the moments before her execution she is thought to have shouted “Liberté!”
Since her heroic sacrifice, Noor has been honoured as a hero who waged secret battles behind enemy lines– paving the way for freedom without ever taking a life.
Think back to a really vivid memory.
Got it?
Okay, now try to remember what you had for lunch three weeks ago.
That second memory probably isn't as strong, but why not?
Why do we remember some things, and not others?
And why do memories eventually fade?
Let's look at how memories form in the first place.
When you experience something, like dialing a phone number, the experience is converted into a pulse of electrical energy that zips along a network of neurons.
Information first lands in short term memory, where it's available from anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.
It's then transferred to long-term memory through areas such as the hippocampus, and finally to several storage regions across the brain.
Neurons throughout the brain communicate at dedicated sites called synapses using specialized neurotransmitters.
If two neurons communicate repeatedly, a remarkable thing happens: the efficiency of communication between them increases.
This process, called long term potentiation, is considered to be a mechanism by which memories are stored long-term, but how do some memories get lost?
Age is one factor.
As we get older, synapses begin to falter and weaken, affecting how easily we can retrieve memories.
Scientists have several theories about what's behind this deterioration, from actual brain shrinkage, the hippocampus loses 5% of its neurons every decade for a total loss of 20% by the time you're 80 years old to the drop in the production of neurotransmitters, like acetylcholine, which is vital to learning and memory.
These changes seem to affect how people retrieve stored information.
Age also affects our memory-making abilities.
Memories are encoded most strongly when we're paying attention, when we're deeply engaged, and when information is meaningful to us.
Mental and physical health problems, which tend to increase as we age, interfere with our ability to pay attention, and thus act as memory thieves.
Another leading cause of memory problems is chronic stress.
When we're constantly overloaded with work and personal responsibilites, our bodies are on hyperalert.
This response has evolved from the physiological mechanism designed to make sure we can survive in a crisis.
Stress chemicals help mobilize energy and increase alertness.
However, with chronic stress our bodies become flooded with these chemicals, resulting in a loss of brain cells and an inability to form new ones, which affects our ability to retain new information.
Depression is another culprit.
People who are depressed are 40% more likely to develop memory problems.
Low levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter connected to arousal, may make depressed individuals less attentive to new information.
Dwelling on sad events in the past, another symptom of depression, makes it difficult to pay attention to the present, affecting the ability to store short-term memories.
Isolation, which is tied to depression, is another memory thief.
A study by the Harvard School of Public Health found that older people with high levels of social integration had a slower rate of memory decline over a six-year period.
The exact reason remains unclear, but experts suspect that social interaction gives our brain a mental workout.
Just like muscle strength, we have to use our brain or risk losing it.
But don't despair.
There are several steps you can take to aid your brain in preserving your memories.
Make sure you keep physically active.
Increased blood flow to the brain is helpful.
And eat well.
Your brain needs all the right nutrients to keep functioning correctly.
And finally, give your brain a workout.
Exposing your brain to challenges, like learning a new language, is one of the best defenses for keeping your memories intact.
I would like to talk to you about a very special group of animals.
There are 10,000 species of birds in the world.
Vultures are amongst the most threatened group of birds.
When you see a vulture like this, the first thing that comes to your mind is, these are disgusting, ugly, greedy creatures that are just after your flesh, associated with politicians.
(Laughter) (Applause) I want to change that perception.
I want to change those feelings you have for these birds, because they need our sympathy.
They really do.
(Laughter) And I'll tell you why.
First of all, why do they have such a bad press?
When Charles Darwin went across the Atlantic in 1832 on the Beagle, he saw the turkey vulture, and he said, "These are disgusting birds with bald scarlet heads that are formed to revel in putridity."
(Laughter) You could not get a worse insult, and that from Charles Darwin.
(Laughter) You know, he changed his mind when he came back, and I'll tell you why.
They've also be associated with Disney — (Laughter) — personified as goofy, dumb, stupid characters.
More recently, if you've been following the Kenyan press — (Laughter) (Applause) (Cheers) — these are the attributes that they associated the Kenyan MPs with.
But I want to challenge that.
I want to challenge that.
Do you know why?
Because MPs do not keep the environment clean.
(Laughter) MPs do not help to prevent the spread of diseases.
They are hardly monogamous.
(Laughter) (Applause) They are far from being extinct.
(Laughter) And, my favorite is, vultures are better looking.
(Applause) (Laughter) So there's two types of vultures in this planet.
There are the New World vultures that are mainly found in the Americas, like the condors and the caracaras, and then the Old World vultures, where we have 16 species.
From these 16, 11 of them are facing a high risk of extinction.
So why are vultures important?
First of all, they provide vital ecological services.
They clean up.
They're our natural garbage collectors.
They clean up carcasses right to the bone.
They help to kill all the bacteria.
They help absorb anthrax that would otherwise spread and cause huge livestock losses and diseases in other animals.
Recent studies have shown that in areas where there are no vultures, carcasses take up to three to four times to decompose, and this has huge ramifications for the spread of diseases.
Vultures also have tremendous historical significance.
They have been associated in ancient Egyptian culture.
Nekhbet was the symbol of the protector and the motherhood, and together with the cobra, symbolized the unity between Upper and Lower Egypt.
In Hindu mythology, Jatayu was the vulture god, and he risked his life in order to save the goddess Sita from the 10-headed demon Ravana.
In Tibetan culture, they are performing very important sky burials.
In places like Tibet, there are no places to bury the dead, or wood to cremate them, so these vultures provide a natural disposal system.
So what is the problem with vultures?
We have eight species of vultures that occur in Kenya, of which six are highly threatened with extinction.
The reason is that they're getting poisoned, and the reason that they're getting poisoned is because there's human-wildlife conflicts.
The pastoral communities are using this poison to target predators, and in return, the vultures are falling victim to this.
In South Asia, in countries like India and Pakistan, four species of vultures are listed as critically endangered, which means they have less than 10 or 15 years to go extinct, and the reason is because they are falling prey by consuming livestock that has been treated with a painkilling drug like Diclofenac.
This drug has now been banned for veterinary use in India, and they have taken a stand.
Because there are no vultures, there's been a spread in the numbers of feral dogs at carcass dump sites, and when you have feral dogs, you have a huge time bomb of rabies.
The number of cases of rabies has increased tremendously in India.
Kenya is going to have one of the largest wind farms in Africa: 353 wind turbines are going to be up at Lake Turkana.
I am not against wind energy, but we need to work with the governments, because wind turbines do this to birds.
They slice them in half.
They are bird-blending machines.
In West Africa, there's a horrific trade of dead vultures to serve the witchcraft and the fetish market.
So what's being done?
Well, we're conducting research on these birds.
We're putting transmitters on them.
We're trying to determine their basic ecology, and see where they go.
We can see that they travel different countries, so if you focus on a problem locally, it's not going to help you.
We need to work with governments in regional levels.
We're working with local communities.
We're talking to them about appreciating vultures, about the need from within to appreciate these wonderful creatures and the services that they provide.
How can you help?
You can become active, make noise.
You can write a letter to your government and tell them that we need to focus on these very misunderstood creatures.
Volunteer your time to spread the word.
Spread the word.
When you walk out of this room, you will be informed about vultures, but speak to your families, to your children, to your neighbors about vultures.
They are very graceful.
Charles Darwin said he changed his mind because he watched them fly effortlessly without energy in the skies.
Kenya, this world, will be much poorer without these wonderful species.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)