11 March 2010This week started with the launch of The Scientific Century: securing our future
prosperity a report from the Royal Society that looks at the need for
sustained long-term investment in science.
More details and a downloadable copy of the report are available here.
The
unsung heroes of science were honoured at the inaugural Hauksbee Awards
ceremony last night (10 March). Ten recipients each received a Royal
Society engraved bronze medal, scroll and £500 at the ceremony. The awards
recognise and reward those in roles that support UK science, technology,
engineering and maths for their excellent work and achievements.
In a week full of Capital
Science events, world
famous environmental scientist and author James Lovelock FRS spoke to
journalist Tim Radford about his life and work in science at the Science Museum on
Tuesday (9 March) at the event Change in the Air:
Science Museum Centenary Talk. The Lens of Life season at
the Hunterian Museum started yesterday (10 March) with a lecture from Allan Chapman: Robert Hooke,
Micrographia, and experimental physiology in the early Royal Society.
The week finishes with another Capital Science event as
scientists and conservators present their research to the general public at an open lab in the
Great Court of the British Museum on
Saturday (13 March).
Next week begins with the Ferrier prize lecture by Professor Colin Blakemore FRS on Monday (15 March). The subject will be plasticity of the brain, and how it could be the key to human development, cognition and evolution.
A
discussion meeting on the frontiers of influenza research takes place at the
Society next Tuesday (16 March). Organised by Sir John Skehel FRS and
Professor Neil Ferguson, more details on this meeting are available here.
There
is also a wide range of events taking place next week across the country in
celebration of the 350th anniversary.
From
the Local Heroes programme,
the first leg of the John
Tomes exhibit tour has finished at the BDA
museum, the second leg will open at the East Surrey Museum on 13 March.
The
first of the science themed Great North Debates will take place next Tuesday (16
March) at Tyne and Wear Museums. The
debate Do We Trust Science? will be
chaired by Quentin
Cooper.
Broadcaster
Melvyn
Bragg returns to his Alma Mater (Wadham
College) next Wednesday (17 March) where he will offer his perspective on the
history of the Royal Society in this year’s Wilkins – Bernal – Medawar lecture Notes
from an amateur: on the history of the
Royal Society.
The
Universities of Dundee and St Andrews are celebrating the 150th
anniversary of D’Arcy Thompson at the exhibit D'Arcy 150, which starts next Friday
(19 March) and runs until early May.
As part of the Capital Science programme, Tate
and the Royal Society are collaborating to bring together scientists and
artists at next weekend’s event Rising
to the Climate Challenge: Artists and Scientists Imagine Tomorrow's World.