Seven days in science - 16 April 2010

The Hugh Falconer exhibition is moving on from Moray Museum Services this week - for details of the other locations the touring exhibit will visit over the coming months go to seefurther.org.

The Ethiopian Academy of Sciences (EAS) was  launched on Saturday (10 April). EAS is the first independent, merit-based academy of science in Ethiopia.

A team of scientists, led by Professor Scott Baker of Oregon State University, used DNA analysis to show that restaurants in Los Angeles and Seoul were serving illegally traded whale meat from protected species. The story was published in this week’s Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Next week’s  discussion meeting on biodiversity has been cancelled due to the travel disruption caused by the volcanic eruption in the south-western part of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajoekull glacier. New dates will be announced shortly. However, the associated lecture Mammalian biodiversity: past, present, future? will go ahead as scheduled on Tuesday evening.

The two day conference The Royal Society and Science in the 20th Century is set to take place at the end of next week. Leading scientists will be brought together with historians of science to examine the development of the Royal Society during the 20th century and the Society's impact on science in the UK and beyond.

Tickets are now available for See Further: The Festival of Science + Arts, a unique ten-day summer festival at Southbank Centre in celebration of the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary. The festival will explore links between the sciences and arts, science and our human impulse to understand the world we live in. A host of cross-disciplinary collaborations, scientific and artistic events will also feature.