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News from our Supporters

1. We want your science ideas!

Got a question you want to answer? A theory to put to the test?

This week Radio 4 launches 'So You Want to Be a Scientist?' a search for the BBC's Amateur Scientist of the Year. Anyone aged 16+ can apply and you don’t need any science experience, just a curious mind and a good idea.

If you’re selected as a finalist you’ll turn your idea into a bona fide experiment, aided by some of the country’s top researchers. You'll be working from your kitchen table or garden shed and appearing on Radio 4 to tell the world about your results. You'll also present your idea at the British Science Festival in Birmingham this September.

To find out more, tune into Material World, Radio 4's weekly science show, at 4.30pm every Thursday. You can enter your idea online by visiting www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/scientist

2. The Royal Society Events

> Plasticity of the brain: the key to human development, cognition and evolution
Ferrier prize lecture
Monday 15 March 2010 from 6.30pm until 7.30pm
 
Speaker: Professor Colin Blakemore FRS
Venue: The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG.

How do our genes program the complexity of our brains? Why is human culture so much richer than that of the Great Apes? And how has human cognitive achievement continued to accelerate, when our genetic makeup has changed very little over the past 100,000 years? The answers might lie in the adaptability and plasticity of the brain.

Development of connections in mammalian brains is specified not so much by precise instructions as by general rules, including adaptive mechanisms to fine-tune the connections between different levels in each pathway. And evolution has discovered genetic mechanisms that enable neurons to change the strength of their connections in response to the pattern of activity passing through them. Such plasticity gives us the capacity to remember and learn, and it helps to match our perceptions, thoughts and motor skills to the nature of the world around us. Brain plasticity, although genetically determined, enabled humans to escape from the informational limits in the blueprint of their genes and propelled them into a new phase of evolution.

Professor Colin Blakemore FRS is Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and also holds a Professorship at the University of Warwick. From 2003 to 2007 he was Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council.

Open to the public and admission is free – no ticket or advance booking required.Doors will open at 5.45pm and seats will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis.

> Biological diversity in a changing world
Monday 19 and Tuesday 20 April 2010

Organised by Professor Anne Magurran and Dr Maria Dornelas 

We live in a world in which biological diversity is under threat as never before. Drawing insights from organisms ranging from microbes to mammals this meeting will show why a deeper understanding of temporal turnover in ecological communities is essential in coping with the changes that the natural world will experience over the next 50 years.

Registration:
This discussion meeting is intended for researchers in relevant fields and is free to attend, but pre-registration online at www.royalsociety.org/biological-diversity is essential.

Venue:
The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG

> Culture evolves

Monday 28 June to Wednesday 30 June 2010
In partnership with The British Academy

Organised by Professor Andrew Whiten FBA, Professor Robert Hinde FRS, Professor Christopher Stringer FRS and Professor Kevin Laland

The capacity for culture is a product of biological evolution - yet culture itself can also evolve, generating cultural phylogenies. This highly interdisciplinary joint meeting with the British Academy will address new discoveries and controversies illuminating these phenomena, from the roots of culture in the animal kingdom to human, cultural evolutionary trees and the cognitive adaptations shaping our special cultural nature.

Registration:
This discussion meeting is intended for researchers in relevant fields and is free to attend, but pre-registration online at www.royalsociety.org/events-diary is essential.

Venue:
Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre

3. Sciencewise-ERC

Geoengineering

Ever wondered what geoengineering is and what future research on the subject might look like?

Sciencewise-ERC has joined forces with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), in the commissioning of a public dialogue project on the subject.

The Research Council will be assessing public opinion on geoengineering and how future research on the subject should be directed, conducted and communicated. 

According to a Royal Society report published in September 2009, the best way to tackle climate change is by cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. However, the report notes that ‘unless future efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are much more successful than they have been so far, additional action may be required should it become necessary to cool the Earth this century.’

Geoengineering is ‘the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth’s climate system, in order to moderate global warming’. It includes technologies which could either remove CO2 from the atmosphere or reduce global temperatures by reflecting sunlight back into space.

A series of workshops with the members of the public will form the basis of the dialogue project and will seek to explore people’s attitudes towards potential geoengineering methods. Participants will discuss the ethical, moral and social issues associated with the use of geoengineering to alter our environment. The dialogue workshops will also be supported by public debates and events around the UK.

It is hoped that the results of the dialogue, which are expected in April 2010, can be used to inform future research strategy on geoengineering.

For more information on the project please visit
www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/geoengineering  

Posted: 10th February 2010

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