Event of the week
Café Scientifique. Is Homo Sapiens Just Another Animal?
BelowZero, 31–33 Heddon Street, 24 May
UCL’s Steve Jones is the familiar face headlining this month’s Café Scientifique. The geneticist, broadcaster and prize-winning author will be joined by Klas Kullander from Uppsala University for this provocatively titled debate. Join in the informal discussion at the swanky BelowZero, which contains a bar made entirely from blocks of Swedish ice. Sure beats the lecture theatre.
Conferences and meetings
While many researchers seek ways to degrade plastics, an unusual conference at the V&A (23–25 May) brings together scientists, artists and designers to discuss the conservation of plastic objects. It’s the first conference of its kind in the UK, and you could say they broke the mold when they put this one together. The meeting coincides with a major new plastics exhibition at the Science Museum.
On 19 May, early-career science communicators from across the UK will get together at Imperial College to discuss their field. In their own words, “Plans for this conference grew out of a sense that we, as researchers studying the interactions between science and publics [sic], knew that there was a lot of exciting work going on in this field but that we never met the other people doing it!”. Abstracts are available .
The Royal Society of Chemistry will hold an evening meeting on 23 May to examine advances in solar technology. Talks include The Future of Photochemistry, Plastic Electronics, Dye Sensitised Solar Cells for the 21st Century and Bisolar Energy.
Seminars
A trio of seminars next week will address neurodegeneration. On 21 May, Dr Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine will discuss whether nutrition holds any clues to successful cognitive ageing. Then, Dr Richard Wade-Martins of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics will address molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration at Imperial on 22 May. On the same day, Dr Jason Warren from UCL’s Department of Neurology will present the intriguingly titled ‘From molecules to music: what can dementia tell us about the brain?’.
Public lectures
Fans of the natural world will get a double treat this week. On 22 May, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Dr Nicholas Harberd will describe his painstaking studies of a single Thale-cress plant (Arabidopsis) growing on a Victorian tombstone in Norwich. This unlikely subject led to a book, Seed to Seed, which is described as ‘a dazzling evocation of the beauty of the natural world’. On 23rd May, head over to Ham House to hear Jenny Uglow talk about Thomas Bewick, the artist ‘whose wildlife illustrations shaped Britain’s love affair with nature at the end of the 18th century and beyond’.
Finally, enjoy a bit of a maths puzzle at Gresham College on 22 May when Prof. Timothy Gowers of Cambridge University will ask ‘Multiplying and dividing whole numbers: why it is more difficult than you might think?’.
See our full listings for all 60 scientific events taking place in London over the next week.
