Event of the week
Bjorn Lomborg, the ‘sceptical environmentalist’ from Copenhagen Business School, advocates long-term solutions to climate change, rather than expensive near-term CO2 cuts. He discusses this controversial standpoint on 2 October at the London School of Economics, to coincide with the release of his new book ‘Cool It’. Lomborg can also be heard in the ‘Podium’ section of next week’s Nature podcast.

Public talks
Professor Lord Robert Winston delivers Imperial’s Faculty of Medicine Prestigious Lecture on 2 October. The prolific broadcaster, author, and fertility specialist titles his speech ‘Manipulating the Human’.

On 3 October, Gresham College sums up 4,000 years of mathematics. Professor Robin Wilson gives the first lecture, on the history of geometry.

October 4 marks fifty years since the opening of the space age, with the launch of Sputnik 1. To mark the occasion, the Dana Centre examines the future of space exploration. Spacebots vs. spacemen asks whether we should colonise the planets or send only probes. Another spacey event on 5 October sees the Croydon Astronomical Society’s Paul Harper probing the early Soviet space programme.

Academic seminars
On 1 October, Iain Mcinnes from the University of Glasgow discusses the modification of cytokines in inflammatory arthritis, at Imperial’s Du Cane Road venue. David Price, from the University of Edinburgh, is at UCL on 4 October to give a talk about “axon navigation at the optic chiasm”.

Meetings and conferences
A two-day symposium on stem cell repair and regeneration begins on October 1 at the Hammersmith Conference Centre. On October 4, the Fourth Annual Science and Innovation Conference takes place at the QEII Conference Centre. Speakers include Phil Willis MP and Professor Sir Keith O’Nions from the Department of Trade and Industry.

BBSRC grant holders and students can attend a course on 2 October giving an introduction to the media. The course is at the Medical Research Council and ‘uses experienced practising radio and print journalists to introduce scientists to the workings of the media and to give them the confidence to deal with the media in the future’.

And finally…
Nature Network London has teamed up with the Royal Institution to present Searching for science at the Apple Store on 4 October. The evening examines how computer search methods are helping make sense of scientific data, and ways to search images based on their content. Speakers include Ewan Birney from EMBL, Jonathan Hare from the University of Southampton, and Nature’s Timo Hannay. The chair is technology pundit Bill Thompson, a regular guest on shows such as the BBC’s Digital Planet.