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| Meeting Details | ||
| Speaker: | Jim Evans | View Flyer |
| Biography: | Formerly of Cadbury's Technical Department, | |
| Date: | 10/06/2014 | |
| Time: | 20:00 | |
| Venue: | Studio Theatre | |
| Description: | The evolution of chocolate from early beginnings to the present day. | |
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| Meeting Details | ||
| Speaker: | Dr Patricia Fara | View Flyer |
| Biography: | Clare College, University of Cambridge | |
| Date: | 07/5/2014 | |
| Time: | 20:00 | |
| Venue: | Studio Theatre | |
| Description: |
Isaac Newton is commemorated as one of the world's greatest scientists, but
when he wrote his great book on gravity, only a handful of scholars knew
who he was - and even they found his work hard to understand. During the
past three centuries, pictures, statues and cartoons have presented him in
many different guises, making Newton a familiar yet multi-faced household
icon. Examining these images reveals how Newton came to be celebrated as a
scientific genius. This meeting will be preceded at 7:30 by the Society’s AGM |
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| Meeting Details | ||
| Speaker: | Dr T J B M Janssen | View Flyer |
| Biography: | National Physical Laboratory | |
| Date: | 08/04/2014 | |
| Time: | 20:00 | |
| Venue: | Studio Theatre | |
| Description: | Graphene is a material which holds promise for a myriad of exciting applications across many technologies and a large number of these have been demonstrated in principle in the laboratory. However going from laboratory demonstration to real-life application can be a difficult process and this is where many new technologies have failed in the past. Metrology plays an essential role in this process by providing reliable and reproducible measurement technology which gives confidence in the results of research. It provides a basis which can be used for the objective comparison of measurement results and can be used to set standards for industry to work towards. Metrology has often been the first adopter of new technologies. In particular, the quantum Hall effect was one of the first discoveries in graphene and it has been the metrological community which has taken this from first observation to the most accurate resistance standard in less than 6 years. Conversely, the demonstration of a high accuracy resistance gives confidence in graphene as a mature technology with real potential. The talk will cover some of the unique properties of graphene and focus on the development of novel measurement standards based on graphene. | |
| Meeting Details | ||
| Speaker: | Dr Zsuzsanna Nagy | View Flyer |
| Biography: | University of Birmingham | |
| Date: | 31/03/2014 | |
| Time: | 20:00 | |
| Venue: | Studio Theatre | |
| Description: | A repeat of the lecture given in January | |
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| Meeting Details | ||
| Speaker: | Dr Nick Lane | View Flyer |
| Biography: | University College, London | |
| Date: | 11/03/2014 | |
| Time: | 20:00 | |
| Venue: | Studio Theatre | |
| Description: | All complex (eukaryotic) life on Earth shares a common ancestor that arose just once in 4 billion years of evolution, apparently as a chimera, in which a bacterial host cell engulfed another bacterium, the ancestor of mitochondria. I will discuss the singularity of eukaryotic origins, and why mitochondria enabled the evolution of enormous genomic complexity, while simultaneously forcing the evolution of many curious eukaryotic traits, from the programmed cell death to two sexes. | |
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| Meeting Details | ||
| Speaker: | Eur. Ing. Dr Simon Sherrat | View Flyer |
| Biography: | University of Reading | |
| Date: | 13/02/2014 | |
| Time: | 20:00 | |
| Venue: | Studio Theatre | |
| Description: | From mobile phones to healthcare and beyond, wireless technology influences all our lives. | |
| Meeting Details | ||
| Speaker: | Dr Zsuzsanna Nagy | View Flyer |
| Biography: | University of Birmingham | |
| Date: | 22/01/2014 | |
| Time: | 20:00 | |
| Venue: | Main Theatre | |
| Description: | First described in 1905 by the German neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer this progressive and currently incurable disease affects nearly half a million people in the UK. | |
| Meeting Details | ||
| Speaker: | James Melvill and John Barker | View Flyer |
| Biography: | Associate Structural Engineer, Crossrail and Transportation Director, AECOM | |
| Date: | 11/12/2013 | |
| Time: | 20:00 | |
| Venue: | Main Theatre | |
| Description: | Crossrail is the largest civil engineering project currently underway in Europe The new underground station at Bond Street has presented many challenges which have resulted in some innovative solutions. | |
| Meeting Details | ||
| Speaker: | Professor Anthony J Ryan OBE | View Flyer |
| Biography: | The University of Sheffield | |
| Date: | 19/11/2013 | |
| Time: | 19:30 | |
| Venue: | Main Theatre | |
| Description: | Project Sunshine tells the story of how scientists are working to reconnect us to the 'solar economy', harnessing the power of the sun to provide sustainable food and energy for a global population of 9 billion people: an achievement that would end our dependence on 'fossilised sunshine' in the form of coal, oil and gas and remake our connection with the soil that grows our food. It is an astonishing fact that capturing all the energy in just one hour's worth of sunlight would enable us to meet the planet's food and energy needs for an entire year. | |
| Meeting Details | ||
| Speaker: | Professor John A Bryant | View Flyer |
| Biography: | University of Exeter | |
| Date: | 09/10/2013 | |
| Time: | 20:00 | |
| Venue: | Studio Theatre | |
| Description: | It is widely accepted that we need to seek renewable fuel sources, both to decrease the use of fossil fuels and to prepare for the time when oil reserves eventually run out. Environmental sources of energy - wind, water, sunshine, tides - are good for generation of electricity but combustible fuels are a different matter. We have therefore turned to a range of biological systems for the manufacture of combustible fuels, including bio-gas and bio-diesel. The talk will bring us up to date with these developments and will ask questions about the both the practicality and the ethics of some of these systems. | |