The 2016 scientific society talks in London blogpost

by @JoBrodie, brodiesnotes.blogspot.com.Tweet this post.

I know it's still Summer (there are plenty of open-air cinema screenings in London before the end of September in London) but it's about this time of year that I start to keep an eye on the autumn science talks season. Here's what I've found so far...

• Blackheath Scientific Society - 2016 not published yet
• Chelsea Physic Garden - Thursday Supper talks
  
• Hampstead Scientific Society - DRAFT programme
• Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution - Lectures / Events (I've just displayed the ones that seem the most sciencey, there are plenty of other interesting events there)
• Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS) - Information page (PDF) @Kewlectures)
  
• Linnean Society - Events (PDF) 
• Richmond Scientific Society - 2016 not published yet
• Worshipful Society of Apothecaries - Events (lectures free, booking advisable) 
• See also Interesting Talks in London 

There are also events from the Royal Institution and the Royal Society which are fantastic but it's almost impossible to copy and paste text from their website so I've not added them here.

Also, feel free to copy and paste this and put it in your own blog posts and listings. It's not my info, it's just culled from all these sources above. Share the science communication news :)

SEPTEMBER 2016
2 September 2016 - Friday
2-5pm - Linnean Society
RBG Kew – QMUL MSc Student Project Presentations: Plant and Fungal Taxonomy, Diversity and Conservation - PARTNER EVENT

15 September 2016 - Thursday
8:15 pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
A Personal History of 62 Years of Bioengineering - Prof. Emeritus Heinz Wolff (Brunel University)

15 September 2016 - Thursday
6-7pm - Linnean Society
Sex, Drugs, and Ecosystem Services: the Sweet Poisons in Nectar - EVENING MEETING - Professor Philip Stevenson FRES (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and University of Greenwich)

26 September 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
 ‘Keeping every cog and wheel – How can botanic gardens conserve all plant diversity for future generations?’ - Dr. Paul Smith (Secretary General BGCI)

29 September 2016 - Thursday
6-7pm - Linnean Society
Wild New Territories: Portraits of the Urban and the Wild - NATURE READER

OCTOBER 2016
3 October 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Confessions of a show gardener’ - David Domoney (Broadcaster, Writer and Show Gardener)

4 October 2016 - Tuesday
5.30-7pm - Linnean Society
Why We Die - STUDENT LECTURE [A-level students can sign up to attend]
In this lecture, Simon Watt, biologist, writer, science communicator, comedian and TV presenter, will delve into the surprising science behind why we die.

6 October 2016 - Thursday
7pm - Chelsea Physic Garden
'Reduced to Almost Nothing: Londoners in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London' - Meriel Jeater

10 October 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Californian native flora – The wonder of Calochortus’ - Solène Dequiret (Kew Diploma Student)

6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Living tree sculpture in the USA’ - Joe Clements (Kew Diploma Student)

12 October 2016 - Wednesday
6-7pm - Linnean Society
Sir Julian Huxley Lecture: Dosage Sensitive Genes in Evolution and Disease - PARTNER EVENT
Aoife McLysaght (Professor in Genetics and Head of Genetics in University of Dublin, Trinity College)

17 October 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘The relocation & development of the University of Bristol Botanic Garden’ - Nicholas Wray (Curator University Botanic Garden Bristol)

17 October 2016 - Monday
6pm - Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
Sydenham Lecture - “Life and death in chains: Streptococcus pyogenes and history” - Marina Morgan, FRCPath, Consultant Medical Microbiologist, Exeter

20 October 2016 - Thursday
8:15 pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Genetic Variation and Multiple Sclerosis - Dr Jessica Davies (University of Oxford)

20 October 2016 - Thursday
6-7pm - Linnean Society
The Feminisation of Nature - EVENING MEETING - Professor Charles R Tyler (University of Exeter)

24 October 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Exploring Australian botanic gardens and plants in the wild’ - Nicola Lloyd (Kew Diploma Student)

6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘A botanical excursion to North and South India exploring the flora and its medicinal plants - Anna-Lena Tack (Kew Diploma Student)

27 October 2016 - Thursday
6-7pm - Linnean Society
Wildflowers in the Western Mediterranean - NATURE READER - Chris Thorogood FLS

31 October 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Ancient oaks in the English landscape - Aljos Farjon (Kew’s Conifer Specialist)

NOVEMBER 2016
1 November 2016 - Tuesday
8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
Blowing Hot and Cold: the strange story of the earth’s atmosphere - Keith Shine, Professor of Meteorology and Climate Science, University of Reading

2 November 2016 - Wednesday
12-1pm - Linnean Society
Wildlife Live – A Springwatch Experience - LUNCHTIME LECTURE - James Smith

3 November 2016 - Thursday
12-1pm - Linnean Society
Darwin Lecture – Global De-Worming: A Darwinian Perspective - EVENING MEETING - David Rollinson FLS i(Natural History Museum London, Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre)

3 November 2016 - Thursday
7pm - Chelsea Physic Garden
'Tea, Cotton, Rubber and Quinine: The Garden at the Centre of Change' - Letta Jones

7 November 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Education at Longwood Gardens – A continuum of learning’ - Dr. Doug Needham (Director of Education)

8 November 2016 - Tuesday
8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
The Future of British Broadcasting: making the good popular and the popular good - Alex Graham, Chair of the Sheffield International Documentary Festival and Visiting Professor, University of Lincoln School of Film & Media Network

8 November 2016 - Tuesday
5.30-7pm - Linnean Society
Exploring Ocean Wonders - STUDENT LECTURE [A-level students can sign up to attend]
Oceans cover seven tenths of our planet and are home to a huge range of living things. Dr Helen Scales, marine biologist, writer and documentary-maker, will unveil the oceans’ living wonders, offer a glimpse into the life of a marine biologist, and show why there has never been a more important time to look after the marine realm.

14 November 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘An illustrated tale of another Royal Botanic Garden: RBG Melbourne’ - Richard Barley (Director of Horticulture RBG, Kew)

17 November 2016 - Thursday
8:15 pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Gravitational Lensing - Dr Benjamin Joachimi (UCL)

17 November 2016 - Thursday
6-7pm - Linnean Society
Form, Function and Fisheries: The Scientific Legacy of Edward Stuart Russell - EVENING MEETING - Introduced by Gordon McGregor Reid, Past President of the Linnean Society. Speakers: Roger Downie, Professor of Zoological Education, University of Glasgow, with research interests principally in the life histories of amphibians and marine turtles; and Carl O’Brien FLS, DEFRA Chief Fisheries Science Adviser and the 2015 Buckland Professor.

21 November 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Q and A session with; Head Gardener of the American Ambassadors House, London – Horticulture with diplomacy’ - Stephen Crisp (Head Gardener Winfield House)

23 November 2016 - Wednesday
6pm - Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
Monckton Copeman Lecture - “Death by Water: Rethinking John Snow and Cholera” - Dr Richard Barnett, Writer, Teacher and Broadcaster

28 November 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Conservation in action- British Virgin Islands’ - Miranda Janatka (Kew Diploma Student)

6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Ecuador, from the jungle to the Andes’ - Mathew Rees (Kew Diploma Student)

DECEMBER 2016
2 December 2016 - Friday
7pm - Chelsea Physic Garden
'A Christmas Carol: an evening' - Carol Klein  

2 December 2016 - Friday
6-7pm - Linnean Society
The Invention of Nature - FOUNDER’S DAY - Andrea Wulf FRGS
5 December 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Acorns as food in human history: Myth or Reality?’ - Béatrice Chassé (Plant Hunter)

7 December 2016 - Wednesday
12.30-1pm - Linnean Society
The Botany of Christmas - LUNCHTIME LECTURE - Mark Nesbitt FLS, curator and ethnobotanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

8 December 2016 - Thursday
8:15 pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Non-Native Invasives in Fresh Water - Joe Pecorelli (Zoological Society of London)

12 December 2016 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘What do we mean by ‘natural’ planting?’ Fundraising lecture: £8 entry £4 students/staff
Dr. Noel Kingsbury (Garden Designer)

JANUARY 2017
9 January 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Botanic gardens in Central Honshu, Japan’ - Misako Kasahara (Kew Diploma Student)

6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Bhutan, the last paradise’ - Christopher Brown (Kew Diploma Student)

16 January 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Small bulbs in the winter garden - snowdrops and more’ - Dr. John Grimshaw (Director Yorkshire Arboretum)

17 January 2017 - Tuesday
8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
Future Challenges for Palliative Care - Irene Higginson, Professor of Palliative Care and Policy, King’s College London

19 January 2017 - Thursday
8:15 pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Origin, Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs - Prof Paul Barrett (Natural History Museum)

23 January 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘No dig abundance; fewer weeds, save time’ - Charles Dowding (Writer and Vegetable Grower)

26 January 2017 - Thursday
6pm - Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
Gideon De Laune Lecture - “Thinking, Learning and Teaching, An essential role of Apothecaries everywhere” - Dr Christopher Gardner-Thorpe, MD FRCP FRCPE FACP, Deputy President of the Faculty and History Courses Director at the Society of Apothecaries, Consultant Neurologist in Exeter

30 January 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Collecting in the mountains of northern Vietnam’ - Bleddyn Wynn Jones (Crûg Farm Nursery)

FEBRUARY 2017
6 February 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Is the nutrition in crops declining?’ - Fundraising lecture: £8 entry £4 students/staff - James Wong (Ethnobotanist, TV Presenter)

6 February 2017 - Monday
6pm - Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
Osler Lecture - “The Foundation of Taunton and Somerset Hospital (1812)” - Mike Davidson, FRCS, DHMSA,Semi-retired Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon

13 February 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Adventures in gardening’ - Andy McIndoe (Consultant, Lecturer and Author)

16 February 2017 - Thursday
8:15 pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
The Acoustic Bubble: From Whales To Other Worlds - Prof Timothy Leighton (University of Southampton)

20 February 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘In search of hidden treasures in the woodland garden’ - John Anderson (Keeper of the Gardens, Crown Estate, Windsor)

23 February 2017 - Thursday
6pm - Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
Keats Lecture - “Keats and Medicine, an exploration of their relationship” - Emeritus Professor Sean Hughes, MS FRCSEd (Orth) FRCS FRSCI DHMSA DPMSA, Orthopaedic Surgery, Imperial College London

27 February 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Wisley - A new chapter for the RHS flagship garden’ - Matthew Pottage (Curator RHS, Wisley)

MARCH 2017
6 March 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Rubus - wild raspberries and blackberries’- Barry Clarke (Botanist, Hillier Gardens)

13 March 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Remnants of the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest’ - Will Spoelstra (Kew Diploma Student)

6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘A desert in bloom – Journey through the Western Cape’ - Tom Pickering (Kew Diploma Student)

16 March 2017 - Thursday
8:15 pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Diamond – More Than a Girl's Best Friend - Dr Katherine B Holt (University College London)

20 March 2017 - Monday
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
‘Placemaking and planting’ - Fundrasing lecture: £8 entry £4 students/staff - Tom Stuart-Smith (Landscape Architect, Designer)

APRIL 2017
20 April 2017 - Thursday
8:15 pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Lost Worlds of the Solar System - Prof. Hilary Downes (University College London)

25 April 2017 - Tuesday
6pm - Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
Sir Hans Sloane Lecture - “William Turner – Tudor Physician” - Marie Addyman, BA B.Phil D.PhilFreelance Lecturer and Researcher

MAY 2017
18 May 2017 - Thursday
8:15 pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
The Medical Implications of Space Flight - Steven Cutts FRCS (James Paget University Hospital)

JUNE 2017
22 June 2017 - Thursday
8:00 pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
AGM: Wine & Cheese £zzz + scientific entertainment

29 June 2017 - Thursday
2-5pm - Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
Flavell Symposium - tbc
29 June 2017 - Thursday
6pm - Worshipful Society of Apothecaries
John Locke Lecture - “Compassion in Healthcare: Practical Policy for Civic Life” - Dr Joshua Hordern, MA PGDip MSt (Oxon) PhD (Edinburgh), Associate Professor of Christian Ethics, Faculty of Theology and Religion, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford

Here are the talks you missed last year (or not, if you went to them)
The 2015 scientific society talks in London blogpost (August 2015)

UK researchers might be gagged from lobbying - I have a cunning plan

There are moves afoot that may prevent scientists, and indeed any academic researchers, (who receive funding from the UK Government) from being able to lobby the Government, with evidence from research that the Government has funded - which seems pretty daft and problematic. This may have originated with benign (your mileage may vary) intentions while trying to address a different 'problem' (again, YMMV) and began with this announcement, on 6 February 2016 -

Organisations receiving government grants will be banned from using these taxpayer funds to lobby government and Parliament Press Release from Cabinet Office

The announcement clarifies the intended audience...

"The Institute of Economic Affairs has undertaken extensive research on so-called ‘sock puppets’, exposing the practice of taxpayers’ money given to pressure groups being diverted to fund lobbying rather than the good causes or public services.

A new clause to be inserted into all new and renewed grant agreements will make sure that taxpayer funds are spent on improving people’s lives and good causes, rather than lobbying for new regulation or using taxpayers’ money to lobby for more government funding."

...and although it doesn't mention research institutions or universities specifically, their omission means they may be automatically subsumed into this edict unless there's an exemption put in place.

Here's what the text that's to be inserted into grant applications will say

"The following costs are not Eligible Expenditure: Payments that support activity intended to influence or attempt to influence Parliament, government or political parties, or attempting to influence the awarding or renewal of contracts and grants, or attempting to influence legislative or regulatory action." (emphasis added).

The more detailed document Implementation Guidance for Departments on Anti-Lobbying Clause(Q&A format) makes several mentions of the option for Ministers to make exemptions, see in particular answers to Qs 4, 7, 8 and 9.

My cunning plan(s)
1) Sign this petition
Please sign this petition which asks the Government to consider declawing this new policy by explicitly including an exemption for academic research.
Exempt grants for academic research from new 'anti-lobbying' regulation

2) Raise money that can be used to lobby
While I'm sure some lobbying doesn't need to cost anything there are nearly always hidden costs (taking time off work, printing off materials etc). Hopefully it won't come to this if (1) works but I also think (3) might be better anyway, but note that the press release also says that...
"It will not prevent organisations from using their own privately-raised funds to campaign as they see fit."

3) Lobby the Government yourself
A great deal of academic output is increasingly widely available to anyone with access to a computer. People can download PDFs of published papers and can use them (along with other resources) to make sense of complex information, and act on it if they wish. People with health conditions are good examples of types of people that are motivated to learn more about a topic that affects them, and to learn how to get to grips with academic literature. Having an Open Access culture - in which published research articles are freely available rather than costing $30 per paper - will (hopefully) only increase that.

Obviously there are journalists, science writers and bloggers who can help people make sense of a complex topic too.

This was my cunning plan, in two tweets.

@latentexistence @zeno001 Wonder if a combination of open access to research, an annoyed populace (plus #scicomm support) might 'hack' this!

— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) April 17, 2016

@latentexistence @zeno001 if the scientists can't speak out (but everyone can access the science) then other ppl could step in ;)

— Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) April 17, 2016

The 2015 scientific society talks in London blog post

I know it's still Summer (there are about 180 open-air cinema screenings in London before the end of September in London) but it's about this time of year that I start to keep an eye on the autumn science talks season. Here's what I've found so far...

• Blackheath Scientific Society - http://www.bss.btik.com/LectureProgramme
• Hampstead Scientific Society - http://www.hampsteadscience.ac.uk/hss_prog.htm
• Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution - http://www.hlsi.net/events_Level2.aspx?level2_ID=567
• Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS) - http://www.kew.org/discover/news/kew-mutual-improvement-society (PDF) @Kewlectures 
• Linnean Society - http://www.linnean.org/Meetings-and-Events/Events
• Richmond Scientific Society - http://www.hampsteadscience.ac.uk/rss_prog.htm
• See also Interesting Talks in London http://interestingtalks.in/London/ 

Also, feel free to copy and paste this and put it in your own blog posts and listings. It's not my info, it's just culled and re-ordered from all these sources above. Share the science communication news :)

Wednesday 9 September 2015
8pm - Richmond Scientific Society
Fusion power - safe, clean, inexhaustible nuclear power: do we need it, and is it possible? - Dr Alan Costley

Thursday 17 September 2015
6pm - Linnean Society
The Global Oil Supply: Implications for Biodiversity? - Professor Chris Rhodes (advisor on low-carbon energy to the European Commission and director of Fresh-lands Environmental Actions)

8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
Discussion on scientists reporting experiments - Prof. Vivian Moses in conversation with Prof. Sir Colin Berry, Queen Mary College

8:15pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Your hand is a miracle! - Prof Heinz Wolff (Brunel University)

Monday 21 September 2015
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
The slippery and the slimy; how pitcher plants trap their prey - Dr Ulrike Bauer (University of Bristol)

Monday 28 September
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Wrest Park - A garden revealed - Sheila Das (Garden Manager, RHS Wisley)

Monday 5 October
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Madagascar, not the movie - Paul Eguia (Kew Diploma student)

Wednesday 7 October 2015
8pm - Richmond Scientific Society
 New Horizons: space-probe mission to Pluto - Dr Mike Goldsmith, Science writer
Preceded by the Annual General Meeting. Wine & Nibbles after the talk.

Monday 12 October 2015
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Woody plants of North Carolina - Alex Hoyle (Kew Diploma Student)

Thursday 15 October 2015
6pm - Linnean Society
Evolution from beyond genetics? - Dr Ovidiu Paun (University of Vienna)

8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
Energy storage in the electricity supply industry - Discussion led by Frank Escombe, EscoVale Consultancy Services

8:15pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Pollen and forensic science - Dr Michael Keith-Lucas (University of Reading)

Friday 16 October 2015
7:45pm - Blackheath Scientific Society
The Cassini-Huygens mission - Dr Adam Masters (Imperial College London)
A talk on the space probe mission to uncover the secrets of the Planet Saturn, its rings and planets

Monday 19 October 2015
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Jeju - Wandering through one of the new 7 wonders of nature - Katarzyna Babel (Kew Diploma student)

6.30pm - Linnean Society
The 2015 Darwin Lecture in partnership with the RSM - Prof Sir John Bell
- note venue is Royal Society of Medicine

Wednesday 21 October 2015
8pm - Richmond Scientific Society
Cold atoms: from fundamental physics to precision measurements - Dr Vera Guarrera, National Physical Laboratory

Monday 26 October 2015
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Growing furniture, re-thinking our relationship with trees - Gavin Munro (Designer, artist, Full Grown Ltd)

Monday 2 November
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
The secret of sacred Lotus - Biodiversity and technical innovations - Dr Wilhelm Barthlott (University of Bonn)

Monday 9 November
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
The royal kitchen garden at Hampton Court Palace - Vicki Cooke (Kitchen garden keeper)

Wednesday 11 November 2015
8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
Rare Earths - Discussion led by Dr Adrian Jones, University College London

8pm - Richmond Scientific Society
Colour Perception - Bill Stevenson, Society of Dyers and Colourists

Monday 16 November
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
The role of horticulture in education (Fundraising lecture: £8 entry - £5 for students) - Alys Fowler
(Horticulturist and journalist)

Thursday 19 November 2015
5.30pm - Linnean Society
Darwin's Ark: Should Evolutionary History Inform Species Conservation?

8:15pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
The curious world of rotations - Prof John Humberston (University College London)

Friday 20 November 2015
7:45pm - Blackheath Scientific Society
Television, gathering the strands - Mr Paul Ryan (BT Sport)
Integrating the disparate sources that are gathered together to make a programme

Monday 23 November
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Exploring the flora of the Outer Hebrides - Elizabeth Newman (Kew Diploma student)

Monday 30 November
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
My life in horticulture - 65 years - Jim Buttress (VMH, RHS judge, BBC Big Allotment Challenge judge)

Wednesday 2 December 2015
6pm - Linnean Society
The Lord Treasurer of Botany - Tom Kennett

Monday 7 December 2015
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS) 
The National Botanic Garden of Wales and it’s honey bees - Lynda Chrystie, Bee-keeper, NBG, Wales

Wednesday 9 December 2015
8pm - Richmond Scientific Society
Non-native invasives in freshwater - Joe Pecorelli, Zoological Society, London
(Christmas meeting with wine and nibbles)

Thursday 10 December 2015
8:15pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Adventures and advances in medical physics - Dr Alan Calverd (State Registered Clinical Physicist)

Monday 14 December 2015
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)  
Herbaceous plant communities as a toolkit in the sustainable urban landscape - James Hitchmough (Professor University of Sheffield, Olympic Park planting designer)

Thursday 17 December 2015
6pm - Linnean Society
Pearls and Unicorns – Myth and Magic in Jewellery - Geoffrey Munn OBE, FLS

Thursday 14 January 2016
8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
LEDs, low energy white light and its applications - Discussion led by Nigel Parry, Array Lighting, and Susie Wheeldon, Solar Aid

Monday 11 January 2016
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)  
Growing against the odds in Australia - Rupert Harbinson (Kew Diploma Student)

Wednesday 20 January 2016
8pm - Richmond Scientific Society 
Future of wireless communications: higher frequencies, higher data rates, shorter distances - Prof Alwyn Seeds, University College London

Monday 18 January 2016
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Space, an illusion & other mysteries - Paul Hervey-Brookes (Landscape designer)

Thurdsay 21 January 2016
8:15pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
The artificial heart; a new ending? - Prof Martin Elliott (Great Ormond Street Hospital)

Monday 25 January 2016
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
An exploration of South Africa’s Western Cape flora - Iain Middlebrook (Kew Diploma Student)

Monday 1 February 2016
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Hardy's plant nursery - Rosy Hardy (Hardy's cottage garden plants)

Monday 8 February 2016
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
The effect of pesticides on bees - Dr Beth Nicholls (University of Sussex)

Monday 15 February 2016
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Seed banking, the forest & mountain flora of New Zealand - Gareth Porteous (Kew Diploma Student)

Wednesday 17 February 2016
8pm - Richmond Scientific Society 
Applied plasma physics: the new frontiers of space propulsion and medicine - Dr Thomas Harle, Fourth State Medicine

Thursday 18 February 2016
8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
Animal - computer interaction / dogs in science - Discussion led by Dr Clara Mancini, The Open University

8:15pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Puzzles & paradoxes in science & mathematics - Tony Mann (University of Greenwich)

Monday 22 February 2016
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS) 
The Chelsea Flower Show - Tom Harfleet (RHS Chelsea Flower Show manager)

Monday 29 February 2016
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Windsor Great Park - Mark Flanagan (Keeper of the Garden)

Monday 7 March 2016
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS)
Lessons from great gardeners - Matthew Biggs (Radio 4 Gardeners' Question Time panellist)

Thursday 10 March 2016
8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
Weather forecasting: how and why is it ever right? - Discussion led by Dr Peter Inness, Reading University

Monday 14 March 2016
6pm - Kew Mutual Improvement Society (KMIS) 
Logan Botanic Garden, Scotland’s most exotic garden - Richard Baines (Curator, Logain Botanic Garden)

Wednesday 16 March 2016
8pm - Richmond Scientific Society
Inter-stellar chemistry observed from the Herschel space observatory 2010 - Prof Geoffrey Duxbury, University of Strathclyde
Lecture for National Science Week

Thursday 17 March 2016
8:15pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
The hydraulics of beaver dams - Matthew Duckett (BuroHappold Engineering)

Wednesday 13 April 2016
8pm - Richmond Scientific Society
Electronic Music - Andrew Hanson, Outreach Manager, NPL

Thursday 14 April 2016
8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
Why do we sleep? - Discussion led by Prof. Derk-Jan Dijk, Surrey University

Thursday 21 April 2016
8:15pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Is Pluto a planet? - Jerry Stone FBIS (Spaceflight UK)

Wednesday 11 May 2016
8pm - Richmond Scientific Society  
Sustainable livestock grazing systems - Jamie McFadzean, Rothamsted Research,
North Wyke and University of Exeter

Thursday 12 May 2016
8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
Driverless cars/trucks - Discussion led by Paul Turner, Ricardo plc

Thursday 19 May 2016
8:15pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
Geological highlights of the Andes - Dr Tony Waltham (Engineering geologist)

Thursday 9 June 2016
8pm - Highgate Literary & Scientific Institution
to be arranged

Thursday 23 June 2016
8:00pm - Hampstead Scientific Society
AGM: Wine & cheese, £3 and scientific entertainment

I'm talking to people in Government next week about science, tech, STEM & diversity

Some random Saturday morning thoughts, some may even make sense...

--------

I've been invited to an event next week at which a small group of people are going to be having a bit of a chat about what Government can do to support / maintain science & engineering skills and get more young people, women in particular, into science and engineering careers.

I've said yes despite not being particularly expert in this area - I'm quick to learn and don't mind asking questions!

Generally whenever I've been doing critical appraisal 'stuff' of health-related things in newspapers or in journal articles I'm always looking for the 'what if?' and 'what's missing?'. So with that in mind I wondered about what the limits are of what Government can and can't do in this area. I'm not sure how much of a focus this is on getting more women in science (a fairly massive subsection in itself) as opposed to getting more diversity in science. It's a short meeting so I might not have a huge amount of time to wave that flag.

There are issues of personal preference - simply, does someone fancy studying science or engineering (S/E) and doing that sort of thing as a career. Do the people who don't do S/E feel that they were ill-done by not having done so... that they could have done so if they'd had a chance?

There are issues of the 'leaky pipe' (see 'further reading' below) - which covers people dropping out after studying S/E at school (includes issues of fewer studying it beyond school but generally refers to people, generally women, who do continue in the field but who then leave, for a variety of reasons).

The science and science communication blogging community has been hearing a lot this week about sexism and harrassment which seems to be pervasive across all community sectors. To me that seems like something that institutions should be dealing with better (anti-harrassment policies are springing up in conferences, I've been dismayed to learn that some institutions don't support staff when they complain of harrassment). I'm sure Government can set the tone, but that would seem to be more of an after-the-fact thing, communities should be able to deal with this better themselves.

Also... funding, pay, flexible hours, competition with other subjects, the separateness of science (it's "biology", "chemistry" etc but science and engineering done in academia and industry is usually vastly more interdisciplinary).

Should be an interesting meeting...

I'll probably keep thinking of bits to add here.

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Colleagues at Queen Mary run the cs4fn (Computer Science For Fun) schools outreach programme to flag up the fact that Computer Science doesn't exist as a topic in isolation but is something which gives people useful skills to work in a variety of jobs (finance, medicine, bioinformatics, audio engineering, architecture as well as the more obvious things like running IT facilities for businesses or research in computer science topics).

There are 15 magazines (issue 16 has just gone to the printers) as well as online articles and they collected together some of the articles about women in computer science and produced a bumper issue called 'The women are here' (it's free online as a PDF but I'm taking copies to the meeting) which is popular with teachers who're trying to raise awareness of Computer Science among girls at school (hopefully some of the boys see it too!).

Through surveying teachers they've done a bit of evaluation on how it's been received in schools.

Black, J., Curzon, P., Myketiak, C., & McOwan, P. W. (2011). A study in engaging female students in computer science using role models. Proceedings of the 16th Annual Joint Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE'11), 63–67. New York: ACM.

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Further reading
Homework: other stuff I'm reading / mugging up on (feel free to suggest more)

Pop Quiz: How we discuss women in STEM
http://femalecomputerscientist.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/pop-quiz-how-we-discuss-woman-in-stem.html

Both men and women should 'uncover' family responsibilities at work
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/both-men-and-women-cover-family-responsibilities-at-work/

Academic Whores
http://tressiemc.com/2013/10/13/academic-whores/

The pipeline isn't leaky
http://biochembelle.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/the-pipeline-isnt-leaky/

"When a woman doesn’t pursuit the tenure track, she “leaked out” of the pipeline. Consider that terminology for a moment and the connotations it carries. When you have a leak in a pipe in your house, you have to fix it. If you don’t fix it, that leak can cause all sorts of problems – water damage to sheet rock, wood rot, mold. When we say that women leak out of the pipeline, it can sound as if we’re saying that they are making the wrong decisions, ones that are harmful to science. It’s almost as if we want women to feel guilty about leaving the academic track."

Of course some people will make a positive choice to leave for something fab, others will feel forced out.

 Stemming the tide
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2013/08/gender-diversity-women-science

"The University of Cambridge’s gender diversity champion, Athene Donald of the physics department, is also clear that small actions can make a difference. The UK university recently started a scheme to support carers returning to work by awarding small grants to allow a childminder or other parent to travel with them to conferences.

And many conferences, including the large American Chemical Society national meetings, now offer free childcare. However, recent discussions on Donald’s blog suggested that for some, non-attendance is often blamed on a lack of childcare when in fact there are other reasons, such as a feeling that male-dominated conferences are just not pleasant for women to attend."

On posh white blokes in NGOs
http://opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/guppi-bola/on-posh-white-blokes-in-ngos

How not to run a women in science campaign: If science wants to deal with its diversity issues, it needs to think beyond gender and be willing to change
http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2013/oct/14/science-policy-women

How to reduce the gender gap in one (relatively) easy step
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/01/how-to-reduce-the-gender-gap-in-one-relatively-easy-step/
- on women being cited less than men, but note the critical comments too

Want to see more black faces in science & technology? Here's how to make that happen today
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/urban-scientist/2012/05/31/want-to-see-more-black-faces-in-science-technology-heres-how-to-make-that-happen-today/

CASinclude on Twitter (Computing At School)
http://twitter.com/casinclude
Improving inclusivity in Computing for children at school, regardless of gender, race, SEN, disabilities or socio-economic background.

Columbia Professor and GZA aim to help teach science through hip-hop
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/nyregion/columbia-professor-and-gza-aim-to-help-teach-science-through-hip-hop.html?pagewanted=all

Feminine science role models... and other bad ideas?
http://quantumplations.org/2013/04/02/feminine-science-role-models-and-other-bad-ideas/
- one study suggested that 'feminine' role models might do more harm than good. It seems to have been pretty preliminary, critiqued here.

Diversity doesn't just STEM from gender inequality
http://quantumplations.org/2013/03/19/diversity-doesnt-just-stem-from-gender-equality/ 

(Lack of) diversity in STEM subjects
http://telescoper.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/lack-of-diversity-in-stem-subjects/

Rats in space, dog farts and startled kittens - some science abstracts that make me snigger

There's always been humour in science and plenty of it is quite overt. I remember being rather amused and pleased back in the late 90s / early 2000s to get hold of a copy of Bill Christie's Lipid Analysis (2nd edition) in which keen young lipid analysts wishing to analyse the molecular species of a variety of lipids are told that they must "first catch your lipid". I think Mrs Beeton recommended something similar to readers, on preparing fish. And of course xkcd is hilariously brilliant and there are umpteen other science funnies.

Sometimes you have to make your own fun though. The following five PubMed abstracts are ones I re-visit every now and again because they intrigue or amuse me. Four of them I discovered myself and one of them was posted on a mailing list I'm on. A couple of them have also made it into the brilliant NCBI ROFL (National Center for Biotechnology Information - Rolling On the Floor Laughing).

1. Rats in space
I certainly didn't go looking for rats in space - I'd have been searching for lipid extraction from rat brain or possibly rat liver when I came across an abstract indicating that scientists routinely flew rats in space for a couple of weeks before having a look at their metabolism. Unfortunately I can't remember the original paper I saw and I'd probably have to scroll back through pages and pages to get back to the one I found in the late 90s or early 2000s but this one will do fine. It's not hilarious but the incongruous image of rats setting off to space makes me smile. Rats don't have to go into space though, there are microgravity simulators...

The effects of space flights on the lipid composition of blood, adrenal glands and liver in rats
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10530386

Plenty more where that came from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=rats%20spaceflight (310 by the look of it)

2. You say canine flatus, I say dog farts
Probably I'd have to admit that I was actually searching for farts / dog farts... although that's not the fancy PubMed term and so I was probably searching for flatus when I came across this one from 2001. I've been enjoying it for about 10 years I think (don't think I actually found it in 2001 though, which is when it was published) and I re-read it every year.

Much like Mark Twain's "The Awful German Language*" I've never been able to get through a reading of it without getting quite giggly. The po-faced language, the ridiculousness of measuring the pongitude of dog farts. I believe this one made it into the Ig-Nobel prize winners list.

While farting is an entirely normal and natural thing that everyone does it can actually be pretty debilitating when it's a consequence of a medical problem or medication for the treatment of a medical problem. I've spoken to several people with diabetes (and Diabetes UK's Careline have spoken to many many more) who've found taking some medications prescribed for Type 2 diabetes can lead to highly unamusing farting situations - really not that pleasant. There's also a (fairly rare) condition called gastropathy (damage to the nerves or muscles that control the movement of food through the gut) which in serious cases can lead to faecal incontinence. Not fun. In some people with diabetes this gastropathy can lead to a complication called gastroparesis.

Development of a technique for the in vivo assessment of flatulence in dogs
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11453473

A few more where that came from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=dog%20flatus

If anyone has a copy of In praise of canine flatulence research I think I'd like to read it.

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*"You may load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really bring down a subject with it at the present German range -- you only cripple it."
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3. Further farting
This is the one I didn't find myself - it came via an email discussion list and I think the topic was on IgNobel prizes and unlikely titles for papers. The title deserves a prize all of its own.

Farting as a defence against unspeakable dread
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-5922.1996.00165.x/abstract

4. Rabies-infected puppies in the Gambia
This is actually a sad story and doesn't make me laugh very much at all. The subject of the abstract died from rabies so no happy ending but I thought the rhythm of the language used in the first sentence is wonderful. The phrase "it was a dark and stormy night^" has gone down in literary history as being a classic example of purple prose, but in contrast "Seven weeks after he was bitten on the lip by a puppy in the Gambia..." (such precision!) is surely a perfect example of the opposite... while still being just a little bit purpley. Sadly the sentence, rather than building on its wonderful crescendo, comes to a bit of a standstill with "...a patient showed symptoms of rabies." Oh well.

I think it works even better in italics, like go-faster stripes:
Seven weeks after he was bitten on the lip by a puppy in the Gambia...

Human rabies encephalomyelitis
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/944605

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^"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
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5. Startling kittens for science
This one was popular on Twitter as you can imagine. I decided to search PubMed for kittens some time last year (turns out it was 21 Jan 2011) and was delighted with this particular find. It features different types of kittens, spring-loaded boxes and using them to scare the crap (or not - depending on the type of cat) of the kittens. The title I've given this section is how I tweeted it when I first found this abstract.

They analysed kittens' responses to a "potentially threatening object" during an open field test - a 'metal spring enveloped in a cotton case suddenly bouncing out' of a cylinder. It put me in mind of the 'Spring Surprise' in the Monty Python chocolate box sketch. Poor kits.

Breed differences in behavioural response to challenging situations in kittens
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21092741

Episode III of #IASBB evening event - beyond science blogging

I'm lucky enough to get to go to all sorts of interesting events at which I make lots of notes. The 'writing them up' bit doesn't seem to go quite as well so I've decided to work in harmony with my inability at this, and serialise my posts. Here's the third in the 'series' of posts about the evening event a couple of weeks ago (oops!) after the #IASBB, I'm a Scientist Beyond Blogging event.

Previous #IASBB posts were

• "Bollocks Watch" - feedback to evening event at #IASBB on proactive science stories (23 Oct 2010)
• Beyond blogging - science engagement online #IASBB (23 Oct 2010)

At the evening presentations we heard back from the different groups who'd spent the afternoon looking at ways in which scientists might use the online world even more to engage with people, including being more politically involved, ie taking things 'beyond blogging'.

Alice Bell reported back for her group - they'd been looking at science and politics and how the two communities might work together. I think the British Science Association have or had a short-term placement scheme for MPs and working scientists but I don't know how many people could feasibly be accommodated on the programme.

Apparently the group came to the conclusion that we should all watch the West Wing - I expect there'd be uniform agreement with this as it's wonderful, I have the box set. So many great instances of affection for science and knowledge - possibly the episode that makes me swoon the most is 'Galileo' - rest assured, CJ "says it right" at the end.

The group also came up with the idea for some sort of online "Campaigning for scientists, for dummies" where scientists can pose questions, answerable by others. The Science is Vital campaign (and there'll be a future blog post at some point on the fab presentation by Jenny Rohn, Richard Grant and Shane McCracken) involved a steep learning curve for the organisers in terms of arranging the rally outside the Treasury. Lots of community input.

I think I missed the comment at the time but possibly it was Alok Jha who tweeted along the lines that science bloggers should get their posts onto places like Conservative Home and target other blogs like that, reaching a different crowd etc.

Finally, the group had discussed the notion of a science-specific campaign roadshow telling people about science and citizenship, and policy. I think there may have been ideas for a travelling bus :)

Post for @garwboy

This post is non-canonical and is logically equivalent to Twitlonger except I decided to put it here :)

Some suggestions
ABSW has a Christmas party and might like to hear your amusing and entertaining stories, mind you if it's vastly critical of the media probably it won't go down awfully well given that it's the Association of British Science Writers (of which I'm a member).

The British Science Association (nee The BA) has an annual Science Communication Conference coming up in May - I don't know how much of the programme is in place but they do often end with a bit of entertainment after the final plenary. You could be that entertainment...

The Science Media Centre, based at the RI, hosts half-day sessions for scientists to hear more about working with the media. The purpose of these is to encourage scientists to get involved, and early on in their careers, and communicate their work via the media. If your stories include things about what not do to, that might work. I believe Wellcome may also host something similar, and possibly the Royal Society - but I might be wrong.

Cancer Research UK do their own in-house training for their own scientists in talking about the research that the scientists do and which Cancer Research UK fund - they may not need any further input but you can but ask.

You could ignore the media-mediator concept entirely and just go to the science departments in universities or to the professional societies and give them a presentation discouraging them from talking to the media - however I wouldn't seriously suggest this as being a good idea, and would actively discourage you from doing this myself, somewhat ironically.

I don't know of any publications that would be particularly interested in this, with the emphasis being 'I don't know' rather than implications that they wouldn't be interested. I'm guessing they wouldn't rush to publish stuff that might be a bit 'insulting' to them but depends how you're pitching your material.

That's all I can think of at this precise moment...