| Date | Subject | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
2009 8:15 pm at ACRC |
(British Museum) | |
8:15 pm |
(Department of Earth Sciences, University College London) | |
8:15 pm |
From Diet to Genes - the Causes of Kidney Stones Although kidney stones are common, very little is known about their causes. Most contain oxalate, a chemical found in high abundance in foods such as rhubarb and spinach. Molecular and cellular research has identified the causes of some of the most severe and rare hereditary forms of kidney stones, leading to great improvements in their treatment, including the counterintuitive approach of treating a kidney disease by liver transplantation. |
(Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, UCL) |
8:15 pm |
The Cassini spacecraft has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004 sending back data about the planet, its moons and rings. Carl Murray is a member of the Cassini Imaging Team and in his talk he will show and discuss some of the stunning images that have been returned. |
(Queen Mary University of London ) |
8:15 pm |
(College of Staten Island, The City University of New York) | |
8:15 pm |
The history of SI units will be described, from its inception in 1790 when Louis XVI established a commission to choose units for the world, to the many changes of the last 50 years. The successive definitions of the seven base units, the metre, the second, the kilogram, the ampere, the kelvin, the mole and the candela, will be described. The metre has been revised four times, from its definition as one ten millionth of a quadrant of the earth (1793), to the distance between the defining scratches on the prototype metre bar (1895), to a multiple of the wavelength of the red krypton atomic line (1960), to the distance light travels in a vacuum in a specified time interval (1983 and still the current definition). The second was originally defined astronomically in terms of the period of rotation of the earth, but is now defined as a multiple of the period of the microwave hyperfine transition in the caesium atom. In this talk special emphasis will be placed on the history of the definition of the second and the measurement of time. Why do we need to keep changing the definitions of our base units? - and who takes the decision to change the definitions? The answers to these questions will be discussed, along with the establishment and operation of the BIPM and its various international committees. |
(University of Reading) |
8:15 pm |
The increase in world population and change in climate has increased the need for recovery of drinking water from brackish and seawater sources to meet the potable demand. The technologies involved in generating drinking water from these sources is the subject of a paper to be given by Greg Turner on the 11th March 2010 to the society. The paper will focus on both thermal and membrane separation processes and indicate the direction in which desalination technologies are moving into the future. Greg Turner is the Northern European Technical Director of Veolia Water Outsourcing, and is a chemical engineer who is specialised in the organisation and management of engineering projects in the water industry. Working within municipal and industrial market sectors, Greg has experience over the last 20 years of many applications of membrane and thermal technologies and the use of advanced membrane systems both in the UK and abroad and has written numerous papers on the subject. He is a member of the Institution of Chemical Engineers, the Institute of Management, the Society of engineers and the Institution of Water and Environmental Management. |
(Veolia Water Industrial Outsourcing Ltd.) |
8:15 pm |
During the 165 million years when dinosaurs dominated terrestrial faunas, the earth experienced major alterations in terms of climate change, fluctuations in sea level and the movement of continents. These physical events had important impacts on the diversity and geographic distributions of dinosaurs, and their legacy can still be seen among living organisms today. This talk will examine how new data and new techniques are enabling palaeontologists to gain insights into the co-evolution of Earth and Life. |
(Department of Earth Sciences, UCL) |
8:15 pm |
A light-hearted look at the origins of some scientific names A revolution took place in biological nomenclature during the mid-eighteenth century; Carl Linnaeus attempted to classify all known plants and animals and used a two-name system by which to identify them, replacing the cumbersome highly complex and fairly random system then in use. This lecture presents a light-hearted look at some of the origins of the scientific names applied to both fossils and living plants and animals. There are, for example, the Lower Eocene parrot called Pulchrapollia ("pretty polly"), and the fossil snake Montypythonoides. The names of some fossil reptiles contain veiled insults, some honour long-dead celebrities or reflect mythical creatures, and others are clever plays on words. |
(Ravensbourne Geological Society) |
8:00 pm |
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Last updated 12-May-2010