Sunday 2 June, 2013 – Cafe Scientifique

BrisScience is teaming up with Inspiring Australia to present a Cafe Scientifique at the Queensland Museum. This special event is a dinosaur double-header that promises to be both educational and entertaining!

Please note that this is a ticketed event and tickets must be purchased online before arrival (tickets won’t be sold at the door).

• Time: 1 – 3pm, Sunday 2 June, 2013
• Venue: Queensland Museum, South Brisbane
• Tickets are $10 and only available online. Numbers are strictly limited so get in quickly!
• Questions? For any further information please contact Andrew.

A Dinosaur Duck Autopsy

Dr Paul Willis, Royal Institution of Australia

It is now firmly established that birds are descended from dinosaurs. If that’s the case, then there ought to be numerous clues to this relationship in every chicken, turkey or duck you have ever eaten.

In this demonstration palaeontologist Dr Paul Willis, from RiAus, will dismember a (cooked) duck and show you what it has inherited from its dinosaur ancestors.

RiAus Director Dr Paul Willis is well-known as a science broadcaster with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, presenting and producing on ABC television science shows including Quantum and Catalyst. Paul is passionate about informing, educating and amusing people of all ages and backgrounds about science and is keen to seize the opportunity to talk about science in a variety of public forums.  He was rewarded for his passion in 2000 when he was joint recipient of the Eureka Prize for Science Communication. Prior to his work in television, Dr Willis had a research career in vertebrate palaeontology, and was the resident palaeontologist on seven Antarctic expeditions. He has produced many academic reports and papers, has authored or co-authored seven books on dinosaurs, rocks and fossils, and has written many popular science articles for a variety of publications.

Conserving Australia’s Dinosaur Heritage: Walking the Line in The Kimberley

Dr Steve Salisbury, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland

As Australia’s resource industry continues to expand, many aspects of our precious National Heritage are being placed at risk. Among these are areas that preserve important chapters in the story of Australia’s unique dinosaur fauna.

Exciting new research by Dr Salisbury and his team has helped to highlight the significance of dinosaur tracks in The Kimberley region to the public at large, which contributed to the collapse of a $40 billion LNG development. But with the Western Australian government still determined to develop the area as a major port for onshore shale gas projects, the battle to protect Australia’s dinosaur coast rages on.

After travelling to Germany and the UK to complete his PhD on crocodilian locomotor evolution, Dr Steve Salisbury returned to Australia to pursue a life-long dream of searching for Australian dinosaurs. In 2001 Steve was a part of the team that discovered what was at the time Australia’s largest dinosaur, Elliot the sauropod, whose study forms part of his current research programme. Steve is currently a Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Queensland, and a Research Associate at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.

Steve now conducts regular expeditions to Cretaceous vertebrate localities in central-western Queensland and the Dampier Peninsula in The Kimberley region of western Australia.  He is also currently involved in field-based research on the South Island of New Zealand and on the Antarctic Peninsula. His research has been the impetus for the establishment of a $1.5 million interpretive centre in the outback town of Isisford, central-western Queensland, and recently helped to secure National Heritage Listing of dinosaur tracks on the Dampier Peninsula.

Monday 17 June, 2013

Evolution and Progress: An Uneasy Symbiosis

Prof Michael Ruse, Florida State University

Although Charles Darwin is considered the father of the theory of evolution, in fact the idea of organisms evolving began as early as 1700, at the beginning of the enlightenment. Until Darwin, however, evolution was considered a pseudoscience – on par with phrenology – inspired only by wishful thinking for societal improvement. Even after Darwin, evolution was still considered something of a “popular science”, which was more at home in a museum than a university, with “progress” – the concept that life was always progressing to a final perfect species – still being a major theme. Only with the coming of modern genetics, around 1930, did natural selection become a “professional science”.

In this month’s BrisScience talk Prof Michael Ruse, from Florida State University, will describe the history of evolution theory, and what it has gone through to becoming mainstream science including the battles it has had both outside and within the scientific community.

• Time: 6:30 – 7:30pm, Monday 17 June, 2013.
• Venue: Long Room, Customs House at Riverside.
• Arrangements: Doors open at 6pm. No need to book – just show up!
• Questions? For any further information please contact Andrew.

Michael Ruse a Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University who specializes in the history and philosophy of science with a particular focus on biology (especially Darwinism). Ruse founded the journal Biology and Philosophy, of which he is now Emeritus Editor, and has published numerous articles and books; his most recent - The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought.

 Follow this BrisScience event on Facebook.

This BrisScience talk was brought to you by the Centre of History for European Discourse at The University of Queensland.

Tuesday 25 June, 2013

MPE Public Lecture: Environmental Intelligence for Australia

Dr Rob Vertessy, Director of Meteorology and CEO Bureau of Meteorology

Monitoring, assessing and forecasting environmental states and processes will be more and more important in a world facing global change and sustainability limits. Societies will be challenged to maintain, let alone improve, food security, water security and biodiversity, so situational awareness about the environment must be greatly enhanced.

The Bureau of Meteorology is evolving into a broad-based environmental intelligence service for Australia. Over the last decade the Bureau has taken on several new functions that have already set us on this path, including various new ocean, water resources and space weather services.

These developments arise at a time when the planet is changing faster than ever before, when society is demanding more of science, and when technological advances in environmental sensing and earth system simulation are occurring faster than our ability to appropriate them. Rob will demonstrate that these are exciting and important times for scientific communities and operational agencies specializing in environmental intelligence. He will make specific reference to the importance of the mathematical sciences in underpinning such endeavours.

• Time: 6 – 7pm, Tuesday 25 June, 2013.
• Venue: Physiology (Building 63), Lecture Theatre 358, The University of Queensland.
• Arrangements: Please register here.
• Questions? For any further information please contact Andree.

In 2012, Dr Rob Vertessy was appointed as the Director and CEO of the Bureau of Meteorology. Prior to that, he was head of the Bureau’s Climate and Water Division, which is responsible for the National Climate Centre, the national flood forecasting and warning service, and new initiative laying the foundations for a National Plan for Environmental Information. Rob commenced that role in 2007 after a 20-year career as a research scientist at CSIRO.

At CSIRO, he specialised in forest hydrology and catchment modelling and is widely published in these fields. Rob served as Chief Executive of the CRC for Catchment Hydrology (2002–2004) and Chief of CSIRO Land and Water (2004–2007). Between his CSIRO and Bureau appointments, Rob was seconded to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to advise on the establishment of a national water information strategy (2006). This strategy was taken up by the Australian Government in 2007 and is now being implemented by the Bureau.

This talk is run by the Australian Mathematical Science Institute and the Mathematics of Planet Earth Australia. For more information about MPE Australia events please click here.

Monday 20 May, 2013

The Mathematics and Economics of Marine Protected Areas

Prof Hugh Possingham, Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The University of Queensland

We have seen marine protected areas appear on our doorstep in Moreton Bay and across the Great Barrier Reef. Most recently the Federal Government created a system of marine reserves which added more than 2.3 million square kilometres to Australia’s marine reserves.

In this talk Prof Hugh Possingham, from The University of Queensland, will discuss how mathematics, economics and ecology is used to design marine protected area systems that meet the needs of conservation and also minimise the impact of recreational and commercial fisheries. Hugh will also discuss some of the politics of marine reserve system design and how mathematics is used to target catchments for restoration to minimise the damage from nutrients and sediments that flow into our coastal ecosystems.

• Time: 6:30 – 7:30pm, Monday 20 May, 2013.
• Venue: Long Room, Customs House at Riverside.
• Arrangements: Doors open at 6pm. No need to book – just show up!
• Questions? For any further information please contact Andrew.

Prof Hugh Possingham’s PhD in biomathematics at Oxford University was funded by a Rhodes scholarship. Following postdocs at Stanford and ANU, and an academic position at The University of Adelaide, Hugh moved to The University of Queensland in a joint position between mathematics and biology, and currently directs two $15 million research centres.

The Possingham lab developed the most widely used conservation planning software in the world, Marxan, which was used to underpin the rezoning of the Great Barrier Reef and is currently used in over 100 countries to build the world’s marine and terrestrial landscape plans. Most recently Marxan was used to develop the biggest marine reserve system in the world – Australia’s federal marine reserve system. Hugh co-authored two scientific consensus statements that lead to Australia’s marine reserve system. Many governments and ENGOs use his lab’s work for the allocation of funding to threatened species recovery and solving other conservation conundrums. In 2001 Hugh was awarded an Australian Mathematics Society medal for a mathematician under the age of 40.

 Follow this BrisScience event on Facebook. This BrisScience talk is brought to you by the Australian Mathematical Science Institute and the Mathematics of Planet Earth Australia. For more information about MPE Australia events please click here.

Wednesday 20 March, 2013

Café Scientifique – You Give Me Fever

The war against mosquito-borne viruses is a fascinating scientific story of invasive blood-suckers, biological warfare, beneficial bacteria, quad bikes, helicopters and the pot plants in your backyard. From retro to techno You Give Me Fever is Inspiring Australia’s first Cafe Scientifique for 2013 delivered in partnership with Queensland Museum, Brisbane City Council and Queensland Institute of Medical Research.

What: Put the past under a microscope as you examine Dengue mosquito specimens from the Queensland Museum’s collection, ask the expert panel about the current research and technologies being used to control mosquito-borne diseases in Queensland, feed the world’s biggest mosquito, jiggle a wriggler, and get a measure of how attractive or repulsive you are (to mosquitoes!).

Where: Queensland Museum, South Bank.

When: 5 – 8pm, 20th March 2013.

Who:

• Dr Jonathan Darbro, Research Officer at Queensland Institute of Medical Research Mosquito Control Laboratory

• James Hardy, Research Assistant at Queensland Institute of Medical Research Mosquito Control Laboratory
• Mike Muller, Medical Entomologist at Brisbane City Council

Register: This is a free event but places are limited. Register here so you don’t miss out!

Questions:  Tweet your mosquito questions to @ScientificAimee before the event to have them answered on the night by the panel of experts. Any questions about the event should be directed to Jayne Keane via email.

You Give Me Fever will begin from 5pm in the INVENTory with fever tunes, historic mosquito specimens and Culicidae artwork. Collectors Cafe will be open for alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, hot and cold snacks. The panel of mosquito control experts will brief you on their work from 6pm in the Theatre, with time to ask your burning questions. James Hardy will talk about what makes mosquitoes tick, Mike Muller will share how the Brisbane City Council manages mosquitoes and disease transmission, and Dr Jonathan Darbro will discuss the research being done in his laboratory to control mosquito-borne diseases in Brisbane. After the discussion there will be snacks and drinks available for purchase in the foyer while you mingle with the panel, look down a microscope, feed mosquito larvae to the world’s largest mosquito and test your mosquito attraction and repulsion knowledge.

Thursday 21 February, 2013

The Accelerating Universe

Prof. Brian Schmidt,  Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University In 1998 two teams traced back the expansion of the universe over billions of years and discovered that it was accelerating, a startling discovery that suggests that more than 70% of the cosmos is contained in a previously unknown form of matter, called Dark Energy. The 2011 Nobel Laureate for Physics, Brian Schmidt, leader of the High-Redshift Supernova Search Team, will describe this discovery and explain how astronomers have used observations to trace our universe’s history back more than 13 billion years, leading them to ponder the ultimate fate of the cosmos.

• Time: 12:30 – 1:30pm, Thursday 21 February, 2013 (doors open at 12:15pm).
• Venue: Raybould Lecture Theatre 1 Building #50, Room T203, The University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus.
• Arrangements: Registrations have closed for this event. Please email Aarti Kapoor (a.kapoor@uq.edu.au) if you have registered to attend this event but are unable to come.
• Wesbite: Please click here for more details.

Prof. Brian Schmidt is a Distinguished Professor, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and astrophysicist at The Australian National University Mount Stromlo Observatory and Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is known for his research in using supernovae as cosmological probes. He currently holds an Australia Research Council Federation Fellowship and was elected to the Royal Society in 2012. Prof. Schmidt shared both the 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess for providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

Wednesday 20 February, 2013

A Universe from Nothing

Prof Lawrence Krauss,  Arizona State University

The question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” has been asked for millenia by people who speculate on the need for a creator of our Universe.  Today, exciting scientific advances provide new insight into this cosmological mystery: Not only can something arise from nothing, something will always arise from nothing.

Lawrence Krauss will present a mind-bending trip back to the beginning of the beginning and the end of the end, reviewing the remarkable developments in cosmology and particle physics over the past 20 years that have revolutionized our picture of the origin of the universe, and of its future, and which have literally revolutionized our understanding of both nothing, and something.  In the process, it has become clear that  not only can our universe naturally arise from nothing, without supernatural shenanigans, but that it probably did.

• Time: 6:30 – 7:30pm, Wednesday 20 February, 2013 (doors open at 6:15pm).
• Venue: UQ Centre Building #27A, Lecture Theatre/Room 220.
• Arrangements: Registrations have closed for this event. Please email Aarti Kapoor (a.kapoor@uq.edu.au) if you have registered to attend this event but are unable to come.
• Wesbite: Please click here for more details.

Prof. Lawrence M. Krauss is an internationally known theoretical physicist with wide research interests. He has investigated questions ranging from the nature of exploding stars to issues of the origin of all mass in the universe. Prof. Krauss received undergraduate degrees in both Mathematics and Physics at Carleton University and Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1982). Since then Prof. Krauss has held positions at Yale University, Case Western Reserve University and is currently a  Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Department, and Inaugural Director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University.

Prof. Krauss is the author of over 300 scientific publications, as well as numerous popular articles on physics and astronomy. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his research and writing, including the Gravity Research Foundation First Prize Award, the Presidential Investigator Award, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Award for the Public Understanding of Science and Technology.