Brisbane Writers Festival 3rd & 4th September 2010

This year, BrisScience is again partnering with the Brisbane Writers Festival to bring exciting authors to Brisbane. We are involved in two fantastic sessions:

Join us on Friday the 3rd of September  for an exclusive evening where international writers Louise Doughty, Jostein Gaarder and Simon Winchester join BrisScience’s Joel Gilmore for discussions from philosophy to drama to the life story of the Atlantic ocean.

Louise Doughty is a novelist, playwright and critic who has also published a how-to guide: A Novel in a Year, Jostein Gaarder is the best-selling author of Sophie’s World, and his latest novel, The Castle in the Pyrenees, is about love, consciousness and ideas, while Simon Winchester studied geology and now presents science and history through engaging, dramatised novels. Guaranteed to be an a fascinating and engaging session, with lots of time for audience interaction.

S62 Friday 3 September
7.00 – 8.30pm Auditorium 1, SLQ
Visiting Writer Evening Two: An exclusive evening with international writers: Louise Doughty, Simon Winchester and Jostein Gaarder
Tickets: $30, via Qtix

Then on the morning of Saturday the 4th of September we have reserved 60 front row seats for a great session with Robyn Williams interviewing Marcelo Gleiser, a professor of both physics and natural philosophy.

Marcelo Gleiser has a theory that there is no theory of everything, because the universe is, in fact, driven by the fissures in the fabric. The universe, it appears, is gloriously messy. Marcelo discusses his ideas and how he communicates them with Robyn Williams.

This is a free event, but is expected to fill up fast. So, BrisScience has 60 of the best seats reserved. To RSVP please click here – first in best dressed, max two per person! (But if you reserve them – we expect you to come, otherwise other people miss out!)  (Allocation exhausted)

S71 Saturday 4 September,
10 – 11am, the Breezeway Stage
Creative Science Theories: Understood
Marcelo Gleiser

These are just a few fantastic events on offer at the festival this year – why not check out Jostein Gaarder speaking on Science vs Philosophy (Thursday 2pm) or the fantastic Norman Doidge speaking on neuroplasticity and our amazing brain (various sessions, including Saturday at 4pm and Thursday at 9:45am).

Monday 20 September 2010 UQ Research Week

BrisScience is presenting The University of Queensland’s annual Research Week Public Lecture*. This year’s talks are:

Engineering a quantum future

Speaker: Professor Gerard Milburn, ARC Federation Fellow

From the bronze age to the silicon age, the wealth of nations rises and falls on a tide of technological innovation.  A century of basic science has demonstrated that we live in a quantum world, and a decade of cutting-edge developments suggest that it is possible to harness and control it in a variety of platforms. I will introduce the new field of Quantum Engineering and describe some applications that will dominate the future of high tech in coming decades.

Is conservation too conservative?

Speaker: Professor Hugh Possingham, ARC Federation Fellow

Global biodiversity is in decline.  Australia signed an international treaty where we agreed to slow species loss by 2010.  We have failed and extinction rates are 1000 times the “background” rate.  All in all it looks pretty grim for your 21st century greenie.  Despite having successfully fought to partially stop many things: like old growth forest logging, overfishing, land clearing and the introduction of exotic species, it seems we are still losing.  In this talk I will suggest a new direction.  Maybe rather than being on the back foot telling everyone else all the things they can’t do, we need to move onto the front foot.  I illustrate the idea with some recent work from our research group that suggests bizarre actions like: selling national parks, creating a fungible biodiversity currency and moving species outside their “normal” distribution, might be worth a go.

Time: 6:30pm to 8:00pm (Doors open at 6pm)

Venue: Long Room, Customs House at Riverside

Refreshments: There will be complimentary drinks and nibblies following the talk, and Prof. Milburn and Prof. Possingham will be available to answer any questions

Questions? Contact Andrew (a.stephenson@uq.edu.au)

For more information on UQ Research Week please visit the website.

*Please note If you wish to attend this event you will have to RSVP here.

Monday 18 October 2010

Scrumptious science

Speaker: Dr Heather Smyth, Agri-Science Qld

Smell is one of the more powerful, complex and least understood of the human senses. The human nose can detect and distinguish literally thousands of aromas and, not surprisingly, flavour is a fundamentally important aspect of food enjoyment. Understanding the origin of flavour and the role that flavour plays in consumer enjoyment of food is a science to itself. Research in this area involves a multi-disciplinary approach of measuring consumer acceptance, sensory enjoyment and the chemicals present in food that are responsible for flavour. This presentation will give an introduction to the science that measures delicious.

• Time: 6:30pm to 7:30pm (Doors open at 6pm)
• Venue: Long Room, Customs House at Riverside
• Refreshments: There will be complimentary drinks and nibblies following the talk, and Dr Smyth will be available to answer any questions
• Questions? Contact Andrew (a.stephenson@uq.edu.au)

Dr Heather Smyth is a Senior Research Scientist with Agri-Science Qld (DEEDI).  Her research involves measuring human sensory responses to food and understanding the compositional basis of flavour.  With a background in the wine industry and a PhD in wine flavour chemistry, Heather currently focuses her work on tropical and sub-tropical fruits, vegetables and seafood.  She works with a team of food scientists ranging from microbiologists to consumer psychologists at the newly developed laboratories at the Health and Food Sciences Precinct, Coopers Plains.

Monday 2 August 2010

What the #$*! Do We (K)now!? about Quantum Mechanics

Speaker: Professor Carlton M. Caves, The University of New Mexico

There is a world of consummate strangeness at our fingertips, provided our fingers are so exquisitely fine as to be able to feel and manipulate individual atoms and molecules. Ever since the realization that the behaviour of atoms and molecules is governed by the laws of quantum mechanics, it has been understood that the world of the very small is nothing like the familiar world of everyday experience. Yet only recently has it been fully appreciated just how different the world of quantum systems is—and how that difference might be exploited to do things that can’t be done in our mundane everyday world.  I will illustrate how weird the atomic-scale world really is and how we can take advantage of that weirdness using new technologies for manipulating atomic-scale systems.  You will have to pay close attention, but the reward will be a glimpse of the truly astonishing nature of the world we all inhabit.

• Time: 6:30pm to 7:30pm (Doors open at 6pm)
• Venue: Long Room, Customs House at Riverside
• Refreshments: There will be complimentary drinks and nibblies following the talk, and Professor Caves will be available to answer any questions
• Questions? Contact Andrew (a.stephenson@uq.edu.au)

Carlton M. Caves is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of New Mexico and Director ofthe UNM/Arizona Center for Quantum Information and Control.  He received a PhD in Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1979.  He is the author of over 120 scientific papers on topics in gravitation theory, quantum optics, nonlinear dynamics, and quantum information science.  His present research is concentrated on quantum metrology and quantum information theory.  A Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he is an enthusiastic and frequent visitor to Australia.

Monday 21 June, 2010

Australia’s Population and the Future

Speaker: Professor Graeme Hugo, The University of Adelaide

Australia’s population is growing faster than at any time since the 1960s.  This presentation analyses the processes behind this growth and assesses the outlook for Australian population growth over the next thirty years.  It is argued that Australia faces a population dilemma.  On the one hand, the passage of the baby boom bulge into retirement means there is a need for population growth.  On the other hand, the environment and the impending impacts of climate change place constraints on expansion.  It is argued that Australia needs to develop a vision and policy toward its future population which is soundly based on physical and social science knowledge and is inclusive of the interests of all Australians.

Monday 17 May, 2010

The Square Kilometre Array: Unveiling the Dark Universe

Speaker: Professor Brian Boyle, CSIRO SKA Director

Professor Brian Boyle

The Square Kilometre array is an international project to build the world’s largest radiotelescope.

Comprising over 3000 antennas distributed over a continental scale, the telescope will be used to address some of the most fundamental outstanding questions in contemporary astronomy and physics; What is nature of dark matter and dark energy?  Did Einstein have the last word on gravity? How and when did the first stars form in the Universe?

Professor Boyle will describe the ways in which the Square Kilometre Array will contribute to our knowledge in these areas, as well as the technological challenges in information technology and renewable energy that constructing the telescope will pose.

• Time: 6:30pm to 7:30pm (Doors open at 6pm)
• Venue: Long Room, Customs House at Riverside
• Refreshments: There will be complimentary drinks and nibblies following the talk, and Professor Boyle will be available to answer any questions
• Questions? Contact Lynelle (l.ross@smp.uq.edu.au)

Monday 12 April, 2010

Wounds – the silent epidemic.

Speaker: Professor Zee Upton, Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation

Chronic wounds and leg ulcers affect hundreds of thousands of Australians, particularly older Australians and people in Indigenous communities. These wounds are painful and debilitating, resulting in extreme reductions in the quality-of-life of sufferers across months or years, or potentially decades. For many patients living with chronic non-healing wounds, amputation of an affected limb is the only option. In Australia more than 3,000 lower leg amputations occur each year due to a non-healing diabetic leg ulcer.  Globally there is an amputation every 30 seconds. Chronic wounds are estimated to affect 433,000 Australians and to conservatively cost the Australian health system $2.6 B a year. Despite this, the issue of chronic wound care receives little attention. It is a silent epidemic.

In this lecture diverse aspects related to skin, wounds, wound care and emerging innovations in therapies and management will be introduced and explored.

Professor Zee Upton

• Time: 6:30pm to 7:30pm (Doors open at 6pm)
• Venue: Long Room, Customs House
• Refreshments: There will be complimentary drinks and nibblies following the talk, and Zee will be available to answer any questions
• Questions? Contact Lynelle (l.ross@smp.uq.edu.au)

Monday 22 March 2010

Is Nanomedicine the Future for Modern Medicine?

Speaker: Professor Matt Trau, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology

Professor Matt Trau

We are living at a time of unprecedented technological change.  The recent completion of the human genome project has heralded a new era of molecular- and genetic-based medicine. Numerous advanced in Nanotechnology offer the possibility of cost-effective, miniaturised devices for a plethora of medical applications.  How will the fusion of these new developments in Nanotechnology with Biology affect Modern Medicine and the Health care sector?  What new medical breakthroughs are starting to appear on the Horizon from the new field of Nanomedicine?  What are some of the ethical issues which we may confront as these technologies become available?  In this lecture, a range of these topics shall be introduced and explored.

• Time: 6:30pm to 7:30pm (Doors open at 6pm)
• Venue: Long Room, Customs House
• Refreshments: There will be complimentary drinks and nibblies following the talk, and Professor Trau will be available to answer any questions
• Questions? Contact Lynelle (l.ross@smp.uq.edu.au)

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November 2010

TBA

UQ Junior Physics Olympiad (JPhO)

Applications from Year 10 (or outstanding Year 9 students) are now open.

What is JPhO?

The Queensland Junior Physics Olympiad (JPhO) is a five day (non-residential) program for year ten and outstanding year nine students with an interest in science and mathematics. By presenting physics in a manner that complements senior physics, JPhO aims to develop problem solving skills as well as appreciation and understanding of physics.

Visit www.smp.uq.edu.au/jpho for more information and for details on how to apply!

Applications close Friday 21 May, 2010.