Events

As a lecturer, you know you’re off to a great start when your chosen lecture topic is dinosaurs.

Ever since fossils were first discovered in the 19th century, the public has been fascinated with these prehistoric creatures.

It was this public fascination that gave rise to the wonderful dinosaur sculptures that still stand in Crystal Palace Park and which Professor Joe Cain (UCL Science and Technology Studies) focused on in his hugely entertaining Lunch Hour Lecture at the Museum of London on 5 June. (more…)

Cup of tea, by Simon Cocks on Flickr

Written by Holly Holmes, reporting on a session at this year’s Times Cheltenham Science Festival.

Tea: the nation’s favourite beverage and a drink synonymous with British culture.

As one of the 40 million Britons who enjoy a cup a day, “Science of Tea” immediately caught my eye in the festival programme – ‘an evening dedicated to the chemistry and pharmacology behind the nation’s favourite beverage’ – what better way to spend a Friday night in Cheltenham?

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Artist’s impression of the exoplanet Tau Boötis b from
NASAblueshift on Flickr.

Written by David Robertson, who attended a lecture by Dr Giovanni Tinetti (UCL Physics & Astronomy) at the Cheltenham Science Festival, entitled ‘Exoplanet explorers’.

1992, was the year it hit me! As I entered the brave new world of primary education, I remember being startled with the knowledge that we lived on a ball of rock, travelling some 67,000 miles per hour around a massive burning ball of fire. Naturally, this was a pretty terrifying turn of events!

As the shock subsided, and my terror turned to awe, I was told that the Earth was one of a small group of planets orbiting our local star.

There was more.

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Written by Emily Burns, a UCL PhD student working in the Structural Biology laboratory at the London Research Institute.

The surface of the Sun is a searing 5,500 degrees Celsius, with an ionised atmosphere that is brimming with magnetic fields. As activity levels rise, this giant ball of gas hurls its matter towards Earth, altering our own magnetic field and atmosphere.

Solar flares on the surface of the Sun.
Image courtesy of NASA Goddard Photo & Video.

The threat of extreme space weather wreaking havoc on our world all sounded a tad science fiction to me, until Dr Lucie Green explained all at the Cheltenham Science Festival.

As the audience was shown videos of the Sun releasing huge amounts of energy and expelling its atmosphere towards us, it became apparent that solar super storms – discussed a great deal in the media recently in light of a report released by the Royal Academy of Engineering – are a very real threat.

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