This is part of Pint of Science 2024 event.

CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR TICKET.

This is an in-person event ONLY. During drinks sessions in the Library, you can view our current exhibition 'Lovely as a Tree'. 

Does the air trap the essence of us all? What do we shed unknowingly into our environments? Find out about environmental DNA, and how it is transforming the way we discern species presence, populations and aiding biodiversity conservation. Come listen to these real life species detectives in our historic venue – the Linnean Society of London, where Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace first presented their theory of evolution! As this is a listed building/room unfortunately food and drinks cannot be consumed during the event but there will be time to get a drink before & during the break. 

Talk abstracts below: 

It's all in the Air! Combining Air Monitoring and DNA to Understand Nature on a Big Scale

Dr Joanne Littlefair (Lecturer, University College London)

The UK faces issues in trying to track and count species, which are the basic tools we have to understand biodiversity. In the last few years, scientists have been exploring how environmental DNA – shed by all animals and plants – could prove the key to monitoring species on a much bigger scale. Recently, scientists have discovered how this DNA is released into the air and have been examining how this can help us to track biodiversity on land.

Behind the Bars: eDNA’s Potential in Conservation

Stephanie Holt (Ecologist and Natural Historian, Natural History Museum)

New techniques in genomics such as eDNA and metabarcoding can provide us with rapid and detailed new datasets, but what is the value of these new tools and the data they generate to conservation goals and habitat management decisions at a local or site-based level? This talk will discuss what potential opportunities these advances give us, and some of the pitfalls we might need to overcome.

Agenda of the evening

1700: Drinks and networking in the Library 

1800: Welcome to the Linnean Society

1810: Speaker Stephanie Holt 

1830: Audience Q&A 

1840: Pint of Science Quiz!

1900: Drinks break in the Library

1930: Speaker Joanne Littlefair 

1950: Audience Q&A 

2000: End of programme

To attend this event register for free guest membership of the Society of Chemical Industry here
https://www.soci.org/events/london-group/2024/brand-new-steam-for-the-21st-century

The A1 Steam Locomotive Trust is building from scratch a recreation of Sir Nigel Gresley's P2 design. The construction will be illustrated using original engineering drawings and it will be explained how certain weaknesses in the original are being removed using modern computer design and modelling.

SPEAKER
Graham Nicholas (A1 Steam Locomotive Trust)

Biography
Graham Nicholas is a chartered mechanical engineer and a career railway man, with specialism in certification and approval of rail vehicles and experience of rail vehicle manufacture and maintenance in the UK, Europe, North America and China. He has been involved with the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust for approx. 25 years, offering his professional services in a mainly voluntary capacity to support the aims and aspirations of the Trust. With this background, he has become an expert in engineering standards for heritage vehicles running on the national UK rail network.

PROGRAMME
18:00 Registration and refreshments
18:30 Technical presentation
20:00 Buffet

Please do consider a donation. All your kindnesses - big or small - go a long way in helping us in our science and nature outreach.

In-Person event ONLY.

Join us for a discussion on the history of estrangement and disconnection from nature, the birth of the idea of eco-anxiety and its spread. Our panellists: writer Melanie Challenger, ‘climate-aware' psychotherapist Caroline Hickman and journalist Siddarth Saxena will lead this conversation through various ideas around how we understand nature-human relations how this has transformed, biodiversity loss and our evasion of nature, how this is affecting the youth, and finding the language to express these anxieties.

We hope you can bring your voice to this event to discuss the impact on young minds, and how we can best address these deeply emotional responses to the planet's distress.

Melanie Challenger is a writer, researcher and broadcaster on environmental history and the history and philosophy of science, Deputy Co-Chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and a Vice President of the RSPCA. Her books include How to Be Animal: What it Means to Be Human (2021).

Caroline Hickman is a lecturer at the University of Bath in social work and climate psychology, a practicing ‘climate-aware’ psychotherapist, and a researcher focused on eco anxiety and distress about the climate and ecological crisis in children and young people globally.

Siddarth Shrikanth is the author of The Case for Nature. Siddarth holds a BA in Biological Sciences from Oxford, an MBA from Stanford, and an MPA from Harvard. He previously worked in corporate sustainability for McKinsey and environmental policy for the World Bank, and was a writer at the Financial Times. He now works in climate and nature investing at Just Climate.

The title of the event was inspired by this book of poetry.

The exhibition project Infinite Universes – Czech Games and Their Global Success introduces contemporary Czech gaming industry in all its complexity. While showcasing individual games, the exhibition also presents the creative process behind the game making with focus on selected elements that define individual studios and their approaches to chosen themes, as well as the games’ educational and artistic value.

The selection of exhibits curated by Miroslav Žák, founder of Visiongame, focuses on audio-visual qualities of the games as well as their relationship to Czech culture and history. Czech video games often reflect the Czech tradition of authorial animation. They excel in unique solutions for their inner structures, incorporating audio design, and in the way they work with stories, including many social themes. Moreover, video games developed in Czechia gain international recognition and awards for their creative approaches, inspiring messages, artistic qualities, and educational characteristics. Czechia is home to more than 130 developer companies, employing over 2000 people. New specialised university programmes are being made, schools, incubators, or accelerators, pushing the whole industry forward.

What can you expect?
At the exhibition the visitors will be able to play a great selection of Czech video games on one of our four gaming stations, sit back and listen to the music from the video games by Czech and international composers on vinyl, immerse themselves in the fascinating world of video graphic art, explore figures and toys featuring characters from the games and watch one of the characters being printed on a 3D printer.

Presented games

THE BEST KNOWN
Arma (Bohemia Interactive Studio — 2022), Beat Saber (Beat Games — 2018), Creaks (Amanita Design — 2020), Euro Truck Simulator 2 (SCS Software — 2012), Factorio (Wube Software — 2020), Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Warhorse Studios — 2018), Mafia: Definitive Edition (Hangar 13 — 2020), Space Engineers (Keen Software House — 2018)

INDIE
Afterglitch (Hangonit – 2022), Evidence 111 (Play By Ears — 2020, audio game), Hobo: Tough Life (Perun Creative — 2021), Mashinky (Jan Zelený — 2018), Phonopolis (Amanita Design — in development), Someday You'll Return (CBE Software — 2020), Svoboda 1945: Liberation (Charles Games — 2021), To the Dragon Cave (KIKIRIKI GAMES — 2022, audio game)

CLASSIC
Bzzzt (KO.DLL — 2023), FixFox (Rendlike — 2022), HROT (Spytihněv — 2023), Kromlech (Perun Creative — ve vývoji), Lords and Villeins (Honestly Games — 2022), Last Train Home (Ashborne Games — 2023), Nebuchadnezzar (Nepos Games — 2021), Ministry of Broadcast (Ministry of Broadcast Studios — 2020), The Last Oricru (GoldKnights — 2022)

DORKBOT 2024: THE TENTATIVE RE-ENTRY EDITION
Well, it’s been A TIME. And now we are back. Welcome to Dorkbot London, come along, listen to people Doing Strange Things With Electricity. We’ve missed you.

Free entry, no registration required. Talks start at 7.30pm, doors from 7.00pm.

Don't forget to join our mailing list, and follow us on X (Twitter).

Sarah Angliss
Sarah Angliss explores the sonorities of voices and instruments, revealing and augmenting them with her distinctive and finely wrought electronic techniques. Her debut opera Giant uses eighteenth century instruments, live electronics and the composer's bespoke musical automata as it vividly recalls a disquieting story that resonates through the ages.

https://www.instagram.com/sarah_angliss/ http://www.sarahangliss.com/giant/

Hooman Samani
Talk: Lovotics = Love + Robotics
Hooman Samani is a creative roboticist specialising in AI-driven social service robotics. He has been investigating the relationship between humans and robots with projects like Lovotics (Love + Robotics) and Kissenger (Kiss Messenger). He is currently the course leader of Creative Robotics BSc at the UAL Creative Computing Institute.

https://lovotics.com/

PLUS OPEN DORKS (short talks or demo’s) from...TBA!

Location: The Sekforde
34 Sekforde St., London EC1R 0HA
NB: Unfortunately Upstairs at The Sekforde is NOT wheelchair accessible as there are stairs up to the room.

== By Tube: ==
For anyone on the Elizabeth Line we recommend travelling to Farringdon and using its Barbican exit (not the Farringdon exit). It will spit you out right next to Charterhouse Square (either on Lindsey Street or Hayne Street) , both of which lead onto the Square which is lit almost entirely with gas lamps. The exact opposite of electricity!

If you are coming to Farringdon via rail or tube you can also walk all the way through (within the station) to the Elizabeth Line exit but you may be charged more if touching in on tube/rail and touching out on Elizabeth.

== By Bus: ==
The 153 bus runs along nearby St John Street. The nearest stops are - Aylesbury Street, #54246 or Percival Street (Stop UJ), #55543 (heading towards Finsbury Park) St. John Street Clerkenwell Rd, #53751 (heading towards Liverpool Street)

The 55 and 253 buses also serve Clerkenwell Road.

Or just use CityMapper or whatever...

A human powered aircraft (HPA) is an aircraft powered only by the legs of the pilot. Flying on the very edge of physics, each HPA flight is a triumph of lightweight engineering, low speed aerodynamics, and a heroic pedalling effort.

Jesse has designed, built, and flown, the first successful HPA of the Netherlands, in 2009. He made the design when he was still in high school! Two more HPA projects have followed since.

This lecture tells the story of the second HPA project, where Jesse teamed up with the Dutch Consulate in Japan to enter the first ever European HPA in the Japan International Birdman Rally (JIBR) in 2012.

The JIBR is an annual, televised HPA competition, held over Lake Biwa in Japan. It is the largest and oldest continuous HPA competition in the world. Every year about twelve such aircraft, built by Japanese university teams and industry professionals, compete for the longest flight distance.

Building and flying a 32 meter wingspan aircraft, abroad, in just three months – it sounds incredulous, even to aerospace industry professionals. But it did happen, and this is the story.

Jesse van Kuijk, PhD, is a human powered flight enthusiast from the Netherlands. He studied Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology. His MSc work focused on rotor-stator-wing aerodynamic interaction for turboprop aircraft, and his PhD focused on modelling the physics of metal fatigue. He has worked for PAL-V, a Dutch flying car company, and is currently employed at ASML, a semiconductor photolithography machine developer. In the meantime, he is trying to get a space startup off the ground.

His interests in engineering and aviation are wide and diverse, but human powered flight and human space flight hold a special place.

Jesse made the first successful HPA flight of the Netherlands, in 2009. He designed this aircraft three years earlier at the age of 16(!)

More flights were made in 2010, after which the HPA was retired to the collection of the Aviodrome aerospace museum in Lelystad, the Netherlands.

While Jesse was working on a new and improved HPA design, he got the exceptional opportunity to join the 35th edition of the Japan International Birdman Rally, in 2012. This talk focuses on the adventure of building, testing, and flying this second HPA in Japan.

In 2015, the Belgian prime time popular science TV-show ‘Het lichaam van Coppens’ wanted to answer the question: Can a person fly like a bird in a self-built airplane? Jesse designed a deceivingly simple and easy to build HPA, and the TV presenter flew it successfully.

In 2020, a foundation was established for future human powered flight projects in the Netherlands: 'Stichting Human Powered Flight Nederland' – see also their website.

So far, Jesse has flown seven different HPAs in three different countries.