Royal Society of NSW News & Events

“Failing to learn: using artificial worlds to teach science in a new way”   Professor Michael Jacobson  Professor of Education  University of Sydney Friday 14 August 2015University of Sydney Business School CBD campusLevel 17, 133 Castlereagh Street, Sydney We are going through a major transition in our ability to unde...

“The science of spontaneity: Fred Astaire as consummate craftsman”   Dr Kathleen Riley Wednesday 3 June 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney This talk focused on the science behind Fred Astaire's apparent effortlessness, his ability to make something that was technically complex and endlessly rehearsed look easy ...

“From quantum devices to quantum machines”   James Colless  ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered  Quantum Systems (EQuS),  University of Sydney  Jak Kelly Award winner for 2015 Wednesday 2 December 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney The Jak Kelly Award was created in h...

“Big history”   Professor David Christian  Director, The Big History Institute  Macquarie University Wednesday 4 November 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Since the beginnings of human history, taking stories from the past and synthesising them has delivered far more than the sum of the pa...

Royal Society of NSW scholarship winners 2015 Wednesday 4 February 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Melanie LairdSchool of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney Melanie is a University Medallist in her second year of a PhD under the supervision of Professor Michael Thompson, studying reproduction in marsupials. Rut...

Note: the OGM number 1239 is not used for administrative reasons. Royal Society of New South Wales Scholarship presentations The scholarship winners with the President of the Royal Society of NSW, Dr Donald HectorL-R: Yevgeny Stadnik, Adam Dudek, Don Hector, Charles Forster Wednesday 3 February 2016Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street...

   “Royal Society of NSW – relevance in the 21st   century”   Dr Donald Hector FRSN   President Wednesday 6 April 2016Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Donald Hector was President of the Royal Society of NSW for four years from 2012 to 2016. This is an excerpt from his ...

“How to win an IgNobel Prize and other adventures in communicating science”   Dr Len Fisher  Visiting Fellow in Physics,  University of Bristol Wednesday 2 March 2016Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney This talk in a fun and interesting way was about how scientists go about their work. In 1999, D...

“Royal” not “Philosophical” - W.B. Clarke's Inaugural Address to the Royal Society of NSW   Dr Bob Young   Associate Professor of Geoscience (ret’d),   University of Wollongong Wednesday 6 July 2016Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney The Royal Society of New South Wales is 150 years old this year...

 “The curious case of the scientist in cinema: how  Indiana Jones turns out to be the bad guy!”  Professor Peter Hiscock  Tom Austen Brown Professor of Australian  Archaeology, University of Sydney Wednesday 1 June 2016Union, University & Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Uplifting music and the s...

Annual Black-Tie Dinner, Distinguished Fellow's Lecture and presentation of the Society's 2015 awards Guest of honour: The Society's Vice-Regal Patron, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (ret'd), Governor of New South Wales The Distinguished Fellow's Lecture delivered by Emeritus Professor Eugenie Lumbers AM DistFRSN Wed...

"The cervical cancer vaccine" Professor Ian Frazer, Director of the Centre for Immunology and Cancer Research, University of Queensland and Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, and 2006 Australian of the Year Wednesday 1 November 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT About 25% of cancers are initiated by inf...

"Pandemics, bird flu and the globalisation of fear" Professor Peter Curson, Macquarie University Wednesday 4 October 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT Currently, the world is experiencing two defining events - a panzootic or global outbreak of bird flu, and a pandemic of human reaction and panic. H5N1 is s...

"The frontier of measurement: leading-edge standards for length and time" Dr Bruce Warrington, Head, Time and Frequency Group, National Measurement Institute, Lindfield, Sydney Wednesday 6 September 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT Metrology, the science of measurement, is a dynamic field of research. Adv...

"The overshadowed centenary - the discovery of the pinch effect in 1905" A/Prof. Brian James, School of Physics, Sydney University. Wednesday 2 August 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT Attempts to harness the enormous nuclear energy available from fusing hydrogen into helium have gone on for half a century...

Asian honey bees: biology, conservation and human interactions A/Prof. Ben Oldroyd, School of Biological Sciences, Sydney University. Wednesday 5 July 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT The familiar European hive bee, Apis mellifera, has long dominated honey bee research. But in the last 15 years, teams in ...

"Global evolution of ocean basins" A/Professor Dietmar Müller Geosciences, University of Sydney Wednesday 7 June 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT The large-scale patterns of mantle convection are mainly dependent on the history of subduction. Hence some of the primary constraints on subduction models are ...

"The genetics behind our drinking water turning toxic" Professor Brett Neilan, School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, University of NSW Wednesday 3 May 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES Professor Brett Neilan was a member of the team who won the Royal Societies of Australia 2004 Eurek...

"Cold fusion, the alchemist's dream?" Annual General Meeting & Presidential Address by Professor Jak Kelly, President of the Society Wednesday 5 April 2006, 6.30 for 7 pm Conference Room 1, Darlington Centre, City Road ABSTRACT A brief history of cold fusion and where it fits into conventional physics will be given, leading up to the most recen...

"Can the physicists' description of reality be considered complete?" Nobel Laureate Professor Brian Josephson, Cambridge University Friday 17 March 2006, 6.30 pm Eastern Avenue Auditorium, Sydney University The Pollock Lecture is jointly organised about every three years by the Royal Society of NSW and the University of Sydney. It is given in memor...