Royal Society of NSW News & Events

“Is the brain the right size?”   Scientia Professor George Paxinos AO  School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Wednesday 1 April 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Scientia Professor George Paxinos described the outstanding body of research that he has conducted over many years on mapping the structure of th...

“The revolution in radio astronomy”   Professor Elaine Sadler  University of Sydney Wednesday 7 October 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Radio astronomy is currently entering a 'golden age', when new telescopes of unprecedented sensitivity will allow us to explore the Universe in ways that have neve...

“Science in literature”   Dr James Ley   Editor, Sydney Review of Books Wednesday 1 July 2015Union University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Literature and science have historically been seen as competing and sometimes opposed disciplines, confined to their own discrete modes of comprehension. James Ley will consider s...

"From the Solar Nebula to the Deep Earth – a Geological Journey"   Professor Bill Griffin  Distinguished Professor of Geochemistry,  Macquarie University Date: Thursday 6 August 2015 Venue: Building Y3A, Theatre 1, Macquarie University Bill will tell the story of the journey to the surface of the remarkable rocks ...

“Quantum entanglement and superconductivity”   Professor Subir Sachdev   Professor of Physics, Harvard University Held in conjunction with UNSW and the Australian Institute of Physics Tuesday 1 September 2015John B. Reid Theatre, AGSM Building, UNSW Einstein called it "spooky action at a distance". Entanglement is a counter-intu...

“Super-resolution microscopy: understanding how T-cells make decisions”   Scientia Professor Katharina Gaus  ARC Centre of Excellence in Advanced   Molecular Imaging   Program in Membrane Interface Biology, UNSW​ Wednesday 4 March 2015Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Professor Gaus d...

“Trait-based ecology”   Professor Mark Westoby   Department of Biological Sciences   Macquarie University  NSW Scientist of the Year 2014 Wednesday 2 September 2015Union University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street, Sydney Ecological strategies summarize the variety of styles that different plant species have ...

"Cultural transitions over the last 100,000 years and the future"   Professor Roland Fletcher   Professor of Theoretical and World Archaeology   University of Sydney Date: Wednesday 5 August 2015 Venue: Union, University and Schools Club, 25 Bent Street Sydney Professor Fletcher described and explained the major cultur...

“The wonders of the Hubble Space Telescope”   Professor Michael Burton  School of Physics, UNSW Friday 21 August 2015University of Sydney Business School CBD campus, Level 17, 133 Castlereagh St., Sydney 25 years ago, on 24 April 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into Earth orbit. Aside, perhaps, from Galileo’s origi...

“Big science and big history: From the big bang to us”   Professor David Christian   Director of Big History Institute   Macquarie University Thursday 20 August 2015University of Sydney Business School CBD campus, Level 17, 133 Castlereagh St., Sydney Big History examines our past, explains our present, and imagines ou...

“Aboriginal astronomy and the clash of cultures”   Dr Ragbir Bhathal Tuesday 18 August 2015University of Sydney Business School CBD campus, Level 17, 133 Castlereagh St., Sydney The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been observing the night sky for thousands of years. In that period of time they named the celestial objects...

“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...