Royal Society of NSW News & Events

The ABC Science Show, broadcast on ABC Radio National at noon on Saturday, 13 June 2020, was devoted to the life and achievements of Lord Robert May of Oxford, OM AC Kt FRS DistFRSN FAA FTSE HonFAIB, who died at the age of 84 on 28 April 2020. The program is now available for download from the Science Show website. Lord May, a Distinguished Fellow ...

The Society is pleased to note the awards listed in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours List to Society Fellows: a Companion of the Order to Australia (AC) to Ms Belinda Hutchinson AC FRSN; a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) to Professor Stephen Garton AM FRSN FAHA FASSA; and a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) to Emeritus Professor Roy...

The Royal Society of NSW is delighted to learn of the recognition of three of its Fellows, Professor Gary Froyland FRSN FAA, Professor Katrina Joliffe FRSN FAA, and Distinguished Professor Ian Paulsen FAA FRSN,  being elected as Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science in May 2020.   As Fellows of the Australian Acacdemy of Scien...

Recent events held online by the the Royal Society of NSW are now available on our YouTube channel.  For May 2020, these are the lecture titled “COVID-19 and confusion: the story of a nasty but nice viral receptor” presented at the Society’s Hunter Branch by Emeritus Professor Eugenie Lumbers AM DistFRSN FAA, and the inaugural [email protected] e...

The Royal Society of NSW is delighted to announce the release on its YouTube channel of the recording of the inaugural [email protected] presentation, conducted by webinar on the evening of Thursday, 21 May 2020. [email protected] is an initiative of Her Excellency, The Honourable Margaret Beazley AC QC, Governor of New South Wales, to open Government Ho...

The Royal Society of NSW is delighted that one of its Fellows, Professor John Shine AC FRS FRSN FAA, has just been elected, in 2020, as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. He is well known for his role in discovering the Shine-Dalgarno gene sequence, and was responsible for the initiation and termination of protein-synthesis. Further, he was a...

Archer Materials, an Australian start-up led by CEO Dr Mohammad Choucair—a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW and a former member of the Society’s Council—has just joined the IBM Q Network. Archer, which is developing room temperature quantum computing technology, is the first Australian company to join the IBM Q network as an ecosystem partner. Dr...

The Society is saddened to learn of the death of one of its Distinguished Fellows, Lord May of Oxford, OM AC Kt FRS DistFRSN FAA FTSE HonFAIB, on 28 April 2020, aged 84. Lord May was a pioneering Australian scientist whose work in biology led to the development of chaos theory. He was one of Australia's most accomplished scientists, being elevated ...

From time to time, the Society recognises Members and Fellows who have made important contributions to the Society and its work. This is through the Society Medal, which is awarded from time to time to a Member or Fellow who has made meritorious contributions to the Society’s administration, organisation, and endeavours, and through the Society Cit...

A high proportion of COVID-19 patients experience a total or partial loss of smell. This, in turn, has led to a call for anosmia (smell loss) to be treated as a symptom of the disease. Of importance in managing the coronavirus pandemic is the possibility that smell loss can begin as the only symptom in a person who is otherwise well, but who may be...

On 27 February 2020 the Royal Society of NSW and the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts presented a celebration of the 300th anniversary of Bach’s solo violin pieces with a lecture by Dr David Hush FRSN on Bach’s enduring popularity and influence. The evening featured performances by award winning violinist Anna Da Silva Chen of Bach’s Sonata for Sol...

In the spirit of advancing knowledge, the Royal Society of NSW is making available the videos from the 7th November 2019 Forum “Making SPACE for Australia”, held in conjunction with the four Learned Academies. The videos and related slide presentations for each individual speaker have been uploaded to the Society’s YouTube channel, launched on 19 M...

The Royal Society of NSW wishes to assure all Members and Fellows of the Royal Society of NSW that the Society’s Council takes very seriously its responsibility to safeguard the health of its constituency throughout the pandemic, and not only to conform to Government expectations but also to encourage others to do so as well. Therefore, no face-to-...

The Royal Society of NSW is delighted that one of its Fellows and leading childhood cancer researcher, Professor Maria Kavallaris AM FRSN, has been named NSW Woman of the Year for 2020 by the NSW Premier, Ms Gladys Berejiklian. Maria’s pathway to cancer research, and the development of less toxic treatments for childhood cancers, had a very persona...

The Society is pleased to announce that the March 2020 edition of the Bulletin (Issue 440) and the December 2019 edition of the RSNSW Journal and Proceedings (Vol. 152-2) are now available on the website and are available for downloading. A table of contents of this issue of the Journal is also available, enabling access to individual articles. The...

The list of Fellows and Distinguished Fellows, elected by the Royal Society of NSW during 2019, was gazetted by the New South Wales Government on 26 February 2020.  

The 2018 Liversidge Lecture of the Royal Society of NSW was delivered at UNSW Sydney on the evening of 20 February 20120 by Scientia Professor Martina Stenzel FAA of the UNSW School of Chemistry. A report on the lecture delivered by Professor Stezel is now available. 

The Hunter Branch has just announced its second event for the year, a lecture by Professor Tony Capon of Monash University titled “Planetary Health: Safeguarding Health in the Anthropocence Epoch”, to be held at Newcastle City Hall on 25 March.  Also, a report on the Branch’s first meeting of the year (31 January) that included a presentation&...

The Royal Society of NSW records with great regret the passing of one of its valued Fellows, Dr Brian Spies FRSN FTSE.Dr Spies worked in research and management in the resource and environmental sectors in Australia and the USA, with positions in industry, academia and government.  His roles in Australia included Chief Research Scientist at CS...

All of us in the Royal Society of New South Wales have been distressed and saddened by the devastating bushfires that have darkened our skies, our landscape, and our spirits over the summer. Some of our Members and Fellows have suffered personal loss of irreplaceable property. Some have been personally involved in firefighting while others have don...