|
PROGRAMME FOR 2008/2009 |
||
|
September 3rd 2008 Conflict and cooperation in the social insects |
Adam Hart PhD, MA (Cantab) PGCHE Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in Biological Sciences Associate Editor Ecological Entomology |
Dr Adam Hart grew up in South Devon and studied Zoology at Cambridge before moving to Sheffield to study ants, wasps and bees for his PhD. He spent 7 years there, moving on to post-doctoral research before becoming a lecturer. He moved to a permanent position in the University of Gloucestershire, where he is now course leader in Biosciences. He has researched conflict and cooperation in many different species of social insect with his current research focussing on leaf cutting ants. However, he has started to branch out into many different areas of biology and is involved in research on bird nesting, migration, bacterial degradation of rubber and the management of waste in nests. |
|
October 1st Planets and Life Beyond the Solar System |
Dr Barrie W Jones |
PLANETS & LIFE BEYOND THE SOLAR SYSTEM About 300 planets are known to exist beyond the Solar System. These are called exoplanets. They are distributed in about 260 exoplanetary systems, nearly 30 of which are known to have more than one planet. Because they are easier to detect, nearly all of the exoplanets are giants, with masses over 50 times the mass of the Earth – more like Jupiter and Saturn than our planet. Giants are likely to have deep, hot atmospheres consisting largely of hydrogen and helium, and accounting for a substantial fraction of the planet's mass. Giants would not be habitable by life as we know it – life based on complex carbon compounds and liquid water – indeed probably not by any sort of life at all. But a few less massive planets have been discovered – at present the least massive known exoplanets are just a few times the mass of the Earth. Such planets, like the Earth, are likely to be rocky-iron in composition with a veneer, perhaps a substantial layer, of water, topped with a relatively thin atmosphere. These difficult-to-detect low mass planets will continue to be discovered, down to Earth mass and below, as better instruments become available and as observations are made for longer times. I will outline the nature of the known exoplanets, and explain why planets with masses greater than about a third of the Earth's mass, up to ten or so Earth masses, and orbiting in what is called the habitable zones of their stars, are by far and away the best candidates for being able to support carbon-liquid water life. (The habitable zone is that range of distances from the star within which water at (most of) the surface of an Earth-type planet would be stable as a liquid – this is the Goldilocks zone, neither too hot nor too cold.) But at present we can only detect exoplanets by the effect they have on the motion of the star they orbit, or on their effect they have on the light from their star (or a background star). We can thus get the mass of an exoplanet, its orbit, and in some cases its radius. In order to determine whether it is inhabited we need to detect the light we receive from the exoplanet. This is hardly possible at present, due to the far greater, smeared out brightness of an exoplanet's star – like a glow-worm near a searchlight on a misty night. I will explain this difficulty, and how more powerful telescopes will enable us to overcome it. For low mass exoplanets we look to ESA's Darwin space telescope and NASA's TPF space telescope, which might be in orbit in about a decade. I will then explain how, once we can detect the light from an exoplanet, we can analyse it to see whether the exoplanet is habitable, or indeed inhabited. Of particular importance is an exoplanet's emission spectrum at infrared wavelengths. This is formed by infrared radiation emitted from the surface, passing through the exoplanet's atmosphere, where the atmospheric constituents absorb certain wavelengths. Atmospheric composition and surface properties can thus be obtained. How this leads to establishing habitability/inhabitation will be revealed. A short cut to discovering life out there would be if life told us it was there. This brings us to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, but that's another story ...... A review of the whole area, at popular science level, and just published, is "The Search for Life Continued: Planets Around Other Stars" Barrie W Jones Springer-Praxis (2008) ISBN 13: 978-0-387-76557-0 MARS BEFORE THE SPACE AGE (To be given to the Monmouth Astronomical Research Society (MARS) on 7 April 2009 Tuesday Evening 7.30pm ) Mars has surely been scrutinised since the dawn of humankind. Its appearance every couple of years like a drop of blood in the sky, led to warlike attributes in the ancient world. In the 16th century Tycho Brahe made accurate observations of the position of Mars, that enabled Johannes Kepler to obtain his first two laws of planetary motion. These in turn were explained by Newton’s laws of motion and gravity. In the 17th century the first telescope observations were made, but Mars is small, and very little surface detail could be discerned. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries telescopes improved, revealing many dark areas on the red tinted surface. During the close opposition of 1877 sufficient detail could be seen that enabled Giovanni Schiaparelli to announce that he could see about 40 canali on Mars. This led to the saga of the canals of Mars, finally laid to rest in 1971 when Mariner 9 made observations from Martian orbit showing that the canali/canals do not exist. Belief that there was life on Mars was widespread in the nineteenth century. However, the majority of astronomers never believed in Martian intelligence. Least controversial was the view that the dark areas were some form of plant life. This view persisted until Mariner 4 flew past Mars in 1965 and discovered a far thinner atmosphere than previously thought. This was a low point, with impact craters dominating the images. It was Mariner 9 that revealed much more promising landscapes, including volcanic features, and others indicating that water had flowed across the surface, particularly when Mars was young. Thus, the contemporary era of Mars exploration began. Our picture of Mars today is not only much more complete than that before Mariner 4, in several ways it is quite different. But the belief that there might be life on Mars persists – subsurface life cannot be ruled out, and failing that, there might be ancient fossils on Mars. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY Barrie W Jones was an undergraduate in the Department of Physics at the University of Bristol, from where he subsequently obtained his PhD. This was followed by a research assistantship in gamma-ray astronomy at Bristol, and then a lectureship in the Faculty of Engineering. He left Bristol for Cornell University, where, for three years he did research in infrared astronomy and in lunar geophysics. In 1972 he joined the Open University as a lecturer in physics, was promoted to senior lecturer in 1977, and to a personal chair in astronomy in 2001, and was made Emeritus Professor of Astronomy in 2007. At the OU Barrie Jones has chaired four production course teams: ST291 Images and Information, S256 Matter in the Universe, S281 Astronomy & Planetary Science, and S194 Introducing Astronomy. In addition he played a major role in boosting and producing the astronomy content of S103 Science: a Foundation Course, and in initiating the replacement of S281 by S282 Astronomy and S283 Planetary Science and the Search for Life. For much of his time at the OU he has had managerial responsibilities, including spells as Head of the Department of Physics & Astronomy, the longest spell for the three years 1999-2001. Barrie Jones is the author of four books. Three are undergraduate textbooks: The Solar System, Pergamon (1984); Discovering the Solar System, Wiley (1999), second edition (2007); Life in the Solar System and Beyond, Springer-Praxis (2004). One book is for the popular astronomy shelves: The Search for Life Continued: Planets Around Other Stars, Springer-Praxis (2008). He has also co-authored a broad appeal, richly illustrated book, Images of the Cosmos, Hodder & Stoughton/OU (1994). Since 1997 Barrie Jones’s main research has been in exoplanetary systems: on the possibility of habitable planets existing among the known exosystems; on giant planet shielding of terrestrial planets in the habitable zone (HZ); and on the formation of terrestrial planets in the HZ after migration of a giant planet through the HZ. In 2006 he was awarded the inaugural David Wynn-Williams prize by the Astrobiology Society of Britain for contributions to astrobiology. He serves on national and international bodies, including the Royal Astronomical Society (one-time member of Council and of the Education Committee), and the International Astronomical Union (he is editor of the Newsletter of the Commission for Astronomy Education & Development). A few years ago he was President of the Society for Popular Astronomy. He is on the editorial board of the International Journal for Astrobiology. He has written many popular articles in astronomy, and has appeared on TV and the radio. |
|
November 5th AGM A brief history of Ferrous Metallurgy |
Alan Freer |
Allan Freer is a third generation foundry man who spent his whole working life in competitive industry on the development and control of metallurgical processes for the production of high volume specialist castings for the motor industry. An Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Cast Metal Engineers, he has also been a member of the Historical Metallurgical Society for 38 years. He has always been fascinated by the process technology of metalworking, it's history running parallel to the development of western civilisation not only in domestic and cultural life but in the direction of political change and the forces needed to achieve it. He recalls the making of his first casting (in Lead) at the age of around ten or eleven ( supervised by his father of course). His talk will be followed by viewing a collection of slides which show how artists from the 14th to the 20th century have recorded these events in their paintings. |
|
December 3rd Antarctica |
David Fletcher | A new lecture from the ever popular polar scientist |
|
January 7th
2009 Geo-Thermal Heating |
Ivan Lucas | TBA |
|
February 4th Nuclear Energy |
A Speaker from British Energy | TBA |
|
March 3rd Astronomy |
Mark Gibbons | TBA |
|
April 1st Earthquakes & Buildings |
Dr Adam Crewe | TBA |
| May 6th | TBA | TBA |