SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Convenor Cherry Lewis
Contact: monmouthu3amembership@gmail.com
Contact: monmouthu3amembership@gmail.com
The group meets on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, at the Bridges Centre, Monmouth, from 2.30 to 4.00 pm.
We are a friendly bunch and warmly welcome new members. No qualifications are necessary, just an interest in science and technology in its broadest sense.
Our meetings usually comprise presentations on a scientific or technical topic, followed by a question-and-answer session – and then a cup of tea! Visits to places of interest are also arranged once or twice a year.
Meetings are now held at the Bridges Centre, Monmouth, and in the short term we shall continue to Zoom online as well. The Science and Technology Group subscription of £10 per year covers room hire costs and speaker expenses. Meetings are open to guests for a fee of £2 per meeting.
We are a friendly bunch and warmly welcome new members. No qualifications are necessary, just an interest in science and technology in its broadest sense.
Our meetings usually comprise presentations on a scientific or technical topic, followed by a question-and-answer session – and then a cup of tea! Visits to places of interest are also arranged once or twice a year.
Meetings are now held at the Bridges Centre, Monmouth, and in the short term we shall continue to Zoom online as well. The Science and Technology Group subscription of £10 per year covers room hire costs and speaker expenses. Meetings are open to guests for a fee of £2 per meeting.
Next meeting: Tuesday 12 October at 2.30pm in the
BRIDGES CENTRE and via Zoom
My involvement with the BSE outbreak
A presentation by Dr Mike Ansfield
BRIDGES CENTRE and via Zoom
My involvement with the BSE outbreak
A presentation by Dr Mike Ansfield
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In the early 1980s cattle were showing symptoms of a nervous disorder. This unknown syndrome appeared to have similarities with scrapie in sheep, but there was also a sudden increase in a specific nervous disorder in humans. MAFF (now DEFRA) banned the use of animal proteins in animal feedstuffs and a test had to be developed to detect illegal usage. Looking back almost 40 years, Dr Mike Ansfield will tell us about his involvement in this work and ask ‘what did we learn from this outbreak?’.
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Image credit: Wiki Commons
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Forthcoming meetings
November 9 Dr Charles Emes (would-be astronaut): The International Space Station
What weighs 420,000 kilograms and speeds around the earth at 7,660 metres per second? Answer: the International Space Station. In November last year the ISS passed a milestone, having been continuously occupied for 20 years. In this presentation I will describe how the ISS was built, the astronauts and cosmonauts who have occupied it over the last 20 years and how it is supplied and maintained. Lastly, we shall look at some of the research that is being conducted on the station today.
December 14 Ned Kelly: A good lot of fat or a fat lot of good (cholesterol and statins)
This talk will clarify some of the jargon around cholesterol and dietary fat, the current thinking on dietary advice regarding cholesterol, and the way statins work. Ned Kelly (my real name is Neil but everyone calls me Ned) is now retired after 40 years in the Pharmaceutical Industry. The last 20 years involved a role called Medical Science Liaison, which meant educating and training healthcare professionals on forthcoming medicines. This covered many different therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular disease and the role of statins.
Past Meetings and Trips
10 August 2021
Visit to the Jenner Museum, Berkeley
Having heard the talk on Zoom earlier this year by Prof. Gareth Williams about Edward Jenner (1749 – 1823), we now had a chance to visit the Jenner Museum in Berkeley. This is housed in his impressive house named The Chantry, where Jenner lived for many years.
The museum has recreated Jenner’s study, which includes much memorabilia illustrating the wide intellectual interests and curiosities of this medical doctor. Other rooms are given over to detailed information about Jenner’s life, his amazing network of contacts and his work on the smallpox vaccination. There was considerable analysis of how the human body is geared to fight invasive bodies, leading into an explanation of how vaccinations work, and why they are so important for us.
Outside there is quite a large garden. One area is a recent re-creation of a Physic Garden, growing the herbs and other plants that would have been used to treat various ailments in Jenner’s time. There is also an intriguing thatched Temple of Vaccinia, where local inhabitants were given their vaccinations. Finally, an impressive glasshouse where five grape vines planted by Jenner in 1821 still flourish.
Both an educational and enjoyable trip out, especially after the 18 months of covid restrictions. Jenner, I am sure, would certainly approve of the speed and extent of our own recent vaccination programmes.
Jim Handley
13 July 2021
Dinosaurs – New Visions of a Lost World by Professor Michael Benton, University of Bristol
If all you have is a fossil, how can you possibly predict what colour a dinosaur was? Mike Benton, Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Bristol, over the course of an hour revealed just how scientists are now able to determine the colour of an animal that died 60 million years ago.
The story started in 1996 when a small group of Chinese paleontologists arrived at a conference in New York and released news of “dinosaur fossils with feathers”. The specimen they revealed was incredibly well-preserved and showed a complete skeleton of a small dinosaur with tufts along the back and tail that looked like feathers. The fossil was named Sinosauropteryx. A paper published in Nature two years later from a different group in China also claimed discovery of a feathered dinosaur. Later it turned out these were two halves of the same specimen.
Previously it had been the discovery of the fossil of Archaeopteryx in 1861 that had caused a stir with Thomas Huxley describing it as “a dinosaur in bird’s clothing”. It was the so-called missing link between dinosaurs and birds, because it not only had feathers but also teeth in the jawbone. There are just 10 fossils of Archaeopteryx that have been found to date, but in the northern provinces of China they have discovered thousands of new fossil specimens of feathered dinosaurs and birds.
Apart from Sinosauropteryx, other species include Caudipteryx, which has complex pernate feathers, and Microraptor which has feathers on four limbs and tail. Presently there are some 50 feathered species of dinosaur which have helped to show how birds evolved from dinosaurs by a gradual decrease in size and the development of complex feathers.
Evidence of the colour of dinosaurs comes from modern animals following studies of hair and feather pigmentation. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) pictures reveal that it is the packing of structures called melanosomes that give hair and feathers their colour. By viewing feathers from Sinosauropteryx in an SEM, it revealed the same structures as those in modern birds and this also applies to skin pigmentation in mammals. Thus a “chain of inference” is used to deduce the pigmentation in the feathers and body of dinosaurs.
We were also treated to an array of artist illustrations of dinosaur species reconstructed from fossils, as well as giant-headed birds and 10-ton armoured, land-based monsters.
In a final footnote Prof. Benton described how scientists have deduced other characteristics of dinosaurs such as running speed, bite force, feeding style and growth rate. Steven Spielberg got it all wrong, apparently T. rex could not run very fast at all; you could easily out-run it. Good to know.
Charles Emes
11 May 2021
A virtual tour of the Diamond Light Source facility
This month’s meeting was a double bill featuring two members of the Diamond Light Source staff. In the first hour Amy Griffin, Public Engagement co-ordinator, gave us a detailed, well-illustrated presentation on the Diamond facility, explaining how it works and the numerous experimental procedures currently being carried out there, not least of which is important research on the efficacy of drugs to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Diamond synchrotron consists of an electron gun to produce a stream of low energy electrons, a linear accelerator to increase their energy and a booster synchrotron to further accelerate the electrons to their final energy before entering the storage ring. This maintains their energy and confines the electron beam as it produces synchrotron light for a wide variety of experiments. There are 32 beam lines leading off the storage ring servicing laboratories using radiation of different wavelengths.
The unique set of characteristics displayed by synchrotron light - high brilliance, high intensity, sharp focus, tunability - gives it advantages over conventional techniques. This is why so many scientists use it in an extensive range of research areas, furthering knowledge, which helps to foster breakthroughs in fields ranging from health, the environment and engineering, to astrophysics and archaeology.
Over 14,000 researchers from across life and physical sciences both from academia and industry use Diamond to conduct experiments, assisted by approximately 700 staff. 90% of the facility is given to academic research and 10% to industry. Approximately 7000 articles a year are published in Research Journals.
In the second hour, Dr David Price took us on a virtual tour of the vast machine, visiting every section and answering our many questions on the way. Our attention was drawn to the health and safety aspect and the need for shielding from the radiation. The photographs enabled us to see close-ups which would be difficult to achieve on a personal visit. Nevertheless, our appetite was whetted for a face-to-face tour as soon as circumstances permit.
The Diamond Light Source is a not-for-profit limited company funded as a joint venture between UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and the Wellcome Trust.
Valerie Conniff
13th April 2021
How weather forecasts are made
Our April meeting on zoom was by Colin McAllister from the Met. Office on ‘How a weather forecast is made’. With 40 years’ experience, an infectious personality and excellent images in support, he brought his subject alive.
He took us through the history of the Met Office focusing on the skills of individuals working with limited information input and no computer help to gradually improve their forecast outputs. Just looking at the four relative positions of low and high pressure areas near the British Isles, brought home why our weather is so variable. In those days short-term daily forecasts were good on temperature ranges and not too bad on rain arriving. But sometime the timing was a bit out.
Increasingly sophisticated computers and other technology has enabled the organisation to vastly improve the accuracy, timing, and range of its forecasts, not just for the UK but throughout the world. Things have rapidly advanced from systems primarily based on surface land measurements to those which take into account all variable factors in the atmosphere and the oceans (a key driver). Satellites have taken the information available into new realms.
One key in all the work of the Met Office these days is to run repeated computer modelling of a range of data inputs from which, as Colin illustrated, surprisingly accurate predictions can be drawn. Thus, as he said, they can pass on information about when snow will arrive in Bournemouth on a particular day with a considerable degree of accuracy. It is then up to their customers to decide when to salt the roads.
Another fascinating aspect we were shown was how a range of UK wide maps can be rapidly produced to show the probability of, say, 40, 80, or 120 mm of rain falling in the time ahead, so as to enable emergency responders to initiate action to reduce its impact and prepare for flooding.
This was an amazing insight into what goes on behind the scenes. Even down to which TV channels do (or don’t) use Met Office trained presenters for their upfront forecasts!
Jim Handley
9th March 2021
Is Your Phone Seducing You? by Dr Tom Chatfield
We were treated to a fascinating talk by Tom Chatfield who spoke about the emotional relationship we have with our “tech”. Tom started with a brief history of computing when in the 40s and 50s computing was dominated by enormous mainframe computers. Allegedly the IBM CEO of the time thought there might be “potential for 9 or 10 computers in the world”. All that changed in the 1980s with the emergence of personal computing (and Microsoft’s goal of having a computer on every desk and in every home).
In 1990, however, we moved into a much more intimate relationship with our tech with hand-held devices (phones and tablets) which are, for some people, the first thing they touch in the morning and the last thing they touch at night. Tom referred to “doom scrolling” - the habit of some insomniacs to lie in bed and scroll endlessly through the doom-laden news.
The appalling statistic is that there are now more phones than people on the planet. In some countries, which do not have a broadband infrastructure, all internet access is by phone.
Tom went on to explain that what is good for machines is not good for humans. Machines are all about speed and volume and you cannot get the best out of humans with the same approach. Technology companies have been reverse-engineering how humans behave so they can deliver more (dis)information but bear no responsibility for ensuring it’s truthful or accurate.
Tom then described his 10 commandments to aid us with critical thinking when assessing on-line information.
1. Slow down – to pause and question the reliability of the information or the urgent need to follow up.
2. Conserve mental energy – recognise that we have limited will-power and not to be drawn in (like gamblers are to Vegas).
3. If in doubt, wait – don’t be forced into a decision. Check and be cautious.
4. Beware of good stories – a good story may be simplified and seductive because it reinforces our beliefs.
5. Know your limits – recognise that we are clueless on a lot of subjects, so do the research.
6. What you see is never all there – the information we may be provided with is only a small fraction of what is available.
7. Recent is not the same as relevant – our devices deliver recent information which may not be the most relevant.
8. Put claims to a meaningful test – claims that the moon landings were fake do not bear up under scrutiny.
9. Pick your own frames of reference – we may be offered a choice where the frame of reference is deliberately misleading
10. Every option can be wrong – just because you are given two choices does not mean that they are the only ones available.
And on that note, I shall put my device firmly away in a drawer and grab a book.
Charles Emes
9th February 2021
Artificial Intelligence by Leigh Edwards
Leigh started with the history of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which started before WWII.
AI isn’t robots, it’s actually the software that does some sort of function, like face recognition or reading mammograms.
There are 3 types of AI:
Each previous generation of engineers and scientist has predicted that AGI is just around the corner. But it is stubbornly elusive, with the current predications having moved out to being 100 years off. Basically, the human brain is just so complex and clever!
As for ASI, who knows when that will happen? It is ASI that produced the “self-aware” computer in the film “Terminator”. Let’s hope that we will have programmed in Isaac Asimov’s 3 Laws into computers well before that day!
Write up by Wendy Lefevre
12th January 2021
Rockets, Satellites, Space Lasers and the Internet: how SpaceX plans to connect everyone everywhere by Professor Mark Handley, UCL.
Mark described how Elon Musk’s ultimate ambition is to colonise Mars. He took us through the successes and issues involved in developing rocket systems to provide both the means and sources of funding to support this ultimate aim. Today the SpaceX company provides the Falcon 9 to take astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station and this rocket now has a reusable booster system which is much cheaper to operate. Testing is now progressing on what will be a fully reusable Starship rocket for the Mars missions.
But optimum travel alignment to Mars only occurs every 18 months, so how to use the rocket capability to make money meanwhile? The answer -- rebuild the internet in space using thousands of satellites. Why? It will get the internet to anywhere not connected now and will reduce transmission delays [albeit measured in milliseconds] compared with current speeds via optic fibre. Speed is of the essence for various high frequency traders or even for carrying out telesurgery and those users will pay for this.
Mark showed how 60 flat packed satellites can be put into a 550k orbit using one launch of a reusable rocket. Using simulation he showed how speeds could be improved for a return message between New York and London using lasers linking 6 satellites – down from 76ms now to 42ms. So far 955 satellites have been launched with plans for 4200 by mid 2021 and ultimately 12000.
The use of lasers may come on stream later this year. Even without this there are plans to use multiple narrow beamed radio links bouncing information between ground relay stations and satellites, which will still considerably improve current coverage and speeds.
To many this seems like science fiction but it is happening now. Only in December you could see 30 or so newly launched satellites following each other across the sky above Monmouth on their way into orbit.
A great presentation with wonderful images and videos. As Mark’s parents it was lovely for Pat and I to find out more about what he gets up to!
Jim Handley
8th December 2020
The Bloodhound Project by Allan Reid
We had a fascinating talk by Allan Reid about Land Speed Record attempts by the British car called the Bloodhound. Allan is a STEM and Bloodhound Ambassador for South Wales. He is one of hundreds of volunteers who share their passion in this project and try to engage young people in STEM projects.
The Bloodhound Programme is a registered charity that receives no government funding. It started up in 2008 and split off from the Bloodhound SSC company when it went into administration in 2019.
Allan gave us a history of the land speed records which began surprisingly as far back as 1898 with an electric vehicle that reached 39mph. For the first half of the 20th century land speed records were dominated by British vehicles but in 1969 the records were held by American vehicles when jet propulsion became prevalent.
Another Briton, Richard Noble, became the holder of the land speed record between 1983 and 1997. He crashed in his first car Thrust 1 but achieved a new land speed record of 633mph in Thrust 2 powered by a Rolls Royce jet turbine. In 1997 it was Andy Green who drove Thrust SSC supersonic by breaking the sound barrier at 763mph.
The Bloodhound SSC project had a vision to design and build a car that would reach speeds of 1000mph. CAD (computer-aided design) was used to design the car and its components. We learnt CFD (computational fluid dynamics) is used to optimise the shape of the car and reduce drag while 3D printing is used to build various components including the titanium steering wheel.
Ian Warhurst bought Bloodhound SSC and the IPR in 2019 and the car in its new livery reached 628mph on a new track in South Africa. It is hoped that in the next few years, with the appropriate funding, that the team will return to South Africa for an attempt to reach the car’s design speed of 1000mph. Just don’t blink or you’ll miss it. Charles Emes
10th November 2020
On the Trail of the Ice Age in the West Midlands Conurbation and Herefordshire -- Prof. Ian Fairchild.
Ian delivered a far reaching talk linking broader geological research into ice ages to what happened during the most recent advance and retreat of glaciers in the West Midlands Conurbation and western Herefordshire.
Within the broader research he embraced the work of historical figures like Charles Darwin and Louis Agassiz, the latter first recognising the significance of ice worn pebbles and erratics moved by glaciers.
He then turned to the work of the Rev. Crosskey and his Erratics Block Group who first mapped the erratics found in the West Midlands in the late 1800s. This work is being updated by the Earth Heritage Trust [of which Ian is the chair]
He showed us how the chemical and physical analysis of these erratics has become a key factor in determining the source and scale of the glaciers that impacted into the more local areas to our north.
Finally he gave us the details of an ongoing lottery funded EHT and Wildlife Trust project in western Herefordshire. This is identifying and researching ponds which originated in depressions—kettle holes -- in the landscape caused by the slow melting of ice blocks. Jim Handley
Tuesday 6th October 2020
Game Theory, Strategies, Decisions and the Prisoner’s Dilemma – Phil Charlesworth
Phil Charlesworth is becoming a regular contributor to the science group having previously talked about amateur rocketry and solar powered flight. He turned a seemingly opaque topic into a simple to follow mixture of history, familiar games and only a tiny amount of formal mathematics.
The history of games and game theory can be traced from 1838 and then through the mid twentieth century when the subject was formalised by mathematician John von Neumann.
A game has two or more competitors and has some form of structure or rules. One example used was rock-paper-scissors where one player’s gain is the other’s loss (zero sum). Over time both players will expect to win half the games. Another example is where two companies compete for market share and can advertise and gain business unless the other company does the same, in which case neither wins and both suffer the cost of the advertising.
Although described as games such thinking has many serious applications and has been widely used in economics, but also auctions, biology and most seriously politics. We were asked to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy was faced with Kruschev, leader of the USSR, in a stand-off over a missile base on Cuba. This can be analysed as a “game” with competing players and a small range of strategies. Fortunately the outcome for the world was “benign”.
Modern “game theory” has developed with ever more complex situations and the availability of serious computing resources. There have been several Nobel prize winners in the field.
A question afterwards related to the current pandemic and we can all hope that game theory might contribute to an optimal solution. Michael Bone
September 8th 2020
River Usk: Source to sea. Part 1: Black Mountain to Abergavenny
This presentation given by Alan Bowring, Development Officer for Fforest Fawr Geopark, took us on an hours’ long virtual journey from the source of the River Usk in the Black Mountain to the point it reaches Abergavenny. Each stop throughout the length of the journey was accompanied by detailed information, beautiful photographs and useful map references. As well as highlighting the salient geological aspects, we learnt much about its archaeological, historical and industrial heritage. Our attention was drawn to important Grade 1 listed buildings and bridges along the way.
From the point of flowing out of the Usk reservoir, the river and its tributaries have been designated as a SAC ( special area of conservation) and SSSI ( site of special scientific interest). Unsullied by industrial effluent, the water is pure enough to sustain a wide variety of aquatic life, making it attractive to anglers (George Melly amongst them) and it is also home to otters.
Alan had interesting comments, observations and anecdotes to share, which we will take with us on our next visit to the area. We are very grateful to Alan and his colleagues in the Geopark for their work in conserving this unique environment. Valerie Conniff
Visit to the Jenner Museum, Berkeley
Having heard the talk on Zoom earlier this year by Prof. Gareth Williams about Edward Jenner (1749 – 1823), we now had a chance to visit the Jenner Museum in Berkeley. This is housed in his impressive house named The Chantry, where Jenner lived for many years.
The museum has recreated Jenner’s study, which includes much memorabilia illustrating the wide intellectual interests and curiosities of this medical doctor. Other rooms are given over to detailed information about Jenner’s life, his amazing network of contacts and his work on the smallpox vaccination. There was considerable analysis of how the human body is geared to fight invasive bodies, leading into an explanation of how vaccinations work, and why they are so important for us.
Outside there is quite a large garden. One area is a recent re-creation of a Physic Garden, growing the herbs and other plants that would have been used to treat various ailments in Jenner’s time. There is also an intriguing thatched Temple of Vaccinia, where local inhabitants were given their vaccinations. Finally, an impressive glasshouse where five grape vines planted by Jenner in 1821 still flourish.
Both an educational and enjoyable trip out, especially after the 18 months of covid restrictions. Jenner, I am sure, would certainly approve of the speed and extent of our own recent vaccination programmes.
Jim Handley
13 July 2021
Dinosaurs – New Visions of a Lost World by Professor Michael Benton, University of Bristol
If all you have is a fossil, how can you possibly predict what colour a dinosaur was? Mike Benton, Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Bristol, over the course of an hour revealed just how scientists are now able to determine the colour of an animal that died 60 million years ago.
The story started in 1996 when a small group of Chinese paleontologists arrived at a conference in New York and released news of “dinosaur fossils with feathers”. The specimen they revealed was incredibly well-preserved and showed a complete skeleton of a small dinosaur with tufts along the back and tail that looked like feathers. The fossil was named Sinosauropteryx. A paper published in Nature two years later from a different group in China also claimed discovery of a feathered dinosaur. Later it turned out these were two halves of the same specimen.
Previously it had been the discovery of the fossil of Archaeopteryx in 1861 that had caused a stir with Thomas Huxley describing it as “a dinosaur in bird’s clothing”. It was the so-called missing link between dinosaurs and birds, because it not only had feathers but also teeth in the jawbone. There are just 10 fossils of Archaeopteryx that have been found to date, but in the northern provinces of China they have discovered thousands of new fossil specimens of feathered dinosaurs and birds.
Apart from Sinosauropteryx, other species include Caudipteryx, which has complex pernate feathers, and Microraptor which has feathers on four limbs and tail. Presently there are some 50 feathered species of dinosaur which have helped to show how birds evolved from dinosaurs by a gradual decrease in size and the development of complex feathers.
Evidence of the colour of dinosaurs comes from modern animals following studies of hair and feather pigmentation. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) pictures reveal that it is the packing of structures called melanosomes that give hair and feathers their colour. By viewing feathers from Sinosauropteryx in an SEM, it revealed the same structures as those in modern birds and this also applies to skin pigmentation in mammals. Thus a “chain of inference” is used to deduce the pigmentation in the feathers and body of dinosaurs.
We were also treated to an array of artist illustrations of dinosaur species reconstructed from fossils, as well as giant-headed birds and 10-ton armoured, land-based monsters.
In a final footnote Prof. Benton described how scientists have deduced other characteristics of dinosaurs such as running speed, bite force, feeding style and growth rate. Steven Spielberg got it all wrong, apparently T. rex could not run very fast at all; you could easily out-run it. Good to know.
Charles Emes
11 May 2021
A virtual tour of the Diamond Light Source facility
This month’s meeting was a double bill featuring two members of the Diamond Light Source staff. In the first hour Amy Griffin, Public Engagement co-ordinator, gave us a detailed, well-illustrated presentation on the Diamond facility, explaining how it works and the numerous experimental procedures currently being carried out there, not least of which is important research on the efficacy of drugs to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Diamond synchrotron consists of an electron gun to produce a stream of low energy electrons, a linear accelerator to increase their energy and a booster synchrotron to further accelerate the electrons to their final energy before entering the storage ring. This maintains their energy and confines the electron beam as it produces synchrotron light for a wide variety of experiments. There are 32 beam lines leading off the storage ring servicing laboratories using radiation of different wavelengths.
The unique set of characteristics displayed by synchrotron light - high brilliance, high intensity, sharp focus, tunability - gives it advantages over conventional techniques. This is why so many scientists use it in an extensive range of research areas, furthering knowledge, which helps to foster breakthroughs in fields ranging from health, the environment and engineering, to astrophysics and archaeology.
Over 14,000 researchers from across life and physical sciences both from academia and industry use Diamond to conduct experiments, assisted by approximately 700 staff. 90% of the facility is given to academic research and 10% to industry. Approximately 7000 articles a year are published in Research Journals.
In the second hour, Dr David Price took us on a virtual tour of the vast machine, visiting every section and answering our many questions on the way. Our attention was drawn to the health and safety aspect and the need for shielding from the radiation. The photographs enabled us to see close-ups which would be difficult to achieve on a personal visit. Nevertheless, our appetite was whetted for a face-to-face tour as soon as circumstances permit.
The Diamond Light Source is a not-for-profit limited company funded as a joint venture between UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) and the Wellcome Trust.
Valerie Conniff
13th April 2021
How weather forecasts are made
Our April meeting on zoom was by Colin McAllister from the Met. Office on ‘How a weather forecast is made’. With 40 years’ experience, an infectious personality and excellent images in support, he brought his subject alive.
He took us through the history of the Met Office focusing on the skills of individuals working with limited information input and no computer help to gradually improve their forecast outputs. Just looking at the four relative positions of low and high pressure areas near the British Isles, brought home why our weather is so variable. In those days short-term daily forecasts were good on temperature ranges and not too bad on rain arriving. But sometime the timing was a bit out.
Increasingly sophisticated computers and other technology has enabled the organisation to vastly improve the accuracy, timing, and range of its forecasts, not just for the UK but throughout the world. Things have rapidly advanced from systems primarily based on surface land measurements to those which take into account all variable factors in the atmosphere and the oceans (a key driver). Satellites have taken the information available into new realms.
One key in all the work of the Met Office these days is to run repeated computer modelling of a range of data inputs from which, as Colin illustrated, surprisingly accurate predictions can be drawn. Thus, as he said, they can pass on information about when snow will arrive in Bournemouth on a particular day with a considerable degree of accuracy. It is then up to their customers to decide when to salt the roads.
Another fascinating aspect we were shown was how a range of UK wide maps can be rapidly produced to show the probability of, say, 40, 80, or 120 mm of rain falling in the time ahead, so as to enable emergency responders to initiate action to reduce its impact and prepare for flooding.
This was an amazing insight into what goes on behind the scenes. Even down to which TV channels do (or don’t) use Met Office trained presenters for their upfront forecasts!
Jim Handley
9th March 2021
Is Your Phone Seducing You? by Dr Tom Chatfield
We were treated to a fascinating talk by Tom Chatfield who spoke about the emotional relationship we have with our “tech”. Tom started with a brief history of computing when in the 40s and 50s computing was dominated by enormous mainframe computers. Allegedly the IBM CEO of the time thought there might be “potential for 9 or 10 computers in the world”. All that changed in the 1980s with the emergence of personal computing (and Microsoft’s goal of having a computer on every desk and in every home).
In 1990, however, we moved into a much more intimate relationship with our tech with hand-held devices (phones and tablets) which are, for some people, the first thing they touch in the morning and the last thing they touch at night. Tom referred to “doom scrolling” - the habit of some insomniacs to lie in bed and scroll endlessly through the doom-laden news.
The appalling statistic is that there are now more phones than people on the planet. In some countries, which do not have a broadband infrastructure, all internet access is by phone.
Tom went on to explain that what is good for machines is not good for humans. Machines are all about speed and volume and you cannot get the best out of humans with the same approach. Technology companies have been reverse-engineering how humans behave so they can deliver more (dis)information but bear no responsibility for ensuring it’s truthful or accurate.
Tom then described his 10 commandments to aid us with critical thinking when assessing on-line information.
1. Slow down – to pause and question the reliability of the information or the urgent need to follow up.
2. Conserve mental energy – recognise that we have limited will-power and not to be drawn in (like gamblers are to Vegas).
3. If in doubt, wait – don’t be forced into a decision. Check and be cautious.
4. Beware of good stories – a good story may be simplified and seductive because it reinforces our beliefs.
5. Know your limits – recognise that we are clueless on a lot of subjects, so do the research.
6. What you see is never all there – the information we may be provided with is only a small fraction of what is available.
7. Recent is not the same as relevant – our devices deliver recent information which may not be the most relevant.
8. Put claims to a meaningful test – claims that the moon landings were fake do not bear up under scrutiny.
9. Pick your own frames of reference – we may be offered a choice where the frame of reference is deliberately misleading
10. Every option can be wrong – just because you are given two choices does not mean that they are the only ones available.
And on that note, I shall put my device firmly away in a drawer and grab a book.
Charles Emes
9th February 2021
Artificial Intelligence by Leigh Edwards
Leigh started with the history of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which started before WWII.
AI isn’t robots, it’s actually the software that does some sort of function, like face recognition or reading mammograms.
There are 3 types of AI:
- ANI – artificial narrow intelligence: the ability to do a very specific and narrow function
- AGI - artificial general intelligence: this is where the capability is equal to humans
- ASI - artificial super intelligence: this is where the capability exceeds humans. This requires the AI to be self-improving.
Each previous generation of engineers and scientist has predicted that AGI is just around the corner. But it is stubbornly elusive, with the current predications having moved out to being 100 years off. Basically, the human brain is just so complex and clever!
As for ASI, who knows when that will happen? It is ASI that produced the “self-aware” computer in the film “Terminator”. Let’s hope that we will have programmed in Isaac Asimov’s 3 Laws into computers well before that day!
Write up by Wendy Lefevre
12th January 2021
Rockets, Satellites, Space Lasers and the Internet: how SpaceX plans to connect everyone everywhere by Professor Mark Handley, UCL.
Mark described how Elon Musk’s ultimate ambition is to colonise Mars. He took us through the successes and issues involved in developing rocket systems to provide both the means and sources of funding to support this ultimate aim. Today the SpaceX company provides the Falcon 9 to take astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station and this rocket now has a reusable booster system which is much cheaper to operate. Testing is now progressing on what will be a fully reusable Starship rocket for the Mars missions.
But optimum travel alignment to Mars only occurs every 18 months, so how to use the rocket capability to make money meanwhile? The answer -- rebuild the internet in space using thousands of satellites. Why? It will get the internet to anywhere not connected now and will reduce transmission delays [albeit measured in milliseconds] compared with current speeds via optic fibre. Speed is of the essence for various high frequency traders or even for carrying out telesurgery and those users will pay for this.
Mark showed how 60 flat packed satellites can be put into a 550k orbit using one launch of a reusable rocket. Using simulation he showed how speeds could be improved for a return message between New York and London using lasers linking 6 satellites – down from 76ms now to 42ms. So far 955 satellites have been launched with plans for 4200 by mid 2021 and ultimately 12000.
The use of lasers may come on stream later this year. Even without this there are plans to use multiple narrow beamed radio links bouncing information between ground relay stations and satellites, which will still considerably improve current coverage and speeds.
To many this seems like science fiction but it is happening now. Only in December you could see 30 or so newly launched satellites following each other across the sky above Monmouth on their way into orbit.
A great presentation with wonderful images and videos. As Mark’s parents it was lovely for Pat and I to find out more about what he gets up to!
Jim Handley
8th December 2020
The Bloodhound Project by Allan Reid
We had a fascinating talk by Allan Reid about Land Speed Record attempts by the British car called the Bloodhound. Allan is a STEM and Bloodhound Ambassador for South Wales. He is one of hundreds of volunteers who share their passion in this project and try to engage young people in STEM projects.
The Bloodhound Programme is a registered charity that receives no government funding. It started up in 2008 and split off from the Bloodhound SSC company when it went into administration in 2019.
Allan gave us a history of the land speed records which began surprisingly as far back as 1898 with an electric vehicle that reached 39mph. For the first half of the 20th century land speed records were dominated by British vehicles but in 1969 the records were held by American vehicles when jet propulsion became prevalent.
Another Briton, Richard Noble, became the holder of the land speed record between 1983 and 1997. He crashed in his first car Thrust 1 but achieved a new land speed record of 633mph in Thrust 2 powered by a Rolls Royce jet turbine. In 1997 it was Andy Green who drove Thrust SSC supersonic by breaking the sound barrier at 763mph.
The Bloodhound SSC project had a vision to design and build a car that would reach speeds of 1000mph. CAD (computer-aided design) was used to design the car and its components. We learnt CFD (computational fluid dynamics) is used to optimise the shape of the car and reduce drag while 3D printing is used to build various components including the titanium steering wheel.
Ian Warhurst bought Bloodhound SSC and the IPR in 2019 and the car in its new livery reached 628mph on a new track in South Africa. It is hoped that in the next few years, with the appropriate funding, that the team will return to South Africa for an attempt to reach the car’s design speed of 1000mph. Just don’t blink or you’ll miss it. Charles Emes
10th November 2020
On the Trail of the Ice Age in the West Midlands Conurbation and Herefordshire -- Prof. Ian Fairchild.
Ian delivered a far reaching talk linking broader geological research into ice ages to what happened during the most recent advance and retreat of glaciers in the West Midlands Conurbation and western Herefordshire.
Within the broader research he embraced the work of historical figures like Charles Darwin and Louis Agassiz, the latter first recognising the significance of ice worn pebbles and erratics moved by glaciers.
He then turned to the work of the Rev. Crosskey and his Erratics Block Group who first mapped the erratics found in the West Midlands in the late 1800s. This work is being updated by the Earth Heritage Trust [of which Ian is the chair]
He showed us how the chemical and physical analysis of these erratics has become a key factor in determining the source and scale of the glaciers that impacted into the more local areas to our north.
Finally he gave us the details of an ongoing lottery funded EHT and Wildlife Trust project in western Herefordshire. This is identifying and researching ponds which originated in depressions—kettle holes -- in the landscape caused by the slow melting of ice blocks. Jim Handley
Tuesday 6th October 2020
Game Theory, Strategies, Decisions and the Prisoner’s Dilemma – Phil Charlesworth
Phil Charlesworth is becoming a regular contributor to the science group having previously talked about amateur rocketry and solar powered flight. He turned a seemingly opaque topic into a simple to follow mixture of history, familiar games and only a tiny amount of formal mathematics.
The history of games and game theory can be traced from 1838 and then through the mid twentieth century when the subject was formalised by mathematician John von Neumann.
A game has two or more competitors and has some form of structure or rules. One example used was rock-paper-scissors where one player’s gain is the other’s loss (zero sum). Over time both players will expect to win half the games. Another example is where two companies compete for market share and can advertise and gain business unless the other company does the same, in which case neither wins and both suffer the cost of the advertising.
Although described as games such thinking has many serious applications and has been widely used in economics, but also auctions, biology and most seriously politics. We were asked to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy was faced with Kruschev, leader of the USSR, in a stand-off over a missile base on Cuba. This can be analysed as a “game” with competing players and a small range of strategies. Fortunately the outcome for the world was “benign”.
Modern “game theory” has developed with ever more complex situations and the availability of serious computing resources. There have been several Nobel prize winners in the field.
A question afterwards related to the current pandemic and we can all hope that game theory might contribute to an optimal solution. Michael Bone
September 8th 2020
River Usk: Source to sea. Part 1: Black Mountain to Abergavenny
This presentation given by Alan Bowring, Development Officer for Fforest Fawr Geopark, took us on an hours’ long virtual journey from the source of the River Usk in the Black Mountain to the point it reaches Abergavenny. Each stop throughout the length of the journey was accompanied by detailed information, beautiful photographs and useful map references. As well as highlighting the salient geological aspects, we learnt much about its archaeological, historical and industrial heritage. Our attention was drawn to important Grade 1 listed buildings and bridges along the way.
From the point of flowing out of the Usk reservoir, the river and its tributaries have been designated as a SAC ( special area of conservation) and SSSI ( site of special scientific interest). Unsullied by industrial effluent, the water is pure enough to sustain a wide variety of aquatic life, making it attractive to anglers (George Melly amongst them) and it is also home to otters.
Alan had interesting comments, observations and anecdotes to share, which we will take with us on our next visit to the area. We are very grateful to Alan and his colleagues in the Geopark for their work in conserving this unique environment. Valerie Conniff
Science and Technology Meetings
2019-2020
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