Place and Time: Abingdon, Thursday 19 April from 19:00 for 19:30

New Location: King Charles Room, King’s Head and Bell, (10 E St Helen St, Abingdon OX14 5EA)

Title: Challenges and Controversies in Sustainable Diets

There is general agreement that predominantly plant-based diets are healthier and more environmentally sustainable than diets with high portions of meat and dairy. However, some controversies persist and country-case studies have shown instances where plant-based diets can be higher in emissions, water use, land use, price, and lead to increases in micro-nutrient deficiencies. In my talk, I address those issues by using a harmonised global dataset with country-level detail for emissions, land use, water use, prices, and nutrient content of food consumption. I find that selective specification of plant-based diets and inclusion of extreme data points, as well as misspecified optimization approaches can explain the apparent contradictions. I suggest that controversies in sustainable-diet research can best be addressed by integrated analyses based on consistent and publicly available global datasets with regionally comparative detail.

Speaker: Marco Springmann

Marco Springmann is a senior researcher in the Centre on Population Approaches for Non-Communicable Disease Prevention in the Nuffield Department of Population Health, and leads the Centre’s programme on environmental sustainability and public health. He is interested in the health, environmental, and economic dimensions of the global food systems. He often uses systems models to provide quantitative estimates on food-related questions. He is currently working on a multidisciplinary project focused on the analysis and management of animal products and their substitutes called “Livestock, Environment and People” (LEAP). (http://www.futureoffood.ox.ac.uk/project/future-meat-and-dairy-fomad)

Atom Festival of Science and Technology

Our regular meeting coincides with the Atom Festival of Science and Technology 2018. We will not have our standard evening, but a full week of Science and Technology. Members have free entry on the Thursday, March 15 event.

More details are or will be available on the festival web page.

We are also looking for volunteers to help running the festival. Please consider signing up at http://www.atomfestival.org.uk/volunteers/

Place and Time: Thursday 15 Feb 2018 from 19:00 for 19:30

New Location: King Charles Room, King’s Head and Bell, (10 E St Helen St, Abingdon OX14 5EA)

TITLE: Using Science to Reveal the Environments of the Past

Archaeology is often perceived as taking place mostly out in muddy trenches, with no technology more sophisticated than a trowel. However, excavation is only the start in the journey to understand an archaeological site, and techniques with their roots in the scientific world play a vital role. Archaeobotany is the study of ancient plant remains. These may be grains of pollen, assemblages of seeds, or fragments of charcoal; all provide clues to what the environment was like in the past. Most interestingly for archaeologists, they can show us how people in the past were interacting with, modifying and exploiting the natural world. This talk will explore what archaeobotany is, how it is carried out and examine what it can be used to discover. In particular, the talk will look at how excavations in Abingdon have produced archaeobotanical data that can help piece together the environmental history of the town from prehistory to the present day.

Speaker: Julia Meen

Julia Meen has worked for Oxford Archaeology, a commercial archaeological unit, for over 10 years. As an archaeobotanist, she analyses the remains of plant tissues that have been preserved on archaeological sites, and uses this evidence to help interpret what the environment was like in the past. She has worked on sites across England and also in France, and her most recent projects have included studying waterlogged plant remains from the Oxford floodplain in advance of the new flood alleviation channel, and analysing kitchen remains from the Franciscan Friary uncovered during recent excavations on the site of the Westgate shopping centre. Julia studied for her BSc in Archaeology at the University of Reading before heading to Bristol University to undertake a Masters in Landscape Archaeology. In the past couple of years, she has returned to Reading to complete a part-time Masters by Research, as part of which she had the chance to explore her interest in how archaeobotanical remains can be used to identify brewing.

Place and Time: Abingdon, Thursday 18 Jan 2018 from 19:00 for 19:30

Barn Room, Crown and Thistle (18 Bridge St, Abingdon OX14 3HS)

TITLE: Space – The Ultimate Engineering Challenge

Scientists have learnt a huge amount about the universe using scientific instruments on spacecraft – from constant observation of the Sun with satellites such as the Solar Dynamics Observatory, to pioneering journeys to distant objects like Comet 67P with Rosetta and the Philae lander.  But getting to these places is only part of the challenge.  Doing cutting-edge science in the harsh environment of space – millions of miles away from Earth with no human intervention – is no small task.  The talk gives an insight into some of the technologies that help us discover our universe, and the engineering challenges that must be overcome to make it happen.

Speaker:

Mike Salter graduated from the University of Bristol and has spent the last 6 years working as an electronic design engineer at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory for STFC RAL Space.  Working alongside leading scientists and engineers, Mike has been responsible for the design and qualification of electronics for a range of spacecraft instrumentation including a low-noise UV spectrometer for the World Space Observatory and a visible-light camera currently installed on the International Space Station.  Most recently, Mike is now working to turn a novel method of gravitational sensing suitable for space flight, based on ultra-cold atom interferometry.

We will meet on December 14, 2017 at 20:00 at the Brewery Tab for our annual Christmas Social. Please contact the secretary for tickets, which will also be on sale at our next events. Tickets will be £5 for members and non-members and cover some of the food during the evening. Drinks will be available for sale at the bar. A booking form is available in MSWord and PDF format.