Australia and South Africa are competing to host the world’s biggest radio telescope; the winner should be announced in March by the international project’s organisers, based at Manchester University. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA), comprising 3,000 separate dishes, will cost more than $2bn, although it’s not clear who will pay for it. Both countries see SKA as an opportunity for economic development; the South African government has already stopped Shell from drilling near SKA’s proposed site, to guard against communications interference.
More than 1m people are expected to take part in National Science and Engineering Week, from 9th-18th March (see, scientists are clever enough to invent the ten-day week). Many cities, such as Cambridge and Newcastle, are staging overlapping science festivals; expect lots of family-friendly demonstrations and shows, as well as the usual fix of celebrity talks and panel debates. Check out www.nsew.org.uk for local details, although it’s a pain to navigate.
London is about to host the Planet Under Pressure conference on global sustainability, intended as a warm-up to the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June. Economists, politicians, scientists, engineers, environmentalists and policymakers will gather between 26th and 29th March; organisers claim that dealing with climate change will require an overhaul of global governance akin to that which followed the second world war (www.planetunderpressure2012.net).
Social scientist Michael Marmot and chef Prue Leith are on the menu at the first Children’s Food conference, to be held in London on 7th March to launch the Children’s Food Trust, a new company created by the charity School Food Trust to extend the focus on childhood nutrition. The emphasis is on healthy home cooking—home-twizzled turkeys being so much nicer than shop-bought.
More than 1m people are expected to take part in National Science and Engineering Week, from 9th-18th March (see, scientists are clever enough to invent the ten-day week). Many cities, such as Cambridge and Newcastle, are staging overlapping science festivals; expect lots of family-friendly demonstrations and shows, as well as the usual fix of celebrity talks and panel debates. Check out www.nsew.org.uk for local details, although it’s a pain to navigate.
London is about to host the Planet Under Pressure conference on global sustainability, intended as a warm-up to the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June. Economists, politicians, scientists, engineers, environmentalists and policymakers will gather between 26th and 29th March; organisers claim that dealing with climate change will require an overhaul of global governance akin to that which followed the second world war (www.planetunderpressure2012.net).
Social scientist Michael Marmot and chef Prue Leith are on the menu at the first Children’s Food conference, to be held in London on 7th March to launch the Children’s Food Trust, a new company created by the charity School Food Trust to extend the focus on childhood nutrition. The emphasis is on healthy home cooking—home-twizzled turkeys being so much nicer than shop-bought.
