Alert Newsletter 717

Posted: Thu, 17 May 2012 under Alert Newsletter

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1. New Emerging Issues paper: Future Marine Resource Use

Cover of Future Marine Resource UseWe have published a new paper that highlights the vast extent of our ocean resources, the limited knowledge we have of these resources and the uncertainty of how to generate wealth from them sustainably.

2. Talking Heads 2012 – Paradise Regained, lectures in Gisborne and Wellington in June

2012 Taking Heads Paradise RegainedEach year we work in partnership with RadioNZ to produce a lecture series called Talking Heads.

This year the series is called ‘Paradise Regained‘ and it will be based around the ideas generated at that Transit of Venus Forum, aimed to inspire thinking about New Zealand’s future prospects for its people and environment based on a realistic, science-based appraisal of our current situation.

We invite you and other members of the public to attend the lectures, which will be recorded for the radio series:

3. Rutherford Foundation Trust – 2012 Postdoctoral Fellowships

The Rutherford Foundation Trust aims to build human capability in science and technology by providing early career support for New Zealand’s brightest and most promising researchers.

 There are a number of postdoctoral opportunities in the 2012 funding round, which opened for proposals from 15 May 2012.

 Applications for the above two Fellowships close on 1 August 2012.

4. Rutherford Discovery Fellowships – announcing the 2012 funding round

Applications for the 2012 funding round of the Rutherford Discovery Fellowships opened on 16 May 2012.

The Rutherford Discovery Fellowships were announced by the New Zealand Government in May 2010.  These prestigious Fellowships will support the recipients for a five-year term and provide funding up to $160,000 a year (excl. GST).  With this scheme, the New Zealand Government is supporting the development of future research leaders, and assisting with the retention and repatriation of New Zealand’s talented early- to mid-career researchers.

  • Early- to mid-career researchers are researchers who have been conferred with their doctoral degree between three and eight years prior to the year in which the Fellowship is awarded.  For the 2012 funding round the eligibility timeframe is 1 January 2004 – 31 December 2009.
  • Applicants must be either New Zealand citizens or applicants who have continuously resided in New Zealand for at least three months prior to their application and hold, or are deemed to hold, a New Zealand resident visa.
  • A web-based on-line system will be used for applications.  Prospective applicants must first contact their research office coordinator to obtain login details for the Proposals On-Line web-based portal.

Applications close on 27 June 2012.

For further information: www.royalsociety.org.nz/programmes/funds/rutherford-discovery/

5. FUSIONZ website for science, technology, humanities jobs

This week, Fusionz has 3 vacancies for jobs. The latest jobs are:

  • Receptionist, Royal Society of New Zealand, Wellington

  • PhD Engineering, University of Waikato, International

  • Departmental Science Adviser, Ministry for Primary Industries, North Island

For more information and to list your vacancy: http://fusionz.royalsociety.org.nz/

6. New Zealand International Science Festival, Dunedin, 30 June to 8 July 2012

A reminder that the New Zealand International Science Festival is happening in Dunedin from 30 June to 8 July.

Attendees include:

  • NASA astronaut Stephanie D. Wilson, a veteran of three space flights who has logged more than 42 days in space
  • Award-winning Stanford (USA) science rapper and biologist, Tom McFadden aka The Rhymebosome, who will be visiting and performing at schools in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin from 21-30 May 2012 as part of the festival’s science idol rap competition
  • Alice Roberts, popular BBC presenter and professor of public engagement in science at the University of Birmingham, who will, amongst other events, give a public demonstration of anatomical body painting, with a focus on muscle anatomy and function.
For further information: www.scifest.org.nz/

7. Friday is ‘Fascination of Plants Day’

Friday 18 May is the first international’Fascination of Plants Day’.

Launched under the umbrella of the European Plant Science Organisation (EPSO), Fascination of Plants Day is designed to get people enthused about the importance of plant science for agriculture, producing food, making products like paper, timber, chemicals, energy and pharmaceuticals, and the role of plants in environmental conservation.

Details: www.plantday12.eu/home.htm

8. Dark Sky exhibition public event: ‘Off the grid’, 30 May

The next public lecture as part of the Dark Sky exhibition at Adam Art Gallery, Victoria University of Wellington, is Off the Grid, where Terry Galuszka and Jennie McCormick talk about the contribution amateur astronomy has made to scientific advances, in relation to the work of contemporary German artist Wolfgang Tillmans.

Details: noon, Wednesday 30 May,  Adam Art Gallery, Gate 3, Kelburn Parade, www.adamartgallery.org.nz/calendar/

9. Registrations open for ‘Introduction to Research Administration’ workshops

RaDMAN’s ‘The Business of Research’ series of professional development workshops continues, with registrations now open for ‘Introduction to Research Administration’. These are to be held from July 2012 onwards in Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury.

This workshop first overviews the research environment and process in a ‘research for non-researchers’ style, followed by an overview of all aspects of research administration.

The target audience is those new to research administration and/or the research-intensive environment, either in a central or divisional unit in their organisations (CRIs, universities, polytechnics, research funding agencies, regulatory bodies). The programme will also benefit research officers, project managers or principal investigators, as well as PhD students and postdocs to become ‘work ready’ in the R&D marketplace.

For details of the workshop, and for on-line registrations or enquiries visit: www.researchmanagement.co.nz/research/events.php

10. New Zealand  high-performance computing (HPC) applications workshop in July

A workshop for New Zealand’s high-performance computing (HPC) community is being run at Victoria University of Welligton on 4 July 2012, bringing together industry practitioners and researchers. The NZ HPC Applications Workshop is being held adjacent to the 2012 eResearch Symposium. Everyone interested in developing, running or tuning applications to run on HPC is welcome to participate.

Professor Thomas Schulthess, Director of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) has accepted an invitation to provide a keynote. The rest of the day will include presentations from the New Zealand HPC community. A call for proposals is now open.

Further information is available at:  http://eresearch.org.nz/2012-hpc-apps-workshop.

11. Researchers can apply for computational support from NeSI

New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) is now accepting proposals across all high-performance computing facilities, for both proposal development and research grants. This is the first of a bi-monthly call cycle.

With facilities commissioned, there is significant capacity available on state-of-the-art HPC systems and a national team of experts keen to assist researchers requiring computational support.  There is an 80% subsidy on the costs of access to facilities.

Details and application forms are available at: www.nesi.org.nz//apply.

12. Registrations and abstracts called for neuroscience conference, 25-29 August, Queenstown

Registrations and abstracts are being called for this year’s Australasian Winter Conference on Brain Research (AWCBR), to be held 25-29 August 2012 at the Copthorne Resort Hotel in Queenstown.

Invited speakers include:

  • Professor Perry Bartlett, Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland
    Distinct neurogenic stem cell populations in the hippocampus: How are they regulated and what are their functions
  • Professor Andrew Lawrence, Howard Florey, University of Melbourne
    Neuropeptides and reward-seeking
  • Dr Philip Corlett, Yale University Medical School, Department of Psychiatry
    Glutamatergic model of psychoses: prediction error, learning, and inference

More details: http://psy.otago.ac.nz/awcbr/registration.html

13. Seminar:  time-scale and magnitude on perceptions of sea-level rise risk, Wellington, 24 May

The New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute is hosting a seminar by Dr Laurel Evans, Visiting Scholar at Victoria University of Wellington in the department of Psychology. The seminar is titled ‘the time-scale and magnitude of sea-level rise: Influences of framing on perceptions of risk’.

Psychological research on risk perception has shown that people are sensitive to framing; that is, they may react differently to different framings of identical information. Wellington and Kapiti Coast residents were asked about the potential for sea-level rise in Wellington city, showing them images of possibilities overlaid on the Wellington map, and focusing on different groups on different time-scales (2050 or 2100) and potential magnitudes of rise (more extreme projections or more moderate ones).

Laura will discuss whether these different framings affected people’s responses to the information, in particular their overall level of concern about sea-level rise and climate change, their support for government initiatives to adapt to and to mitigate climate change, and their own personal intentions to change their behaviour.

Details: 12.30 – 1.30pm Thursday 24 May 2012
Venue:  Government Buildings, Lecture Theatre 1, Victoria University of Wellington, Pipitea Campus

14. IPANZ lecture ‘Free and Frank Advice’, Wellington, 30 May

The first IPANZ Distinguished Lecture for 2012, Free and Frank Advice, will be delivered by Emeritus Professor Richard Mulgan on 30 May.

Free and frank advice has been a mainstay of the Westminster government tradition in New Zealand. The Official Information Act, political advisors, and the variability in the quality of policy advice will have contributed to this in mixed ways.  Where New Zealand sits, and how it is changing, may reflect some attributes unique to New Zealand.

Richard Mulgan is Professor Emeritus at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University. He wrote Politics in New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 1994, second edition 1997), which was revised for a third edition published in 2004 and is still in print.

Details: Wednesday 30 May 2012, 5.30pm – 7.30pm,lecture from 6pm
Venue: Deloitte, Deloitte House, Level 14, 10 Brandon Street, Wellington
RSVP: by Friday 25 May online 

15. Our Changing World, Thursday 9.00 pm, Radio New Zealand National 101FM

Presented and produced by Alison Ballance, Ruth Beran and Veronika Meduna.

The poor state of primary school science teaching has been in the news recently, but there are some strong efforts being made to improve matters and increase teacher confidence. Alison Ballance talks with National Primary Science Week co-ordinator Chris Astall and Richard Meylan from the Royal Society of New Zealand’s ‘Advancing Primary Science’ initiative, and she heads to Eastern Hutt Primary School to see teacher Kerry Harrison and the young scientists in her Science Club in action.

Mark Battley from the Research Centre of Advanced Composite Materials at the University of Auckland explains what a composite material is, and takes Ruth Beran on a tour of the lab to show her how these materials are made and tested.

Wellington poet Helen Heath reads from her collection Graft and talks about how science is influencing her writing and how it prompted her to embark on a doctoral project to explore the intersections between people and technology.

At the University of Auckland, air from a large tunnel is passed through twisting vanes to simulate the flow of wind over yacht sails. David Le Pelley shows Ruth Beran how the wind tunnel works and explains how it is helping to build better ocean-racing yachts.

Two science and environment stories air during the week on Afternoons with Jim Mora at 3:35pm, Monday and Thursday. The complete programme is repeated at 1:10am on Sunday mornings.

Website for podcasts and live streams: http://radionz.co.nz/ourchangingworld
Contact: ourchangingworld@radionz.co.nz, 04 474 1910
Twitter: @RNZ_Science

16. Follow the Royal Society of New Zealand on Facebook and Twitter

Get timely updates from the Royal Society of New Zealand team via our Facebook and Twitter channels.

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