I was just thinking yesterday that it can’t often have happened that a scientific meeting has been curtailed by a volcano, at least not in Britain, when I see another rare event took place earlier in the week in America.
I’m just glad that Howard County (Is this right? Ed.) was there to record this fireball, although I think that’s quite a strange name for a policeman … (You’re fired. Ed.)
I couldn’t resist putting up a quick post about the bizarre circumstances that have seen all airports closed and planes grounded all around Britain, and the skies emptied of aircraft. The eruption of a volcano in a part of Iceland called Eyjafjallajoekull – there will be a pronunciation test at the end – has led to considerable plume of ash being thrown up into the atmosphere. Prevailing winds being roughly south-easterly in direction, part of this cloud has been heading towards mainland Britain.
You can see the cloud as the dark brown and black region on the following satellite image taken early this morning.
Apparently the ash contained in this cloud poses a significant danger to aircraft engines, so the UK Air Traffic Control system decided during the course of today to close UK airspace to all incoming and outgoing flights. Cue travel chaos.
It is anticipated that the ash will affect all of Britain by about 1800 GMT (i.e. 1900 British Summer Time) . It will dissipate as it spreads but of course as long as the eruption continues more ash will be pumped into the air.
One of the events disrupted by this display of vulcanism is the UK National Astronomy Meeting currently taking place in Glasgow. Many UK participants travelled to this meeting by plane and some of them are stuck there now because their return flights are not flying. NAM usually tends to be the sort of thing that senior academics tend to attend for only a day or two because the specialist sessions are quite brief and there are so many other things to do.
Today (Thursday) there was meant to be a Panel meeting organized by the Royal Astronomical Society at which members of the Science and Technology Facilities Council Executive, among others, were supposed to face questions from the assembled throng of astronomers. UK Astronomy has been under a dark threatening cloud for quite a while already, even before the Icelandic volcano did its thing.
However, the panel discussion was drastically curtailed by some not being able to make it to Glasgow and others having to leave early in order to get the train because their planes had been cancelled. In fact, according to what I’ve gleaned from the extensive Twitter traffic (from #NAM2010), John Womersley (Director of Science Programmes at STFC) was basically holding the fort in the absence of the other pundits. He seems to have come in for quite a lot of flak from younger scientists, particularly those whose careers have been wrecked by decisions made by the STFC Executive. I suspect those unable to make it are probably not ungrateful at being presented with an excuse for their absence.
Fellow blogger Andrew Jaffe was commendably prescient in deciding well in advance to return to London from Glasgow by train rather than plane. That’s the kind of decision many people live to regret given the legendary unreliability of our train network, but this time it certainly paid off.
Not so many Cardiff astronomers went to NAM this year – the reason being that we are back to teaching while most other UK universities are still in their Easter break. However, those Cardiff staff and students who have gone there face more than a few problems getting back!
The meeting is scheduled to end tomorrow but it’s very unclear whether the skies will be open by then. We might have a few cancelled lectures if the situation doesn’t improve quickly…
A dramatic new <insert name of polling organization, e.g. GALLUP> opinion poll has revealed that the <insert name of political party> lead over <insert name of political party> has WIDENED/SHRUNK/NOT CHANGED dramatically. This almost certainly means a <insert name of political party> victory or a hung parliament. This contrasts with a recent <insert name of polling organization, e.g. YOUGOV> poll which showed that the <insert name of political party> lead had WIDENED/SHRUNK/NOT CHANGED which almost certainly meant a <insert name of political party> victory or a hung parliament.
Political observers were quick to point out that we shouldn’t read too much into this poll, as tomorrow’s <insert name of polling organization> poll shows the <insert name of political party> lead over <insert name of political party> has WIDENED/SHRUNK/NOT CHANGED dramatically, almost certainly meaning a <insert name of political party> victory or a hung parliament.
(adapted, without permission, from Private Eye)
I just came across an interesting bit of news that I thought I’d share with those of you who haven’t heard it already. It came out some time ago, in fact, but I missed it at the time.
Over a year ago I went to a meeting about Science Policy in Wales. One of the issues raised at that meeting was that the Welsh Assembly Government hadn’t yet managed to appoint a Chief Scientific Advisor, despite the results of a review in carried out in 2008 by Sir Christopher Pollock that argued strongly that this should be done. In June 2009, the (new) First Minister Carwyn Jones finally announced that he would proceed with an appointment to this new position but it’s still taken quite a while to get someone to fill the post.
Still, better late than never, and we now know who it is who will advise the WAG on matters scientific. It turns out that the first ever Chief Scientific Advisor for Wales will be John Harries (left), who is originally from Aberavon, and is the University of London Professor of Earth Observation at the Blackett Laboratory of Imperial College London, who has previously been a senior adviser to the UK Government in several roles. Professor Harries will take up his role on May 1, but I think he’ll carry on working at Imperial about 20% of his time.
The Chief Scientific Adviser’s role will be to provide scientific advice to the First Minister and the Welsh Assembly Government, to promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the role of science within the wider knowledge economy.
First Minister Carwyn Jones said:
The appointment of Professor Harries as our first Chief Scientific Adviser for Wales will ensure that we build on an impressive track record of achievement, and develop a more effective promotion of science and technology within the wider knowledge economy arena.
This will prove invaluable as we continue to encourage the knowledge, skills and enterprise to strengthen businesses in Wales ahead of the global economic upturn.
According to Professor Harries,
It is a huge honour to be asked to become the first Chief Scientific Adviser for Wales and I look forward with great enthusiasm to carrying out this new role on behalf of the government and people of Wales.
Wales is a small country, but is capable of the intelligent application of new science and engineering as a basis for greater commercial success in industry. The role includes acting as Head of Profession, providing a focus for good practice and the enhancement and encouragement of scientists and engineers in Wales. This is a job that encompasses two (along with my family and rugby) of my great passions – Science and Wales. I will give it my very best effort.
The appointment of a physicist as Chief Scientific Advisor for Wales could be very interesting with regard to the future development of the subject within the Principality. In particular, the recent devastating cuts in the UK’s astronomy funding have led to some of our astronomers wondering whether they should work on space instruments that look down rather than up, and a move into Earth observation might now be even more timely.
In more general terms, it’s good to see the Welsh Assembly recognizing the importance of science, although whether they see its importance being connected very narrowly with commerce remains to be seen. Anyway, I think it could turn out to be an excellent move, and I want to take this opportunity to wish Professor Harries the best of luck in his new job!
I’m completely knackered, and my dinner’s warming up, so I’ll keep this relatively brief…
I got up at 5am this morning to take the train to London in order to attend the first meeting of the STFC Astronomy Grants Panel (AGP) for this year. The deadline passed in early April, and the applications have now all been received by Swindon Office so now the AGP has to swing into action, like a well-oiled machine, to rank the applications and make recommendations as to which ones should receive funding.
This meeting was chaired by the new Astronomy Grants Supremo, the e-astronomer (although on STFC business he uses his pseudonym, Andy Lawrence). The real hard work comes in a succession of meetings later in the year, but this one was basically in order for us newbies to learn the ropes and to get a bit of background before we get going. Actually, I’ve been on such panels before – I chaired the Astronomy Theory Panel a few years ago, before moving to Cardiff – but it’s all changed quite a lot and I’m actually glad I had the chance to learn about the new procedures. It was nice to see the other people involved too, some of whom I didn’t know before and some of whom I’ve known for years (often from other panels). When you get older as an academic, life turns into a Succession of Panels. Sigh. I wonder if there are Panels in the Afterlife?
The backdrop to this round was provided by the deep cuts in Astronomy research that emerged from last year’s STFC Prioritisation Exercise. We heard a summary of the Financial Position that was shocking in its magnitude as well as depressing in its likely long-term effects. In 2008, STFC funded “new” 92 postdoctoral research positions across the UK making the total number of astronomy PDRAs at that time about 295 (a PDRA usually lasts three years). In 2009 the number of new positions dropped to 69, and projections suggest a number of about 60 this year. This will put the number of astronomy PDRAs at about 180, just short of a 40% cut with respect to the 2008 number. Moreover, last year saw a significant reduction in the number of rolling grants by about a third, although many of these carried on at a reduced level as standard (3-year) grants. Projections suggest that current funding levels will see 70% of the UK’s rolling grants unrolled in this way; this figure is higher than for this round because of short-term injection of cash from RCUK – the famous £14 Million – that ameliorated the cuts this year and the fact that this year’s grant funding had slightly more money in it than other years of the three-year cycle for historical reasons. A full report of last year’s grants round should be available on the STFC website soon.
UPDATE: It is there now.
Of course it remains to be seen what happens in practice, and how this compares with projections of this sort. I won’t be able to say much on this blog about the process from now on – for reasons of confidentiality – but I can assure everyone reading this that everyone on the AGP wants to fund excellent science and will do everything they can to make the system work in a way that achieves this in the fairest possible manner. It’s inevitable, though, that in these tough times some excellent research will not be supported. That’s the thing that makes these Panels so stressful.
Anyway, apart from my growing apprehension of the scale of the task in front of us, the trip to London was otherwise pleasant. A lovely train journey in the sunshine through the beautiful spring greenery of Wales and England was very relaxing, and I even got tomorrow’s lecture written on the way. The meeting took place in a cramped and stuffy room at the Royal Institute of British Architects, a building of such poor design that you might think RIBA would disown it. Come to think of it, no. It probably won an award. Crap buildings so often do.
Oh, and the caterers forgot to supply our lunch on time too. Eventually we got a few measly sandwiches at about 2pm. Not impressive. Still, the main meetings will all be in Swindon. What a delight.
The way home wasn’t such fun. One of the engines of the train conked out shortly after leaving Paddington so we couldn’t go at proper speed and I got back to Cardiff 20 minutes late. It was still sunny, though, and I’d just put some lovely new music on my iPod so I wasn’t too bothered.
Now my dinner’s ready. And this has been 700 words. That’s not particularly brief, even by my standards…
Every now and again I remember that I should pretend that this is an astronomy blog. A new press release from the European Space Agency just reminded me again, by unveiling a wonderful new Herschel image of part of the Rosette Nebula:
This isn’t really one for the cosmologists as it concerns a star-forming region in our own Galaxy. Herschel collects the infrared light given out by cool dust; this image is a three-colour composite made of wavelengths at 70 microns (blue), 160 microns (green) and 250 microns (red). It was made with observations from Herschel’s Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS) and the Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE). The bright smudges are dusty cocoons containing massive protostars. The small spots near the centre of the image are lower mass protostars.
This is a wonderful demonstration of how Herschel is able to see massive objects – probably about ten times the mass of the Sun – previously hidden from view within the nebular dust. Studies such as this will help astronomers understand much better the processes by which stars form in regions such as this.
PS. If you want to know why this is called the Rosette Nebula, you need to see what the whole thing looks like in optical light:
Since Britain seems set for a return to the 1970s, I thought I’d wallow in nostalgia for the bygone days of Margaret Thatcher and my adolescence in the North East with this clip of the legendary comedian Bobby Thompson in his role as The Little Waster. He never achieved popularity outside the region, probably owing to his accent and the kind of material he liked to perform. He was, however, a permanent fixture in many working men’s clubs across the North East, most of which looked just like the one in North Shields this was filmed in.
Bobby Thompson’s accent and upbringing were Wearside, rather than Tyneside, so he wasn’t strictly speaking a Geordie. I find it quite easy to locate the accent myself, as closer to Sunderland than Newcastle, but I think people born outside the North East probably find it difficult to grasp the difference. Unfortunately there are no subtitles on this clip so the jokes will probably go right over the head of most of you! He did have a very special status in the North East, however, right up until his death in 1988, because of the affinity he shared with his audience, many of whom had been brought up in real hardship and knew exactly what he was talking about. He always laughed with them, not at them.
I saw him only once, and I’ll never forget the effect he had on the crowd. Some people were laughing so much I thought they were going to die. His act was in two parts, the first being The Little Waster (as in the clip) and the second, which I thought much funnier, in which, dressed as a scruffy soldier he recounted obviously made-up stories about his wartime experiences. Another thing I remember is his trademark Woodbine, from a packet he bought in 1944…
My favourite joke of his dates to the night of the 1951 election when the victorious Conservative Party was rumoured to be planning to abolish the National Health Service:
It came t’ last orders and the barman shouted ‘Come on, let’s see yer glasses off’, and I said ‘Well, them Tories haven’t wasted any time, have the!’
Busy day today, getting ready for tomorrow’s return to teaching. The year’s second semester is always a strangely fragmented affair because of the Easter hiatus. We teach for eight weeks from late January until late March, have three weeks off for Easter, and then return to teach another three weeks before a brief revision period and, then, the examinations. It’s an awkward business, that gap. There’s also quite a danger of missing lectures later on, if you happen to be teaching on a Monday, owing to the Spring Bank Holiday. I lose a lecture in that way, for my first year module Astrophysical Concepts, although it’s only in revision week so I’m not going to be struggling for time. I hope.
I’ve organized my first year lectures (if “organized” is the right word!) in four sections and managed to make sure I finished three of them, representing areas covered by three of the four questions in the forthcoming examination, before the break. Now I just have half-a-dozen lectures on cosmology to get through, so this bit should be reasonably self-contained and it won’t matter too much if the students have forgotten the other three parts I did before Easter.
I’ve also got my third-year particle physics lectures to finish off in this period, so it’s going to be quite a busy three weeks. Still, I’ll have plenty to distract me from the General Election campaign which will cover pretty much the same period. Polling day is May 6th, and my last (revision) lecture will be on May 7th.
Another curiosity about Cardiff’s calendar is that we only get three weeks for Easter. I seem to remember it’s usually been four weeks in the other places I’ve worked. One of the downsides of this is that we’re back to term-time while the annual National Astronomy Meeting is going on. This moves around from year to year, and this time is in the splendid city of Glasgow. I’d like to have gone, and would have done if I hadn’t had so much teaching concentrated in this period. Regrettably I’ll have to give it a miss this year.
Anyway, I was getting my notes together this afternoon, sitting in the April sunshine among the new flowers and listening to the birds singing. Completely by accident I came across this little quote from Johannes Kepler, translated from the Mysterium Cosmographicum, which I thought I’d share with you…
We do not ask what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly, we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens… The diversity of the phenomena of Nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.
Just came back from a lovely cycle ride to find that my polling card arrived through my letterbox while I was out. Gordon Brown announced the election earlier this week, so it’s quite impressive how efficiently the electoral system swings into action. It’s a pity so much else is screwed up. Anyway, Parliament now goes into limbo and we have three weeks of heightened tedium to endure while the politicians try to convince us that, despite all the mess they’ve made of things so far, they do actually know what they’re doing.
I still don’t know how I’m going to cast my vote on May 6th (polling day). I can’t see myself voting for the incumbents – for more reasons than I have time to list. My experience of Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s convinced me that I’ll never vote Conservative either. And the Lib Dems are just, well, a bit pathetic. I will vote. I just don’t know who I’ll vote for. I’ll have to look at my constituency’s history carefully to see if tactical voting might help. Perhaps more on that in due course…
Anyway, whatever the result of the election turns out to be, I’m pretty scared about what the next three or four years has in store. The huge budget deficit that the government has built up saving the banks from collapse is going to have to be dealt with. The recent budget didn’t really do anything to tackle it, but everybody knows that was just a holding operation until the election is over. Whoever takes power afterwards will have to take serious measures to fix things. It won’t be pretty. Tax rises and public spending cuts are both inevitable as the international bond markets threaten to downgrade Britains AAA credit rating. If that happens we will end up with runaway debts and increasingly expensive borrowing. Don’t think we won’t go the way of Greece.
In the meantime our economy is carrying on as if it is in a trance. House prices continue to rise, the FTSE index is climbing, interest rates are at the astonishingly low level of 0.5%. It can’t possibly go on. Houses are clearly still overvalued, at immense social cost to people wanting to start a family. The stock market is gaining because investors are not getting any return from cash deposits, and companies are boosting their profits by sacking staff and cutting costs rather than generating new demand. As soon as interest rates go up again – which they surely must – I think there’s a good chance the stock market will fall again. If you don’t hold any shares yourself you may think that’s not important. However, it directly affects the pensions of millions of people, most of whom are not wealthy, because that’s where a lot of their pension schemes’ money is invested.
The most pressing issue is not who wins the election but whether there is a winner. If the election turns out indecisively – which at the moment seems quite likely – then we’re going to see turmoil on a scale that makes the banking nightmare of 2007 look like a tea party. And even if there is an outright winner, there’s no guarantee that they will have the gumption to even begin tackling the problem.
Of course, as a scientist working in a University, I’m also concerned about what’s going to happen to my own livelihood after the election. The recent mess this government has made of science funding has blotted its record on this, which was previously not bad. However, the true scale of this country’s economic problems seems to be too much for our political leaders, both present and future, to cope with. I don’t see any of the parties having the vision to manage the current crisis as well as putting together a coherent plan to build a better future. I’m not the only person to think so, in fact, as a letter in The Times today from a group of distinguished astronomers made clear. Other nations (especially the USA and France) are all investing heavily in science as a means to secure future economic growth. We’ve already started cutting back, and don’t see any strong political voice to reverse that policy.
Of course people don’t just vote for their immediate self-interest. Science is important to me, and I think it’s important for the country too, but there are other issues. There’s more to life than economics too. This country has been in a post-Imperial sleepwalk for too long and it needs to snap out of it. We need to renew our political system, which has grown distant and unaccountable. We need to deal with a looming energy crisis. We need to develop a proper education system that is fit for the 21st century. And we need to deal with the problems of a rapidly ageing population. For these reasons, and more, I hope the next Parliament will contain politicians with the vision necessary to see this country through the tough times ahead. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will.
I’m just glad I’m no longer young.
So the short Easter break draws to a close. I haven’t had much time off at all as I’ve been trying to catch up with some papers and other stuff. I was in the department over the weekend and on Monday and have only really had yesterday and today completely off. We’re back teaching on Monday.
However, things haven’t turned out too badly as we’ve got very nice weather right now and it’s set fair for the weekend. I’ve spent most of today in the garden and got quite a lot of preparation done, although my hands are now covered in scratches. It’s still quite warm approaching 7pm so I’ve decided to sit outside and have myself a cocktail before dinner.
I have a complete set of cocktail-making gear: measures, stirrers, shakers, and ice-crusher as well as the various tools needed for making the trimmings, such as a canulating knife. I also have a reasonably complete range of glasses appropriate for various drinks. My taste in cocktails is, however, fairly limited. Not being partial to Gin eliminates quite a few and I’d rather drink a good Malt on its own than have cocktails with cheaper whisky in them. However, I do have several books of cocktail recipes and, now and again, I pick recipes to try out.
My favourite pre-dinner cocktail, especially in summer, is called a Petite Fleur. It’s a great aperitif, with a refreshing sharpness to prime the palate. It’s also very easy to make:
1 Measure White Rum
1 Measure Triple Sec (or Cointreau)
1 Measure Grapefruit Juice (preferably fresh)
Shake the ingredients well together with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Decorate with a twist of orange peel.
Mentioning this cocktail also gives me the excuse to include the tune of the same name that was a big hit originally for the great Sidney Bechet (and then later on over here in the UK for Monty Sunshine, erstwhile clarinettist of Chris Barber’s band). Here’s the wonderful original version, with Bechet on soprano saxophone, which is the perfect accompaniment to a spot of self-indulgence. Enjoy!
In the Dark 