Dr Claire Postlethwaite, 7.30 pm Tuesday 19 November 2013. Holt Planetarium, Chambers St, Napier.

The November lecture was “Why did the pigeon cross the road? Modelling animal behaviour with mathematics”.  How migrating animals find their way over long distances remains one of the great, unanswered  questions facing biologists today. Despite intensive research for over 60 years, there has been no  convincing explanation of the mechanisms animals use for determining their position relative to a  target location. Dr Postlethwaite’s research in this area combines ideas from both mathematics and behavioural  ecology.

Due to their ease of handling and willingness to home, homing pigeons have long been the  experimental model for the study of animal navigation. Dr Postlethwaite and colleagues are developing a predictive mathematical model for how animals  navigate over long distances. These results will be applicable to a wide variety of migratory species.  They expect their results will explain how birds such as godwits can fly non-stop from Alaska to  New Zealand, a trip that requires locating a target only 2-3 degrees wide when migration begins.

Dr Claire Postlethwaite, Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, Auckland University completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Cambridge. She specialises in research in Dynamical Systems, and mathematical models of animal behaviour. She was recently been awarded a Marsden Fast Start Grant for research in animal navigation.

A summary of Dr Postlethwaite’s research can be found at http://www.math.auckland.ac.nz/~claire/research.html

Dr Huub Kerckhoffs, 7.30 pm Tuesday 29 October 2013. Holt Planetarium, Chambers St, Napier.

The optimal use of light plays an important role in horticultural production. By manipulating the light environment we are able to control and steer crop growth and development. Innovative lighting technologies such as LEDs can provide optimum crop specific ‘light recipes’ at every crop stage. In greenhouse horticulture especially, this can be used to maximise crop quality and returns.

Huub Kerckhoffs is a lecturer in Horticultural Production within the Institute of Agriculture & Environment at Massey University. He received his PhD in plant physiology from Wageningen University (Netherlands). Huub has a broad background on how light and other stimuli are controlling growth and development in a wide range of cropping systems. He worked on this in several countries (Netherlands, UK, US, Japan, Australia) before coming to New Zealand.

“Switch” is a film produced as part of a project of the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas. The project’s aims are to build a base of understanding about Energy, to promote its conservation and efficient use and to provide an objective view on how the world can meet both increasing demand for energy and environmental goals.

In September 2013, the Hawke’s Bay Branch of the Royal Society teamed up with the Institute of Professional Engineers NZ to host a screening of the film, followed by a discussion led by a panel of experts.

In the film, Dr Scott Tinker, Director of the Bureau, leads the viewer on a 90-minute tour to illustrate the different ways the world produces the energy it consumes. Using the amount of energy the average person in the Western world consumes per year as a handy metric, he compares the amount of energy each primary or secondary source can produce. He vividly makes the point that despite measures to conserve energy and increased production efficiency, global demand will continue to grow in step with the economies in developing countries such as China and India.

“Switch” owes its title to the notion that, given the earth’s finite resources and mankind’s environmental consciousness, at some point in the future, oil and coal as primary sources of energy will be overtaken by cleaner and more sustainable alternatives (gas, nuclear, and renewables such as hydro, wind, geothermal and solar). “When,” it asks, “is that likely to take place, and how will the energy mix look when it does?”

Following a break for refreshments, we reconvened to hear the views of Geothermal Energy specialist Ian Thain, Electrical Engineering Consultant John Geoghegan, and John Penny from ABB Power Electronics. They were able to give a New Zealand perspective on this topic and answer some of the many questions that the film had generated in our audience of over 70.

We thank Eastern Institue of Technology (EIT) for hosting the screening at their Taradale campus.

To stage this event, the HB Branch of Royal Society purchased the rights to show the film for educational purposes. If any schools or colleges would like to host a screening, we would be happy to help; please contact Antony Steiner using the “Council” link at the top of this web page.

Reviewed by Antony Steiner

Dr Ross Ferguson ONZM FRSNZ. 7:30pm Tuesday 27 August 2013

Branch members and guests gathered to hear Dr Ferguson’s lecture at the Hawke’s Bay Holt Planetarium. We are grateful to Dr Ferguson for coming to speak with us, and the the Planetarium for hosting the evening.

Dr Ferguson says that rather than study only the actions of individual men and women, of governments or of economic forces, we should also look at plants because it is plants that ultimately determine the quality and course of human life. Most of the foods that form part of our normal diet, we would not think of as exotic.  And this shows just how blasé we have become.

What we have is really a remarkable range of food – truly exotic food in the sense that it is alien: introduced from abroad: brought in from outside. The movement of plants and foodstuffs from one country to another has had many consequences.

Dr Ferguson’s thought provoking talk considered the implications of the pursuit of some addictive plants and was illustrated by many paintings and engravings. The socially accepted addictions discussed include tea, coffee, sugar and chocolate. Staple foods such as potatoes and grains have had remarkably less influence on history than the more lucrative extras.

The domestication of a vast array of foods has determined the way we can dine today. It has also encouraged world exploration- spices; created a commodity second only to oil – coffee; started wars – tea and opium; led to population boom and bust – potato; and believed to have created happiness, sobriety and higher thought – coffee and sugar.

Dr Ross Ferguson, FRSNZ has worked  with DSIR and then Plant & Food Research mainly on the biology of kiwifruit and related species.  He made a detailed study of kiwifruit, their origin in China and the process of domestication leading to them becoming New Zealand’s most important horticultural export.

Reviewed by Phillipa Page

Wednesday 11 September, 5.30pm–8.00pm, Eastern Institute of Technology, Gloucester Street, Taradale, Napier

Victoria University of Wellington invites you to a free public lecture by Professor Tim Stern from the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences and Professor Lionel Carter from the Antarctic Research Centre.

Exploration, earthquakes and resources of Zealandia

Over the past few years, we have experienced severe earthquakes in Canterbury and, most recently, in the Cook Strait region. Meanwhile, the Gisborne area has been subjected to a different type of ‘slow earthquake’—earthquakes that take minutes or hours to occur, rather than the few seconds normally associated with regular quakes. Amongst all this upheaval, earthquakes create warps and structures in the earth that trap resources such as geothermal steam, oil, gas and valuable minerals. In this talk, Professor Tim Stern will present results from some of the exploration programmes he has been involved in, to investigate both earthquakes and the related resource potential of New Zealand.

An island in a changing ocean—how New Zealand’s ocean is responding to modern climate change

New Zealand sits between the South Pole and the Equator, so it’s not surprising that our climate and ocean are strongly affected by natural forces coming from Antarctica and the tropical Pacific Ocean. The eastern North Island, for example, has flooded under subtropical cyclones and has chilled under southerly storms that extend from the Ross Sea. Professor Lionel Carter will examine how these  great north and south weather machines are behaving under modern climate change and what may occur in the future. This is not a ‘doom and gloom’ story, but a discussion of actual observations that will contribute to the nation being better prepared for the challenges ahead.

The 2010-2012 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence: pushing the limits of geological seismology using backyard science

The Canterbury earthquake sequence (CES) started with the 2010 moment magnitude (Mw) 7.1 Darfield earthquake and includes thousands of Mw ≥ 3 aftershocks, most notably the fatal 22 February Mw 6.2 Christchurch earthquake.

Dr Quigley described how the largest CES earthquakes caused geologic and geomorphic processes that changed the Canterbury landscape. Some of these changes lasted only hours and others will persist in the geologic record for thousands to millions of years or longer.

Using numerous examples, he described how careful documentation of the geomorphic and geologic effects of the Canterbury earthquake sequence, and comparing these with instrumental seismic data, is important because it helps to define the seismic thresholds for generating these phenomena and it enables paleoseismologists to better interpret these features when they are observed in the geologic record.

Dr Quigley’s heavily illustrated talk summarised the impacts of the Canterbury earthquake sequence and showed new evidence for the timing, extent, and conditions of prehistoric earthquakes in the Canterbury region, including penultimate rupture on the Greendale Fault, prehistoric liquefaction in eastern Christchurch, and prehistoric rockfall in the Port Hills south of Christchurch.

Better attention to the geologic record will help us to avoid further land planning mistakes and increase societal and financial resilience to future earthquakes both in Christchurch and elsewhere in New Zealand.

Dr. Mark C. Quigley is Senior Lecturer in Active Tectonics and Geomorphology in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Canterbury. www.drquigs.com/

Professor Brian Foster presented his lecture entitled “Einstein’s Universe” at the Municipal Theatre, Napier, on Tuesday 16 July. He was accompanied by violinist Jack Liebeck. Their illustrated talk covered the grand sweep of modern physics – from Einstein’s Theory of Relativity to the Large Hadron Collider and the Higgs Boson – illustrated with the violin music that Einstein loved to play.

Widely acclaimed in the press and featured on the BBC, Brian and Jack have presented the illustrated talk Einstein’s Universe around the world and toured New Zealand in July 2013.

Brian Foster is Professor of Experimental Physics at Oxford and Alexander von Humboldt Professor at the University of Hamburg. He is European Director of the Linear Collider Collaboration at CERN, Switzerland.

Jack Liebeck, ‘Young British Performer of the Year’ and founder of The Fibonacci Sequence, has established a reputation as one of Europe’s most exciting young violinists. He has appeared in major venues across Europe and recorded to enormous critical acclaim both on CD and with the BBC. Jack plays the ‘Ex-Wilhelmj’ Guadagnini dated 1785.

The lecture was followed at the same venue by a concert of chamber music that Einstein played and loved. This special event was organised by Chamber Music New Zealand and the Royal Society of New Zealand.  It featured Jack Liebeck, Victoria Sayles (violin), Julia Joyce (viola), Andrew Joyce (cello) and Stephen De Pledge (piano). The music was varied, with different combinations of members in each of four main sets.