Science Fiction: Science Future: Where will the world be in 50 years?

The Future was the topic of concern at UCL last night: a panel including Rough Guide to the Future author Jon Turney convened in the Anatomy building on Gower Street to discuss the science and art of predicting the future, asking the audience for their own predictions.

We have created a Storify for those who weren’t able to make it; while reading, keep in mind that at the start of the event, every participant was asked to write down one prediction for the world in 50 years time. What’s yours?

Science Events in London: 27 Feb – 3 March

Monday

What’s left to explore in our Solar System? That is the question Zita Martins will be posing to Cafe Scientifique attendees at the Royal Society tonight. Dr Martins is a researcher at UCL studying organic matter in meteorites and all are welcome to join her for the discussion. Doors at 5:45; free, first come, first served at the Royal Society.

Tuesday

The latest event from the Society for Chemical Industry’s London Group turns its attention Eating Sustainably, with speaker Dr. Carol Wagstaff, Lecturer in Food Chain and Health. Pleasingly, the event will start, as always, with free donuts for attendees at 5:45 before the lecture starts at 6pm. Free, no need to book, at UCL.

Wednesday

Talkfest, the discussion forum hosted by the Biochemical Society is back tonight with a look at the aural side of science, from science radio and podcasts to scientific music. All welcome for what is always a lively discussion, generally followed by more discussion in the pub afterwards. 6:30pm; free but you do need to register in advance.

The last Wednesday of the month means Science Museum Lates again, and this month’s theme is the mysterious world of surgery, promising live demonstrations, and a chance for visitors to have a go at operating themselves! Free, 6:45 – 10pm and I advise you to get there early because of the queues last time I was there.

Thursday

Everyone worries about the future. What’s going to happen? What can we do about it? These are the questions being looked at tonight by a panel of scientists and science historians interesting in “futurology”, chaired by author of The Rough Guide to the Future Jon Turney. Hosted at UCL’s Grant Museum: 6pm, free, no need to book.

The Weekend

Hampstead Observatory is still running its winter schedule of observing, open Friday and Saturday night 8-10pm for star gazing and Sunday 11-1pm for sun gazing. Free and no need to book, but all weather dependent, so check first.

You can follow the Nature Network London Google calendar of events in London at https://blogs.nature.com/london/2011/05/17/scientific-events-calendar. Updated daily.

————————————————————————–

As well as our regularly maintained calendar, you can find lots of other suggestions of science-y events in London. We have compiled a list of some other places to look: we will continue adding to this list, and please do, as always, send us additions for it:

Collections and calendars

Londonist recommendations: All things scientific, technical and geeky

Ian Visits: A calendar of all types of events in London, including science and engineering, with added editorial

Museums, societies etc:

Wellcome Collection: Regular events and exhibitions of a medical flavour at the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road

Royal Institution: Miscellaneous science and policy events

Royal Society: Science, policy and conferences

ZSL: Zoological Society of London; occasional events on conservation and zoology

Hunterian Museum: Part of the Royal College of Surgeons, with a treasure trove of specimens and surgical paraphenalia

University calendars (usually featuring dozens of events per week):

UCL

Imperial

LSE

 

The Ecocide Act: should environmental damage be a Crime Against Peace?

What price our planet?

  • War Crimes
  • Genocide
  • Crimes of Aggression
  • Crimes Against Humanity

Four serious offences, certainly, and together known as the “Crimes Against Peace”: the four laws that the International Criminal Court in The Hague was set up in 2002 to prosecute breaches of.

Should Ecocide be the fifth?

That was the topic for discussion at City University last night where Michael Mansfield QC, the well known barrister who has represented, amongst others, the family of Stephen Lawrence, Barry George and Michael Barrymore. But tonight he wasn’t batting for celebrities or victims but an altogether bigger party: the proposed new law of Ecocide.

Ecocide: The extensive damage to, or destruction of, or loss of ecosystem to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants will be severely diminished.

That is the proposed wording of the Ecocide Act: a law proposed by barrister Polly Higgins who presented on her proposal to the UN in April. The Ecocide Act would give the power under international law to prosecute individuals, including the heads of corporations, in breach of the law for damage to the environment. Michael Mansfield explained that there are already various laws in place protecting the environment, but these are national laws only and hence are in many cases subject to political pressures, as, for example, governments have no interest in prosecuting those contributing to their own country’s economic success.

The world is, Mr Mansfield says, in political meltdown. In economic meltdown. And last, but not least, in environmental meltdown. Governments are failing to take decisive action on climate change, he said, citing a report from the Gaia Foundation entitled “Opening Pandora’s Box” which suggested that a new raft of extracting technologies are have pushed us past the point of sustainability with regards extraction and exploitation of resources. An Ecocide Act would allow an international court to prosecute those willfully damaging the environment in this, or other, ways.

Mr Mansfield provided several examples of environmental damage done with the blessing of the government involved; a recent case he cited was the story reported at the end of last year that shale fracking (a new technique for extracting natural gas from rocks) was probably responsible for earthquakes felt in Blackpool. Only this month Canada has been in the news with its work on the oil reserves of Alberta province, large enough to make Canada the world’s second largest holder of oil (after Saudi Arabia) but the subject of much environmental concern.

This is not Ecocide’s first moment in the spotlight. Last year Mr Mansfield was the prosecuting council in a Mock Trial, held at the Supreme Court, in which senior managers of two fictitious companies were put in trial for Ecocide in relation to two real world events: the Gulf Oil spill and the oil mining in Canada mentioned above. The two charged in relation to the Canadian mining were found guilty; the Gulf Oil representative not guilty.

While the trial was merely a demonstration, the idea of an Ecocide Act, Mr Mansfield suggested, is just one of a series of signs that the world is changing. Occupy London. The Middle East uprisings. The work of the family of Stephen Lawrence to bring his killers to justice. All, Mr Mansfield suggests, a sign that now more than ever the people are standing up and realising that we cannot leave our leaders to do the right thing: individuals MUST make a stand for justice and freedom. The Ecocide Act currently being considered by the UN is an attempt by individuals to do just that.

What do you think? Did you attend the Ecocide mock trial? Do you work in an industry potentially affected? Are you a climate researcher? Or simply as a global citizen, do you think Ecocide should be made a crime on a par with genocide? Give us your views below.

You can read more about the Ecocide movement and watch the mock trial on its website. This event was held at City University, London which holds a variety of free, public events.

Science Events in London: 20 – 26 February

Monday

More sex is safer sex is the title of the book on which tonight’s talk at the Adam Smith Institute is based. A little out of our usual field as the talk is all about economics, but it looks like a lot of the questions addressed using economic principles will be scientific, including “How do we use basic ideas of economics to tell us whether the world has too much or too little pollution?. 6:30pm; book now!

Tuesday

Those looking for a bit of inspiration might find it at the Society for Chemical Industry tonight as they host a talk on Alexander Kellas, the UCL chemist and mountaineer who assisted with the discovery of the inert gases and was a premier mountaineer of his day (1868-1921), ultimately dying on Everest. 6pm; no need to book.

Wednesday

An unusual one tonight at City University: with climate and environmental talks between countries so far relying mainly on goodwill, is it time to use the law to protect ourselves? Proposing an international law on Ecocide, the environmental equivalent of genocide. Is it legally possible? In September 2011, a mock trial was held at the Supreme Court and Michael Mansfield QC, the prosecuting barrister on that day talks tonight about the outcome and the implications.

Thursday

Spacetacular! returns tonight; the stand-up comedy, quiz, variety and more show all about space hosted by Helen Keen and Matt Brown. Guests include Radmila Topalovic from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich and Kevin Fong, space medicine expert and familiar face on TV shows including Horizon and there will be a special screening of “She Should Have Gone To The Moon” presented by its director. 7pm; tickets £5 or £4 for those in space fancy dress.

Does innovation begin with the entrepreneur or the technology? is what the Royal Institution wants to know tonight. A panel including Elizabeth Varley, co-founder and CEO of TechHub, will investigate. 7pm; £10.

Friday

After Hours means the Natural History Museum is open until 10pm tonight, with special events including The Scramble for Antarctica, looking at the squabble for land and sea rights in Antarctica. Also one of your last chances to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition before it closes.

The Weekend

Hampstead Observatory is still running its winter schedule of observing, open Friday and Saturday night 8-10pm for star gazing and Sunday 11-1pm for sun gazing. Free and no need to book, but all weather dependent, so check first.

You can follow the Nature Network London Google calendar of events in London at https://blogs.nature.com/london/2011/05/17/scientific-events-calendar. Updated daily.

————————————————————————–

As well as our regularly maintained calendar, you can find lots of other suggestions of science-y events in London. We have compiled a list of some other places to look: we will continue adding to this list, and please do, as always, send us additions for it:

Collections and calendars

Londonist recommendations: All things scientific, technical and geeky

Ian Visits: A calendar of all types of events in London, including science and engineering, with added editorial

Museums, societies etc:

Wellcome Collection: Regular events and exhibitions of a medical flavour at the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road

Royal Institution: Miscellaneous science and policy events

Royal Society: Science, policy and conferences

ZSL: Zoological Society of London; occasional events on conservation and zoology

Hunterian Museum: Part of the Royal College of Surgeons, with a treasure trove of specimens and surgical paraphenalia

University calendars (usually featuring dozens of events per week):

UCL

Imperial

LSE

 

The Museum and the iPad: how the Grant Museum is using social media to make us all curators

As part of Social Media Week, Nature London talked to Jack Ashby, Manager of the Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL, about QRator, the pioneering project the Grant Museum is working on to allow the public to engage with museum collections by contributing their own interpretations.

Read on for more from Jack before Thursday, when you can tune into the live stream of “Beyond a Trend: Enhancing Science Communication with Social Media.” The panel, hosted by American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), is the latest in the monthly series organized by Science Online NYC, aka SONYC.


Hello Jack, welcome to the Nature London blog. Can you tell us about the QRator project you’ve introduced to the Grant Museum?

QRator is a project that allows our visitors to get involved in conversations about the way that museums like ours operate and the role of science in society today. In the Museum are ten iPads which each pose a broad question linked to a changing display of specimens. We are really interested in what our visitors think about some of the challenges that managing a natural history collection brings up, and other issues in the life sciences. They change periodically, but at the moment our current questions include “Is it ever acceptable for museums to lie?”, “Is domestication ethical?”, “Should human and animal remains be treated differently in museums like this?” and “What makes an animal British?”

Visitors can respond on the iPads themselves, on their own smart phones by scanning a QR code (hence the name QRator), via Twitter using #GrantQR, or at home on their computers at www.qrator.org. In these ways they can input into our decision making process. Their comments go live immediately on the iPads and online, without being moderated by museum staff.

Not only is QRator a way of empowering visitors but it’s also a research programme – it was developed with a team of academic partners here at the University – the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) and the UCL Centre for Digital Humanities (UCL DH). Museums are only just beginning to use this kind of technology – it’s a truly ground-breaking project – and having developed the software specifically for us, our partners are researching the way that museum visitors behave around it.

What inspired you to try the iPads in the first place?

The Museum moved into our current venue last year from a small cramped lab down a back-alley in the UCL campus. It had an incredible atmosphere which, following our visitors’ wishes we didn’t want to lose as we moved into our beautiful larger space. At the same time we wanted to be a demonstrably 21stcentury museum, engaging visitors in the ways described above and being innovative with our practices. Working with CASA and UCL DH we decided on iPads as they are discrete enough not to detract from the incredible atmosphere we have here in the way that some computer interactives can, and they are intuitive to use. More importantly, museums had never used them before. To our knowledge, we were only the second museum in the world to employ iPads permanently in displays, and the first to use them for visitor participation.

 How are visitors engaging with them?

There’s been a great response from our visitors – they have left thousands of answers to the questions. One major thing that we didn’t anticipate is that people are also using them as a kind of digital visitors book. As well as getting involved in the conversations, people are letting us know their thoughts on the Museum in general and what they like or dislike about many of our specimens. The jar of moles gets a lot of mentions. This has become a great way for visitors to point things out to each other without us telling them what we think they should see.

Can people who can’t get to the Grant Museum at the moment participate at all?

Absolutely. Everything that is on the iPads is also on www.qrator.org– if you comment online it goes live on the iPad and vice versa.

Are you pleased with how it’s going?

Definitely. It was a big risk – we didn’t know if the hardware could stand up to this kind of use, and allowing visitors to comment without moderating beforehand is something museums very rarely do (though there is an expletives filter), but it’s been a real success. We’ve also had huge amount of interest from colleagues in other museums around the world wanting to know what we’ve learnt from it and whether they can create something similar for their visitors.

What are you hoping to do next with this project?

The big next step is to start putting our visitors’ responses into practice, and for the ones that are more broadly about the life sciences to disseminate what they’ve said more widely. We are constantly exploring what we can do next in this field – broadening the ways that people can respond.

Do you think social media is going to be very important to museums and outreach departments of universities in the future?

There’s no doubt it will be. It would be clichéd to say that more and more people are accessing information through these platforms, but it’s true. Museums are certainly upping their game, and the best examples are those that aren’t all about marketing. Building on the lessons we learnt with QRator at the Grant Museum, The Imperial War Museum is developing its new gallery with what they are calling “social interpretation” – it uses the social media model for visitors to participate digitally with the way their displays are interpreted. It’s a really interesting model and the time is now for museums to be experimenting with this kind of concept.

You can visit the Grant Museum and experience the QRator project for yourself at Rockefeller Building, 21 University Street, London WC1E 6DE. The Museum is open to the public free of charge Monday – Friday 1-5pm. Research and group visits are available by advance booking on weekdays 10am-1pm.

Social Media Week: London

This week is Social Media Week worldwide, a week dedicated to all things social media, with thousands of events going on in dozens of cities as well as, of course, online.

As part of this week, nature.com is organising a special edition of SONYC, the monthly discussion meeting in New York on a whole range of topics to do with science online. This month’s is entitled “Beyond a Trend: Enhancing Science Communication with Social Media” and will be held on Thursday night NY time at the American Museum of Natural History, featuring panelists from the AMNH, the NY Times and more, but if you can’t make it or are a continent away, you can follow online watching the livestream: all the details here.

Meanwhile, nature.com will be running a series of special features to co-incide and readers of our sister blog Of Schemes and Memes will have already read the first offering of the week: Alan Cann from the University of Leicester discussing his use of social media within the university curriculum.

But as well as online events, there are also real world events and London has more than a hundred events planned. The majority you don’t need to book for, but do check as some are already booked up. To pull out one potential highlight for scientists, you might be interested in Thursday afternoon’s The Psychology of Online Influence, looking at how psychology and marketing can come together to predict trends. Panelists include David Stillwell, Research Associate at The Psychometrics Centre, University of Cambridge. 1-2:30pm at the Design Council.

Have you been to any other good SMW events? Or got any recommendations? Let us know!

Science Events in London: 13 – 19 February

This week I am going to make it my mission to find you at least one thing to do each day that is not in the least related to romance. This, looking at the calendar, may be a challenging prospect…

Monday

Optical Microscopes are the topic of the 2012 Leeuwenhoek Lecture at the Royal Society, which will be given by Dr Brad Amos FRS. Free and no need to book; doors at 5:45. If you can’t make it, the video will be online later in the week.

Self described as “aiming to be controversial”, UCL hosts an event looking at what its researchers across the disciplines are doing to affect our wellbeing over the next 100 years. 5-7pm in the Roberts Building at UCL; free and no need to book.

Tuesday

ZSL hosts an event in its occasional series of conservation lectures tonight, focusing on The Decline of Mangroves. Mangroves are those amazing trees which grow in water and provide a unique ecosystem around their submerged roots, but have declined by up to 35% since 1980 and one in six species are now thought to be at risk. Four experts in the field come together to discuss the future. 6 – 7:45pm at ZSL in Regents Park; free and no need to book, but if you want to attend dinner with the speakers afterwards, book now.

Over at LSE, a legal one: Neuroscience, Responsibility and the Law brings together legal and scientific minds to ask whether advances in neuroscience will change our understanding and application of the law, including concepts such as criminal responsibility. 6:30 – 8pm at LSE; free and no need to book.

Admittedly Valentine’s themed with its Love Bugs title, but sounds brilliantly unromantic regardless; the Hunterian Museum plays host to Science London who will help you craft cuddly bacteria and learn all about them, along with other stories from the museum archives. 6-9pm; suggested donation £2 on the door.

Wednesday

Scientists are recovering from Valentine’s Day and hence will apparently not be leaving the house/lab to organise any events.

Thursday

Why do we love chocolate? There is a scientific explanation and tonight the Society of Chemical Industry will be looking at what it is. Professor Jeremy Spencer  and Dr Victoria Whelan will be discussing the science before a wine-and-chocolate tasting session for attendees. 5:30pm to look at poster before talks kick off at 6pm. £5 in advance; £10 on the door at SCI – 14/15 Belgrave Square, SW1X 8PS (near Knightsbridge tube).

Meanwhile the Dana Centre hosts the “Magic of Medicine”, looking at how new breeds of genetically engineered mice are improving the drug development process. 7pm in South Ken; free but book.

Friday

UCL’s Bitesize lunchtime lecture series as visited by Nature London last week, this week looks at the future of providing energy to our cities. 1:10 – 1:55pm; free, no booking.

The Weekend

Hampstead Observatory is still running its winter schedule of observing, open Friday and Saturday night 8-10pm for star gazing and Sunday 11-1pm for sun gazing. Free and no need to book, but all weather dependent, so check first.

You can follow the Nature Network London Google calendar of events in London at https://blogs.nature.com/london/2011/05/17/scientific-events-calendar. Updated daily.

————————————————————————–

As well as our regularly maintained calendar, you can find lots of other suggestions of science-y events in London. We have compiled a list of some other places to look: we will continue adding to this list, and please do, as always, send us additions for it:

Collections and calendars

Londonist recommendations: All things scientific, technical and geeky

Ian Visits: A calendar of all types of events in London, including science and engineering, with added editorial

Museums, societies etc:

Wellcome Collection: Regular events and exhibitions of a medical flavour at the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road

Royal Institution: Miscellaneous science and policy events

Royal Society: Science, policy and conferences

ZSL: Zoological Society of London; occasional events on conservation and zoology

Hunterian Museum: Part of the Royal College of Surgeons, with a treasure trove of specimens and surgical paraphenalia

University calendars (usually featuring dozens of events per week):

UCL

Imperial

LSE

 

UCL Bitesize Lectures: Renewable Energy vs the MOD

Slightly underground in all senses of the word, the best way to spend your Friday lunchtimes at the moment is with the weekly series of lectures held at UCL. Called Bitesize, the weekly event is held in the basement of a cafe in UCL’s Lewis’s building (at the Euston Road end of Gower Street) and lasts 45 minutes. There are two speakers per event, both early career stage researchers from UCL, and each gets 15 minutes followed by five minutes worth of questions to talk about their latest research. It appears popular; the 40 or so people attending today’s lectures had more questions than there was time to address in the time.

Today’s first speaker was Dr Alessio Balleri of the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering discussing his work on a new design of wind turbine called the Wind Lens, research funded by the Japanese ministry for the environment. He started with a review of the current situation, reminding us that the EU has targets of 20% of energy to be produced from renewable sources by 2020. The biggest contributor is expected to be wind power, as it is the most mature of the current technologies.

Unknown to me, wind turbines have a more formidable opponent than the unfortunate local residents who object to the noise and eyesores. 50% of all pending wind farm developments in the UK are facing opposition by the Ministry of Defence. It turns out that the problem is radar. Wind turbines disrupt radar, with consequences for all sorts of uses, including weather surveillance, air traffic control systems and most concerning, for the MOD air defences. Radar detects aircraft (and other objects) by sending a pulse and looking at the frequency shift of the echo. Unfortunately, wind turbines produce a very similar frequency shift to that of aircraft, leading to serious disruption of tracking systems in the vicinity of wind farms.

Many solutions have been proposed to tackle this problem, mostly looking at changing the mechanics of the radar system, but the Wind Lens project looks at trying to minimise the impact of the farms by changing the design of the turbines themselves. By fitting a ring around the blades, the wind is concentrated, reducing the radar signature. Dr Balleri’s research team is currently conducting a trial into this and early results are promising; results suggest disruption can be minimised by a factor of up to 30, with additional benefits of reduced noise and a safer structure, with the blades protected.

If this design could be improved to reduce the impact on radar systems, could wind farms and the MOD live happily side by side? Despite the early stage of the research, Dr Balleri was asked if he could see this design being built in the UK in the near future? Absolutely, he replied.

For more on the Wind Lens project, you can view this report on the project:

Science Events in London: 6 – 12 February

Monday

There is something very strange going on with science and Mondays… this is the second week in a row that we have not been able to find a single event happening! Do you have an explanation? Is there an underground society of scientists meeting on a Monday that we don’t know about? Let us know!

Tuesday

The Society of Chemical Industry, a forum for the intersection between science and business runs a regular series of talks and events, both in London and around the UK and tonight’s at UCL looks like a good one. “What’s in my stuff?” is a project combining science and art to get the public thinking about the materials in everyday objects. Reduce, reuse and recycle are the watchwords, especially on the electronics front, and this talk will look at how the early stages of the project, involving turning the components of a mobile phone into jewelry, have worked. Free, 6pm in the Ramsay Lecture Theatre at University College London, with doughnuts at 5:45 for early arrivers.

In the ongoing unfortunate clash, the open mic night Science Showoff is back at the Wilmington Arms from 7pm with lightning, musical science and the Golden Ratio while Science in the Pub starts at 7:30 for 8pm in the Brixton Ritzy with Paolo Viscardi celebrating Darwin Day with a talk on Darwin’s life, ideas and legacy.

Wednesday

City University takes on science policy tonight with “UK energy policy – will it deliver, can it deliver?” In the Bridge Lecture, Dr David Clarke, CEO of Energy Technologies Institute, looks at the UK’s energy policies and the strategic planning done by ETI. Free, but booking required. 6pm start at Tait Building, City University London, EC1V 0HB.

Thursday

A new series starts tonight which definitely looks worth trying out: a Cafe Scientifique run by the Institute of Psychiatry. The first topic is “Alzheimer’s Disease: the quest for a cure” with expert speaker Dr Amy Pooler. Dr Pooler will give a talk and take questions, and discussion is highly encouraged, although the aim is public engagement, so no expert scientific knowledge is required. Free,but book in advance. 6:30pm start at the IoP, 16 De Crespigny Park, London, SE5 8AF (near Denmark Hill).

If space is more your thing, the Royal Observatory offers “Spacetalk: Mapping the Universe“, looking at how new ways of mapping space on huge scales has allowed astronomers to trace superclusters of galaxies and how the galaxies, gas and mysterious dark matter which comprise them interact. 6:30pm: £5. Currently sold out, but may be worth watching for returns or booking future events in the series now.

Friday

The Valentine’s edition of UCL’s academic stand-up night Bright Club, and I think the only thing to do is to quote directly from their blurb: “Join our line-up of comedians, musicians and researchers to find out about everything from duck sex to medieval seduction, and from internet dating to the pure love of a scientist for her apparatus (not that kind of apparatus).” 7:30pm; £8; book now.

The Weekend

Hampstead Observatory is still running its winter schedule of observing, open Friday and Saturday night 8-10pm for star gazing and Sunday 11-1pm for sun gazing. Free and no need to book, but all weather dependent, so check first.

You can follow the Nature Network London Google calendar of events in London at https://blogs.nature.com/london/2011/05/17/scientific-events-calendar. Updated daily.

Friday Focus: Animal Art and the Grant Museum

Definitely the most unusual new entry to London’s scientific life this week is the new exhibition at the Grant Museum: Art by Animals. Part of the ongoing series entitled Humanimals, this exhibition features paintings done by a variety of animals including elephants and orang-utans.
 

Untitled by Sumatran orang-utan “Baka”, using poster paint on canvas

The above picture is just one of the samples on display from now until the 9th of March, in one of the first displays to give scientific credibility to animal art. Elephant painting has long been a tourist attraction in Thailand amongst other places, but has been hit by controversy by art so good that it was thought to be faked. 

Flower Pot” by the Asian Elephant “Boon Mee”, a retired logging elephant in Thailand

 Ape art (as shown in the top picture) is thought to be approximately comparable to that of a 2-3 year old child still in the “scribble” stage, but unlike human children, it does not develop beyond that point. The prevailing view of experts appears to be that ape art is the most interesting type; elephants are painting more or less randomly, with paintbrushes in their trunks, their movements guided by keepers stroking their ears(!), but while the results are less impressive the apes have a clearer idea of what they are doing and decide all aspects of their painting, including the end, themselves.

 As always at the Grant Museum, the curators are encouraging visitors to enter the debate about whether this art is real and worthwhile or whether it is simply random and shows nothing interesting about animal brains. To encourage participation with this and a doxen other debates, the museum has attached 10 iPads to specific exhibits, which visitors can use to give their thoughts, or download apps to explore the content further. One of the questions currently being debated by visitors on the iPad asked whether we should be trying to bring back extinct species by cloning. Perhaps oddly for a museum which is part of the University of London and heavily used by university students, at least half the recent responses had ignored the question and used the iPad as a visitors book, but there were still a lot of good comments and an invitation to continue the discussion on Twitter.

Beyond this exhibition, the Grant Museum is a little haven of zoology just off the Euston Road, a relatively tiny room, stacked from floor to ceiling with skeletons, amphibians in jars and other specimens of all imaginable types. Many of the specimens are out of their cases, being sketched or simply sitting on trolleys; the bigger ones stand on the edge of the cabinets while something looking rather like a sloth is actually hanging from a beam on the top gallery. Open to the public as well as interested students, it should not be missed by anyone with even a passing interest in zoology.

Porcupine fish, one of tens of thousands of specimens. Adopted by James Orr, but still plenty left to go.

 The Grant Museum is found at 21 University Street, WC1E 6DE, open Monday – Friday 1-5pm, free entry. There are a wide range of events, including a Valentine’s Day special on the 14th of February, details of which can be found on the website.