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U3A COSTA DEL SOL

This page updated January 27th, 2012

Science & Technology Group

If you have any questions - contact Ian Phillips at OR by phone at 952 494 172

Every 2nd Wednesday 11:00 - 12:30 Lux Mundi Ref Lib

	Programme for the coming year 2011/12
October 19th	Introduction - 2011 Nobel Prizes & Other Delights - details below
November 2nd	Aspirin in History & A History of Aspirin details below
November 16th	Nature v Nurture details below
November 30th	Stem Cells and Gene Therapy details below
December 14th	The Periodic Table and Chemical Elements details below
January 11th	The Archaeology of Weights & Measures details below
January 25th	Artificial Intelligence - details below
February 8th	William & Caroline Herschel
February
March
March
April
April
May
May

More Celebrity Nonsense distilled by Sense about Science.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence - Wikipedia page

The Future of Robotics - Andrews Ng's Talk

Aldebaran Corporation - Manufacturers of NAO

NAO Videos - Nao's YouTube page

Archaeology of Weights & Measures

Laws of Æthelberht - Wikipedia page

International System of Units - Otherwise known as SI units. Links to more technical issues

Watt Balance - Details of the new approach to standardizing mass measurements

The Periodic Table & The Chemical Elements

The Periodic Table of Videos - The best site for a clear and straightforward introduction to chemistry

Radii of Atoms - How big is an atom and why does its size vary

Pauli Exclusion Principle - A 'comparatively straightforward' explanation

Wikipedia page on alloys

Stem Cells & Gene Therapy

Wikipedia pages on Stem Cells, and Gene Therapy

Recent (as of December 4th, 2011) news items on Stem Cells and Gene Therapy:

Stem Cell hope for heart problems, Healthcare & Genomics, Stem cells and blood cells

Stem cell and heart, Stem Cell and Liver and Pancreas Cells

Gene Therapy Briefs, Growing Organs in the Lab

Nature v Nurture

Wikipedia pages on:

Ibn Tufail, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes

Nature v Nurture - There are numerous links in this article and in the footnotes.

Flynn Effect - Article on the observed long term trend in increasing intelligence

Aspirin

Aspirin Foundation - Extensive website from Bayer & Reckitt

Bayer Foundations & Boots Heritage web pages

Edward Stone's Letter - Edward Stone's original (1763) letter to the Royal Society on Willow Bark

Sir John Vane - Short Biography about John Vane, who discovered how aspirin works

Introduction 2011

Details of this years Nobel Prize Winners are given here - the two videos that I showed are here Chemistry, and here Physics

'Fater than Light Neutrinos' video is here. And you can download the paper here (only for the ambitious)

Details of 'Imaging Dreams' and related research is here

Many of the video clips that I use in these talks are taken from The Periodic Table of Videos and Sixty Symbols - the first for Chemistry, the second for Physics

An excellent series of 30min videos aimed at the non-scientist Physics in Your Life. You can try the other links mentioned on this site as well.

More interesting links: Physics Links, and one on Astronomy from one of our members

Bob Clark Memorial Library

Bob Clark was a long-serving and well-loved member of U3A who was Group Leader for the Science & Technology group for many years. Following his death early in 2011 his widow, Janet, generously donated his collection of Science books to U3A for the use of members.

A list of the books is given here ( pdf file). If you wish to borrow any of these please contact Ian Phillips at OR by phone at 952 494 172