Climate change + Crop development in Africa – 105science

Can we believe that the climate will change in the long term, when we can’t even predict tomorrow’s weather? Our guest Tim Palmer is a Professor in Climate Physics at the University of Oxford, and President of the Royal Meteorological Society. In this interview with Professor Tim Palmer he reminds us that we are quite good at predicting the weather. He will also tell us what the job entails and how maths and physics are at the core of making predictions.

A Cambridge project is seeking to improve farming practices in Africa by sharing advances in biotechnology.  They’re called Biosciences for Farming in Africa (www.b4fa.org). Chris Creese meets one of their founders Dr David Bennett. There’s a  ‘demonstration farm’ in Cambridge called the National Institute of Agricultural Botany Innovation Farm, Lawrence Weaver Road, off Huntingdon Road. See www.innovationfarm.co.uk

What’s on in Cambridge, UK in March 2014

The Cambridge Science Centre on Jesus Lane aims to be the all year round science festival. They are open 7-days days a week with a series of special events. Until June, each weekend they’re running an exhibition of optical tricks and illusions. They’ve called it Perception – described here as a “sensory experience using illusions to uncover how our brain makes sense of the world”. Look them up at http://www.cambridgesciencecentre.org

A talk on Wednesday 2nd of April called “If Donald Rumsfeld were a scientist” – by Professor Stephen Emmott, Head of Computational Science at Microsoft Research in Cambridge
The past five decades have been characterised by spectacular scientific advances, spanning particle physics, molecular biology and neuroscience. Yet some of the most ‘basic’ building blocks of biology, the brain and the biosphere remain poorly understood.  Prof Emmott asks What are some of the outstanding known unknowns? On Wednesday 02 April 2014, 19:00-20:00 Institute of Continuing Education, Madingley Hall.