Review of Session 2005-2006

The Royal Society of Edinburgh Review 2007
(Session 2005-2006)
The
Royal Society of Edinburgh
THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2005-2006
The Royal Society of Edinburgh 22-26 George Street Edinburgh, EH2 2PQ
Telephone : 0131 240 5000 Fax : 0131 240 5024 email : rse@royalsoced.org.uk Scottish Charity No SC000470
Cover illustration by Aird McKinstrie. Design by Jennifer Cameron
THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2005-2006
PUBLISHED BY THE RSE SCOTLAND FOUNDATION ISSN 1476-4342
CONTENTS
Proceedings of the Ordinary Meetings .................................... 3 Proceedings of the Statutory General Meeting ....................... 5 Trustees Report to 31 March 2006 ...................................... 27 Auditors Report and Accounts ............................................. 47 Schedule of Investments ....................................................... 73 Activities Prize Lectures ..................................................................... 77 Lectures ............................................................................ 177 Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums ............................................................ 217 Publications ...................................................................... 247 The Scottish Science Advisory Committee ........................ 249 Evidence, Advice and Comment ....................................... 255 Inquiries ........................................................................... 257 Events for Young People .................................................. 259 Research and Enterprise Awards ...................................... 263 Medals, Prizes and Prize Lectureships ................................ 267 Grants Committee ........................................................... 269 International Programme ................................................. 271 Fellows Social Events ....................................................... 277 Grants, Sponsorship and Donations .................................... 279 Changes in Fellowship During the Session ........................... 281 Staff .................................................................................... 283 Obituary Notices .................................................................. 285 Index ................................................................................... 381
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ORDINARY MEETINGS

6 February 2006 Chairman Sir Michael Atiyah, OM, FRS, PRSE, HonFREng, HonFMedSci, Hon FFA Approval of Scrutineers for Ballot for Election of New Fellows March 2006 Professor Colin Bird and Dr Ian Sword were appointed. Lecture The Gannochy Trust Innovation Award Lecture. John Harrison. (page 95) 6 March 2006 Chairman Professor John Mavor FREng FRSE. Election of Fellows Professor Colin Bird and Dr Ian Sword who had acted as Scrutineers for the postal ballot for the election of new Fellows in 2006 reported that all those on the list (page 281) had been elected. Lecture Towards the Semantic Web: the Return of the Link. Professor Wendy Hall CBE FREng, University of Southampton. (page 197) 20 September 2006 Chairman Sir Michael Atiyah, OM, FRS, PRSE, HonFREng, HonFMedSci, Hon FFA Approval of Scrutineers for Ballot for Election of New Fellows March 2007 Professor Charles Withers and Professor Hector MacQueen Lecture The Vikings and Scotland: The Northern World and its Significance for Scotland. Magnus Magnusson Hon KBE FRSE. (page 216)
PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATUTORY GENERAL MEETING

Minute of the Statutory General Meeting held on 9 October 2006, ending the 223rd Session
The Annual Statutory Meeting took place in the Societys Wolfson Theatre on Monday 9 October 2006 at 5.30 pm. Sir Michael Atiyah OM, President, took the Chair. Sir Michael reported that for the first time the meeting was being web-cast live; absent Fellows could access this via a password-controlled section of the RSE website; those wishing to comment or raise questions could do so live by email; and a video recording of the proceedings would be available on the website for those unable to view it live. Minutes The Minutes of the Annual Statutory Meeting held on Monday 10 October 2005 were taken as read, approved by those Fellows present and signed by the President as a correct record. Matters arising At the meeting on 10 October 2005 Professor David Finnie expressed concern over the failure of the Society in the last few years to produce timely obituaries of deceased Fellows, and asked that steps be taken to address this. Sir Michael reported that progress had been made and was recorded in a paper circulated with other ASM papers, and although a backlog remained it had been reduced and was continuing to be addressed.
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Annual Review for Fiscal Year 2005/06 Sir Michael commented that, in addition to producing the formal Trustees Report and Accounts for 2005-2006 in accordance with Charity Regulations, an illustrated Annual Review of highlights of the year (with a summary financial review) was again produced, and this had been widely circulated to all Fellows, as well as to many others interested in the Society. Feedback on the contents and format of the Annual Review was invited. Following changes in recommended accounting practice, the formal Trustees Report also contained the financial statements of the RSE Scotland Foundation and the BP Research Fellowships Trust which had been consolidated with those of the RSE for the first time this year. The Trustees Report was available to any Fellow who would like a copy. Office Bearers Reports for Session 2005/06 Sir Michael invited Professor Gavin McCrone, General Secretary, Mr Edward Cunningham, Treasurer, and Professor Andrew Walker, Fellowship Secretary, to report. He suggested that Fellows discussion of the reports should take place
Review of the Session 2005-2006
after all three reports had been presented. General Secretarys Report Professor McCrone reported on highlights from the following report, which had been circulated to Fellows. In the year past, the Society had continued to make a strong contribution to the advancement of learning and useful knowledge in keeping with its Royal Charter, and had done so by successfully delivering a wide range of public benefit activities, which reached people of all ages from across Scotland and beyond. Professor McCrone then reported the following highlights and issues of activities during the Societys October 2005-October 2006 Session: Providing authoritative, independent advice and making recommendations to policy decision-takers The Inquiry into Scotlands future energy supply was launched in May 2005. Instigated by the RSEs Council, it was Chaired by Professor Maxwell Irvine and its Secretary was Professor Roger Crofts. The Inquiry took evidence from over 70 expert witnesses; received over 160 written submissions; held meetings in Lewis, Orkney, Shetland, Inverness, Aberdeen, Glasgow, London and Edinburgh; and an Inquiry delegation visited Finland. The
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report of its findings was published in June 2006. It makes 37 key recommendations and emphasises that diversity of energy sources will be crucial to security of supply. In January 2006 a Steering Group, Chaired by Professor David Ingram, was established to provide independent advice to the Scottish Executive on the distribution of its 2006/2007 funding for the Scottish Science Centres; and to consider if and how the Society might be involved in providing independent advice on funding distribution in future years, both in relation to the Scottish Executive-funded Science Centres and wider Science & Society programme. The Group has now fulfilled its remit. It provided advice on core funding for the Centres, but was not asked to advise on the distribution of funding for individual science & society initiatives. It also recommended, and RSE Council agreed, that the Society should be prepared to act as an independent source, which discharged the Science Centre / wider Science & Society programme in future years. The Scottish Executive welcomed this positive response, but following discussions has decided that it wishes to consider further how it will implement its Scottish Science Centres Network Strategy. The work of the Steering
Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting
Group is now therefore complete. For its part, the Society stands ready to provide independent advice in the future, if it considers it is well placed to do so, and should the Scottish Executive request it. In the meantime I would like, on behalf of the Society, to thank Professor Ingram and his Group for their considerable input and hard work. With the input of the multidisciplinary Fellowship, during the year, the Society produced 17 authoritative responses to a wide range of public, mainly Governmental, consultations. Amongst the responses were: - The UK Honours Degree: Provision of Information - A European Institute of Technology? - Best Value in Public Services - Towards a Transport Strategy for Scotland: Consultation on Rail Priorities - Developing Proposals for Coastal and Marine National Parks - Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill - Crofting Reform Bill - Enhancing Our Care of Scottish Landscapes - Strengthening Judicial Independence in a Modern Scotland - Developing a New Strategy for the Scottish Funding Council - A Policy on Architecture for Scotland
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Only through the input of Fellows were these informed papers, which contribute to policy formulation and debate, produced. Views expressed in the Societys responses do not of course reflect the view of every Fellow. Nor does the Society seek to present that they do. Its responses are a broad consensus of views received in relation to a particular issue. That approach must be accepted where such a diverse Fellowship of more than 1400 Fellows exists. Such diversity should not, however, be seen as a weakness, but as a strength. An Avian Influenza Working Group, under the chairmanship of Professor John Coggins, is currently examining the implications of this disease threat for Scotland. The Society is aware of a major investigation in this area being undertaken jointly by the Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences and therefore saw no merit in seeking to duplicate the work of this inquiry, hence the much narrower remit of itsr Working Group, which will monitor the effects in Scotland and advise Council accordingly. The intention is to report by late spring of next year. The Society signed a two-year contract with the Scottish Funding Council under which it has undertaken to provide the Council with expert opinion on strategic research opportunities. The
Society is currently seeking the assistance of relevant Fellows in responding to the Funding Councils first request for advice. This relates to the strategic importance to Scotland of research in bionanotechnology. The Society is treating this very much as a pilot exercise. The expectation is that it will receive some five requests for advice under this contract in each of the next two years. The Society continued to provide the Scottish Science Advisory Committee with the necessary support to enable it to undertake a broad range of activities in providing advice to the Scottish Executive. Uncertainty over the Committees future meant replacement appointments to it, due to have been made in 2006, did not take place. Instead, the terms of the existing Chairman and the other members were extended until 31 December 2006. The Society has since been informed by the Scottish Executive that the Committee will continue in its present form until the end of this calendar year, after which the Society will cease to have any formal responsibility for it. This change arises from the creation of the new post of Chief Scientific Advisor for Scotland within the Scottish Executive. The Society was delighted when RSE Fellow Professor Anne Glover,
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from the University of Aberdeen, was appointed to this role in August. Professor Glover intends to consult widely about the most effective way for engaging the science community on science strategy and issues. Members of the Committee have been asked by Professor Glover to remain involved, during the first half of 2007, in framing the recommendations to Ministers about the way forward. Time will tell what, if any, continuing role the Society might have. For its part the Society stands ready to support if required and if it considers it is best placed to do so. The Society is most grateful to the members of the Committee, past and present, for their contributions to its work, and especially wishes to thank Professor Wilson Sibbett for the leadership and direction he has given during his five-year period as Chair and the Committees Head of Secretariat, Dr Avril Davidson. In the Societys view the Committee has helped to lay a secure foundation on which the contribution, profile and role of science in Scotland can be built further. Supporting and enhancing Scottish research-based excellence The Society awarded grants totalling 1.7m to support some of the most able researchers from Scotland, elsewhere in the UK,
and overseas, to develop their ideas here in Scotland. These awards support work in areas such as healthcare, the environment, the ageing population, and in advancing social and economic well-being. The awards would not have been possible without the continuing financial support of organisations such as BP, the Caledonian Research Foundation, Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland, the Scottish Executive and specific purpose legacies bequeathed to the Society. To each of these the Society offers its sincere thanks. In November 2005 Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland entrusted a further 900,000 to the Society over three years to fund the next phase in a successful programme of Research Fellowship awards focusing on the ageing population and improving the quality of life of older people. In April 2006, part of the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotlands annual meeting was devoted to explaining the work of the Research Fellows and postgraduate students appointed previously under this scheme. Supporting the commercialisation of research and innovation During the year the Society continued to administer three Enterprise Fellowship Schemes, funded separately by Scottish Enterprise, PPARC and BBSRC,
with both the Research Council schemes operating on a UK-wide basis. Ten Scottish Enterprise Fellowships and four BBSRC Enterprise Fellowships were awarded. No new PPARC Enterprise Fellowships were awarded, but the administration of existing Fellowships continued. The Society continued its important partnership with the Gannochy Trust, inviting and judging nominations for Scotlands top innovator. Later this month, the 2006 Gannochy Trust Innovation Award of The Royal Society of Edinburgh will be made to Dr Marie Claire Parker for her innovation Protein-coated Microcrystal (PCMC) Technology. This innovation has many potential applications, including enabling some people with diabetes to take insulin by means of an inhaler, rather than injecting it. Communicating knowledge and understanding Publishing Journals Six issues of the Proceedings A journal and four issues of Transactions were published on behalf of the Society by the RSE Scotland Foundation. Copies of the journals were also sent to over 300 exchange partners worldwide. Both journals continued to be highly regarded by academics as publication vehicles, and maintain a respectably high
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impact factor in comparison to similar journals in their fields. Work is ongoing on a new-look, broader remit Transactions journal. New publishing contracts have been agreed this year and the journal will be re-launched in May 2007. Events The Societys Public Events Programme delivered some 30 + Lectures, Discussion Forums and Conferences, attended by over 2000 people. Lectures included: - Towards the Semantic Web: the return of the Link by Professor Wendy Hall, University of Southampton - The Re-wilding, North Americas Great Plains by Richard Manning, Environmental Reporter - Shakespeare, Jonson and the invention of the Author by Professor Ian Donaldson, Australian National University - Composite Individuality: A Gaian View, by Dr Lynn Margulis, University of Massachusetts - Antarctic Ice Sheets and Climate Change by Dr Mike Bentley, University of Durham - Solidarity in the Enlarged European Union, by the Vice President of the European Parliament, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski Once again, the Society participated in the Edinburgh Lecture series, held in 2006 in association with the Quincentenary celebrations of
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the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri spoke on Inside Surgery from Without: Therapeutic Interventions from Images. Discussion Forums on the environmental theme of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water, included: - Tropical Storms: Professor Brian Lee, University of Portsmouth and Dr Julian Heming, Met Office - Earthquakes: Professor Robin Spence, University of Cambridge and Mr Pete Sweetnam, Mercy Corps - Tsunami: Dr Chris Browitt, Journalist and Julia Horton and Diane Johnson of Mercy Corps. Another Discussion Forum addressed the issue, Science Meets Religion: Professor Simon Conway Morris and Professor Wentzel van Huysteen A conference on The Creation of Wealth, supported by Bank of Scotland, debated the future of Scotlands economy and produced some positive conclusions. Islam and Democracy was another successful, major conference held in May. Speakers included Professor John Esposito from Georgetown University and Professor Tariq Ramadan, Visiting Fellow at Oxford St Anthonys College. The Conference was supported by Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia; the Edinburgh Institute for the Study of The Arab
World and Islam; and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Much of it was broadcast to the Arabic-speaking world by British Satellite News and Al-Jazeera television. In September, Magnus Magnussons lecture The Vikings & Scotland: The Northern World & Its Significance was the inaugural event of a two day conference and a Workshop on the Vikings impact and influence. This was a joint conference with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, supported by the National Museums of Scotland and Historic Scotland. In addition there were events primarily for Fellows. These included the Triennial Dinner, held at the University of Edinburgh in June, attended by the Presidents of the Royal Irish Academy, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and senior representatives of the British Academy and the Royal Society. Young Peoples Programme The Young Peoples programme continued to thrive. The Education Team produced a set of CD-Rom and web-based teaching resources based upon the Discussion Forum held for Higher-grade students in St Andrews on Climate Change. This enabled schools throughout Scotland to hold their own mini-discussion forum and contribute to a national survey of students views.
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During the period, the Young Peoples programme ran 11 Talk Science schools lectures. Lecturers, who are all volunteers, and to whom we offer sincere thanks, visited schools throughout Scotland, from Dumfries to the Highlands, and covered diverse topics, including genetics and the chemistry used in common medicines. Other activities included: Startup Science Masterclasses for S1 and S2 students in Dundee, St Andrews, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Heriot-Watt Universities. Maths Masterclasses in Aberdeen, Dundee, West Lothian and Glasgow for Primary 6 and 7 students. Roadshows in Stranraer and Fort William. A two-day event, including science workshops for primary and secondary school students, there were also talks for secondary students and for members of the public. Two Science, Engineering and Technology Summer Schools in partnership with Heriot-Watt University introducing Highergrade students to university life. A Christmas Lecture, Who Are You?, by Professor Sue Black at Elgin Academy for local school students and separately for the general public. The lecture explored the topics of identity and forensic anthropology, drawing on Professor Blacks experiences around the world.
Communicating Generally Full reports were published, on the Societys web-site and in print, of many events in the Public Events, Young Peoples and International Programmes. These were widely distributed. The website was and is updated regularly and provides information for Fellows and the public. There has been appreciable media coverage of many of the Societys activities during the year; most notably of the Independent Energy Inquiry. Three issues of ReSourcE, the Societys newsletter, were published and distributed to the Fellowship and around 2,000 other decision-makers and interested members of the public. Fellows also received the monthly e-bulletin, which enables them to keep up to date with and, if appropriate, further disseminate information on the Society and its work. Feedback from Fellows suggests this to be a welcome means of communication. The fifth issue of Science Scotland (on Energy), which aims to promote the excellence of Scottish research, particularly to an overseas audience, was published in May 2006. A further innovation during this year was the successful web casting of two of our events: the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Research Award Presen12
tations and the Launch of our Energy Inquiry Report. This technology enabled people anywhere in the world with broadband internet connection to participate virtually in our events. In the next session, the ambition is to extend the use of this technology. Promoting the international awareness of Scottish research and innovation The success of the RSEs international programme continued. A new bilateral agreement was signed with the Slovenian Academy of Sciences & Arts. An informal agreement was signed with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The programmes of international exchanges were well subscribed, with over 50 exchanges taking place. Visits were made to or from Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, and USA. These represented a significant increase in the total length of international exchanges supported by the Society.
The Societys European Policy Forum also organised a successful conference on Language Learning and Teaching in Scotland in March 2006, a full report of which is available, and there are plans for follow-up events. Other international events held by the Society, included: - a High-Tech Forum in Life Sciences, hosted by the University of Edinburgh, and a Micronanotechnologies workshop held at the RSE, both with the National Science Council of Taiwan - a reception to raise awareness of the International Exchange Programme and specifically the Bilateral Programme with the Chinese Academy of Sciences amongst the postdoctoral research community of Scotland interested in working with their counterparts in China - a joint event with the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic on Nanomedicines of the Future held at the University of Strathclyde in November Sustaining and utilising the expertise of our multi-disciplinary Fellowship, and recognising outstanding achievement and excellence The Society currently has 1314 Ordinary Fellows, 33 Corresponding Fellows and 71 Honorary Fellows. This includes 55 new Ordinary, four Corresponding and
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four Honorary Fellows elected in March 2006. Many of these new Fellows attended an Induction Day held at the Society in May, at which they received certificates recognising their Fellowship. This was the second year in which the Induction Day has been held. It is much welcomed by new Fellows and has now become a mainstay of the programme of activities. Fellows were involved in all areas of activity as speakers or organisers of events; as contributors to the independent expert advice provided; and as conduits for many partnerships and relationships. The individual and collective part that Fellows played in the success of the Societys activities is invaluable and Council is extremely grateful for their support. In recognising outstanding achievements, Royal Medals were awarded in July to Sir David Jack CBE FRS FRSE for his many innovative pharmaceutical drug discoveries, and to one of the worlds leading Mathematicians, Professor Sir John Ball FRS FRSE. The Medallists were approved by the RSEs Patron, Her Majesty The Queen and recommended by the Societys Council, in recognition of intellectual endeavour, which has had a profound influence on peoples lives, world-wide.
The following prizes were also awarded: - The Makdougall Brisbane Prize to Professor Colin McInnes FRSE, Professor of Engineering Science, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Strathclyde. - The Henry Duncan Prize Lectureship to Professor James Hunter, UHI Centre for History, UHI Millennium Institute - The BP Prize Lectureship in the Humanities to Professor Graeme Laurie, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, School of Law, University of Edinburgh - The CRF Prize Lectureship in Arts & Humanities to Baroness Onora ONeill of Bengarve, Principal, Newham College, Cambridge A major international award, created during this period, will also seek to recognise excellence. Established in collaboration with Wolfson Microelectronics and the IEEE, this annual award aims to encourage and reward those responsible for transforming developments in electronics and electrical engineering which are profoundly improving peoples lives. The exceptional winner of the award will receive a $20,000 prize and a prestigious gold medal. The new award is being funded by Wolfson and the Society offers particular thanks to their CEO, Professor David Milne, for his support.
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The report is by no means exhaustive, but offers a flavour of the wide range of achievements in which the Society has been engaged in the past year. Without the willingness of Fellows to devote the time they volunteer to the Society, it would not be able to make the contribution the it makes to public benefit activities. Thanks to all Fellows who work so productively, together with the Societys hard-working staff. There are also Office-Bearers who step down today, having successfully completed their tenure: - Vice-President, Professor John Coggins, who has devoted a great deal of his time and expertise to the Societys activities on a number of fronts over many years. - International Convener, Professor Rona MacKie who has made a significant contribution in driving the International dimension of the Societys work forward. Ronas contribution will not be wholly lost as she will continue as a Trustee on Council for a further year, subject of course to the outcome of the election ballot which we will hear about shortly. - Councillors, Mr Ewan Brown and Professors Tariq Durrani and Ron Asher. Although stepping down as Trustees, Ewan will continue to serve as
Chairman of our Audit & Risk Committee, and serve on the Investment Committee; Tariq will continue to serve on the International Committee. The Society thanks all of them for their dedication to its work, whilst at the same time fulfilling demanding jobs and honouring other commitments. Treasurers Report Over recent years, changes have been introduced to improve governance amongst charities in Scotland. I am pleased to be able to say that the Society continues to comply with these requirements. Because of the nature of the Societys activities, our accounts have always been difficult to disentangle; at least I certainly speak for myself. And the recent changes have not made comprehension any easier. So, in an effort to understand them myself, I have prepared some explanatory slides. Results for 2005/06 You will have seen from the annual accounts that in 2005/06 the Society made a surplus of 551K compared with a surplus of 184K in 2004/05. At the same time, the net assets of the Society improved by 1.2M to 11.2M by the end of 2005/06. These results are encouraging and indicate that the Societys financial position is improving, albeit we
still have a considerable way to go to get beyond the vulnerable base from which we have had to work for a number of years. The results also demonstrate that the management and staff of the Society continue to perform to a high standard. Although I do not want to detract in any way from what I have just said, I do have to add that there is more to these results than meets the eye. This is where my slide show comes in. What I want to do is to talk you through a disaggregation of the figures to highlight certain key features and I will be doing this on a consolidated basis for the Society and the Foundation and the BP research Fellowship Trust. You will not be able to relate the figures to the accounts - unless you are a real genius - but for those of who do not posses this attribute, please bear with me so that you can enjoy my final trick. Operating Results Figure 1. The first point is that the Societys income, in the main, is earned from funders for delivering a diversity of programmes in both the public and private sectors. It is worth emphasising that the Society over recent years has acquired considerable competence in providing these programmes and, as a consequence, is recognised as a
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distinctive provider in its chosen fields. Compared to last year, income from the public sector declined marginally, while that from the private sector decreased by as much as 27%. This is not good news, but it does need to be set in the context that lead and lag times for programmes can be variable over extended time periods. Indeed, in recent years, we have experienced a bit of an up and downer. For example, our income over the past three years has been oscillating at around the same level. This is a matter of concern, although mitigated in the short term by an overall improvement in margins. Contribution to Indirect Costs Figures 2. The allocation of costs to individual programmes is not an easy exercise to carry out, but for our purposes here, these figures are a reasonable approximation. They show the extent to which our public sector activities contribute to our overheads; indeed some 80%. And, most hearteningly, they achieved a significant increase in margin from 20% last year to 23% in 2005/06. Meanwhile a more modest increase of just 1% was obtained from our private sector activities. From my perspective, it is critical that we maintain and, preferably,
enhance the margins from all of our activities. In terms of overheads, these have been contained compared with last year and indeed compared with earlier years. If I now summarise the preceding figures, the Societys net deficit on its operational activities was reduced by 22%. To my mind, this figure is a key measure by which we should judge our management and the outcome for 2005/06 is encouraging. Nonetheless, it is essential in the medium term that we should reach breakeven and that, over the longer term, we should secure surpluses. Only then will the financial position of the Society strengthen sufficiently to enable us to undertake more fully innovative programmes on our own account. RSEs Own Resources Hitherto the deficit from our operational activities has been offset from our own resources. Of these, the principal source is income from the use of our property for rental and for conferences. Lettings for conferences has continued to grow modestly and contributed 62K. However, this activity offers the significant additional benefits that it supports our academic interests, while disseminating knowledge to our wider community.
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Another significant amount is your subscriptions Overall, the surplus achieved in 2005/06 was just about double last years outcome; a very creditable performance. The Adjustments Figure 3. Now, we come to the somewhat distorting elements. The most important ones are, first, the 150K which relates to income which we have received in advance for certain operational activities and which we now have to recognise as income in the year in which the funds were received; this means that when they are implemented in future years, the costs will appear without the offsetting effect of the income. Also important is the substantial windfall which we received through the transfer from the Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation to carry out certain programmes agreed before it was wound up. And I should also mention that we received a further instalment of a very welcome and generous legacy. These adjustments total 316K. Add in this amount, and, hey presto, there are the same figures which I mentioned at the beginning and they correspond to the Net Incoming Resources line in the Annual Accounts.
Some Additional Points And now two final slides (Figures 4&5): The first one is just for information, although I should like to draw your attention to the extent of our dependency on public sector sources, which has now increased from 55% of operating income in 2002 to 71% in 2005/ 06. This is not necessarily a bad thing because the reality is that much of the Societys distinctiveness is of direct relevance to an increasing spread of public sector programmes. On the other hand, our awareness of this fact is a stimulus for developing our activities amongst private sector funders. At the same time this dependency at operational level should be set in the context that in terms of the RSE total incoming resources, public sector funders represent 55% of the total in 2006. The final slide shows the composition of the Societys assets. Here I want to highlight the obvious point that our main asset is our building. At the moment, our income from our property represents a return of 4.6%. Even accepting that part of the building is used for accommodating our staff and the conference facility, the return is not earth shattering, especially if the full market value of the site were to be taken into
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the calculation. Given the other financial constraints on the financial strength of the Society and on its ability to act flexibly, I am assessing how we might improve on it. Conclusion In conclusion, let me just mention that we expect the outcome for the current year to match the budget. This projected that our operating deficit would be Figure 1 Operational activities Income 000 Public sector Private sector Total Figure 2 Contribution to indirect costs Public sector Private sector Total Indirect overhead costs Surplus/( Deficit) on operational activities Other Income RSE own income Property and conference income (net) Own investments Subscriptions from Fellows (net) Total RSE income (net) Overall surplus/(deficit)
somewhat higher, in the order of 50K. This is not an outcome we would wish, but it does reflect the up and down nature of the timings of our activities as I mentioned earlier. Finally I would like to record my appreciation of the management team in identifying new growth opportunities and also Kate and her team in absorbing and implementing the effects of regulatory changes.
2006 2,040 835 2,875
2005 2,062 1,154 3,216
471 111 582 (792) (210)
409 137 546 (816) (270)
262 43 140 445 235

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240 21 128 389 119
Figure 3 Adjustments SORP Related Restricted income fund FRS1 Windfalls Total adjustments Per accounts
150 14 124 28 316 551
9 41 15 65 184
Figure 4 Some measures Public sector dependency Operating Income Contribution to indirect overheads RSE own resources As % of operating income As % of total income As % of Surplus/( Deficit) on operational activities
71% 81%
64% 75%
15% 12% 212%
12% 10% 144%
Contribution of employees (000 per employee) Operating Income 106 Contribution to indirect overheads 22 Figure 5 Net Assets 000 Fixed assets- property Investments for restricted funds RSE own investments Long term assets Net short term assets Net Assets
119 20
4,278 4,660 964 9,902 1,308 11,210
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Fellowship Secretarys Report Professor Walker presented the following report: I take this opportunity to provide the Society with a brief report on aspects of the process by which we elect Ordinary, Corresponding and Honorary Fellows. You will recall that last year saw the successful introduction of a Postal Ballot for the election of new Fellows. This year we continued this arrangement and almost half of the Fellowship again used the opportunity to register their votes. The scrutineers delivered the results of the ballot at the Ordinary Meeting on 6th March, where we were able to announce the election of: 55 Ordinary Fellows, four Honorary and four Corresponding Fellows. On the 8th May, all new Fellows were invited to attend an induction event held here in the Society Rooms. We were delighted by the excellent attendance, which included 48 of the new Ordinary Fellows, one Honorary Fellow and three Corresponding Fellows. Following a sociable lunch, they were all given the opportunity to meet the Societys staff and to tour the Rooms, and to hear an overview of the Societys activities. This was followed in the early evening by a ceremony at which they were formally admitted as Fellows, signed the Roll Book and
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received a certificate, acknowledging their Fellowship of the RSE. A new development this year was to display, on the day, a graduationstyle board of portraits of all the new Fellows and to provide a booklet containing these photographs and short descriptions of each their individual expertise. This was another excellent initiative developed by the Fellowship Office. Now a few brief comments on the statistics. Our new Ordinary Fellows are spread across our four discipline sectors as follows: Life Sciences 33%, Physical Sciences & Engineering 27%, Arts and Humanities 27%, and Business and Industry 13%. This represents a further step towards re-balancing some of the underrepresented subject areas within the Fellowship. In particular, the Society is keen to increase its representation in the Arts and Humanities and in the Business and Industry sectors, as these represent only 18% and 7% respectively of the current Ordinary Fellowship. The current quotas for Fellowship provide for relatively more places for these candidates whilst keeping the strong Life Science and Physical Sciences & Engineering sectors evenly balanced. We would encourage Fellows to nominate more candidates from within the under-represented subject areas.
Another area of concern is the male / female balance. The proportion of the Ordinary Fellowship which is female now stands at the rather low figure of 8.0%, but shows a welcome increase from below 5% in 1999. Eight women were elected as Ordinary Fellows this year. And, averaged over the six annual elections since 1999, 17% of the intake of Ordinary Fellows has been female somewhat ahead of the percentage of female professors in UK universities during this period (roughly 14% according to HESA data for 2002/03). This suggests we are redressing the past imbalance, albeit rather slowly. Noting the increasingly prominent role that women now play in academic, professional and business circles, Fellows may wish to bear these statistics in mind when considering future candidates for election. While talking about where we would welcome more nominations, I should also mention Corresponding Fellows. This section of the Fellowship, in terms of its distinction, lies above Ordinary but a little short of that expected for Honorary Fellows. They are also required to be resident overseas and, consequently, they contribute an important part of the Societys profile as we expand our international activities. There are up to ten places available each year for
new Corresponding Fellows, so please bear this in mind as we approach the end of May nominations deadline next year. This year for the first time, the Fellowship was given the opportunity to provide evidence-based comment on candidates ahead of the first deliberations of the sectional committee. This ensured that pertinent information, known by our Fellows, was available to the sectional committees at the outset both positive and negative. This year too, the sectional committees are configured in the same discipline clusters as recently introduced This seems to be working well, reducing the numbers of committees and exposing at an early stage candidates in specific various subject areas to wider scrutiny. These procedures, and indeed the full process that takes candidates through from nomination to the announcement of the election results on the first Monday in March, will be considered in a major review of the Societys election process to be carried out next year. Finally some thank-yous. Firstly, the Society is extremely grateful to those Fellows who take the time to nominate candidates for Fellowship. Secondly, we particularly thank the many Fellows who give of their time and expertise to service on the sectional committees and sector groups to help
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with the difficult task of assessing candidates for Fellowship. And thirdly, on a personal note, I express my considerable gratitude to Lesley Campbell and her very modest team in the office here for all the work they carry out in the course of each annual Fellowship election cycle and the support they provide me throughout the year. Sir Michael then invited comments and/or questions on the reports: Professor Malcolm Fluendy expressed concern over confusion he felt was caused by the number and variety of publications produced by the Society. He felt there was insufficient distinction between newsletters, events reports and position papers and that how much weight each carried should be clarified as well the extent to which they reflected the position of the Society. Sir Michael agreed that everything must be done to make this clear. Professor McCrone added that it was particularly important to distinguish between opinion and evidence publications. Sir Alan Peacock supported Professor Fluendys observations. He personally had disagreed with parts of the Fisheries Report and was concerned about some issues arising from the Energy Report, particularly in view of the fact that both of the economists on that
committee had resigned before the discussions were concluded. Sir Alan suggested that reports should contain a clear disclaimer that the Fellowship was not necessarily committed to the conclusions of any report but that the Society felt it important to air the matters in question. Professor McCrone replied that it would not be practical to circulate reports to the whole Fellowship for endorsement but that Council read and approved all of them prior to publication. He felt it was sufficient to state that a report had been approved by RSE Council. Professor James Irvine drew attention to the importance of the RSE maintaining its independence. He noted that 40% of RSE income came from the Scottish Executive and expressed concern that this could compromise the independence of the RSE, as it is the policy of the Scottish Executive to support research that reflects its own policies rather than to support science in general. Professor Irvine felt there was an imbalance in the RSE approach to some important aspect of Scotland, in particular relating to land management and farming in Scotland. In addition, the Scottish Executive gave verbal support to small businesses in Scotland but little tangible support. Some of the RSE events appeared to reflect this leaning. Finally, the RSE had
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provided no significant opportunity to debate the problems created in Scotland by European initiatives and Professor Irvine believed this is a problem that should be addressed, particularly in relation to farming and small businesses in Scotland. Sir Michael agreed that it was vital to maintain the Societys independence and integrity but pointed out that it has to operate within the public domain. It is difficult to attract funding from non-government bodies and therefore unavoidable that money has to be accepted from public bodies. Professor McCrone endorsed this and added that funds are only accepted on the understanding that the RSE independence and judgement are maintained. The funders involved do not in any way interfere with the decisions concerning RSE appointments and do not offer comment on people or research undertaken. It will always be difficult to maintain balance in an organisation of the nature of the RSE. Professor McCrone also made it clear that the RSE does not know in advance what individual lecturers will say. Finally he pointed out that several presenters at the Creation of Wealth conference had represented small businesses in Scotland. Mr Cunningham underlined that money given to the RSE deter-
mines what programmes are available but this never impinges on our independence. Lady Balfour commented that it would be impossible to engage in the activities the RSE does without finding dissent from within and without. The RSE cannot hope for unanimity from such a large and disparate membership. However, it is important to continue considering how best to disseminate our work. Huge progress had already been made in terms of the RSE premises and publications but the Society must keep looking forward strategically and taking advantage of existing and future technologies. Professor John Frances asked for assurance that the Society will continue to maintain a programme dedicated to science in Scotland. He was concerned about the status of the science in society programme being administered through the Scottish Executive, particularly in relation to issues such as ethical and social responsibility. Professor McCrone confirmed that the Society remains committed to the wider understanding and knowledge of science but pointed out that financial assurances cannot be given. Sir William Reid asked Professor Walker, Fellowship Secretary, for assurance that as well as appointing new science and business
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Fellows, administrators would also continue to be appointed. Professor Walker agreed that the lists issued were not exhaustive but that all identified disciplines are covered and will continue to be so. Professor Jim Atkinson complimented the Society on the Energy Report and urged that pressure should be put on Parliament and the Scottish Executive to implement the suggestions made within the recommended timescales. He also recommended that nano-science should the subject of the next RSE report. Sir Michael had been passed one question which had been received electronically from Professor Michael Wilson, who asked how widely the Society distributes its publications. Sir Michael replied that these are distributed very widely to all Fellows and many other interested parties throughout the UK and overseas. Election of Officers and Council for the 224th Session Sir Michael reported that all Fellows entitled to vote were sent a ballot paper by the General Secretary on 8 September. Professors William Firth and James Murray were confirmed as Scrutineers at the meeting on 20 September and examined all the returned ballot papers on 6 October. There were 507 returned ballot forms of which 502 were
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clean papers. All of those proposed for election had been elected by an overwhelming majority. Sir Michael thanked the Scrutineers and congratulated those elected for the first time and those re-elected. He also thanked the retiring Office-Bearers and Councillors, specifically John Coggins, Rona MacKie, Ron Asher, Ewan Brown and Tariq Durrani. Council President Sir Michael Atiyah OM Vice-Presidents Professor Jan McDonald Professor John Mavor Lord Patel of Dunkeld General Secretary Professor Gavin McCrone CB Treasurer Mr Edward Cunningham CBE Fellowship Secretary Professor Andrew Walker Ordinary Members Professor Sue Black OBE Professor Rona MacKie CBE Professor April McMahon Ms Shonaig Macpherson CBE Professor Christopher Whatley Executive Board General Secretary Professor Gavin McCrone CB Treasurer Mr Edward Cunningham CBE Curator Professor John Howie CBE
International Convener Professor Sir Neil MacCormick Programme Convener Professor David Ingram OBE Research Awards Convener Professor Peter Holmes CB Young Peoples Convener Professor Miles Padgett Any Other Business a) Admission of Fellows Two Ordinary Fellows who had not previously been inducted were present and invited to sign the Roll: Professor Olivia Fiona Robinson formerly the Douglas Professor of Roman Law and now Honorary Professorial Research Fellow, School of Law, University of Glasgow (elected in 2006). Professor John David Maitland Wright former Professor of Mathematics, University of Reading and now Research Professor of Mathematics, University of Aberdeen (elected in 978). b) Other business Professor Geoffrey Boulton expressed concern about RSE responses to Government requests. He felt these were less well directed and cogent that they might be with the current practice of writing out to Fellows in the field to invite comment. Professor Boulton
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suggested that a small group of Fellows competent in the field should be appointed to consider each request and submit a response to Council. He felt that at present the Society responds to too many requests and that it would be better to limit responses to matters on which it has something to say. Professor McCrone agreed that the Society should concentrate of the quality of its responses but pointed out that input from the Society always appeared to be highly valued. Often requests were made with very short deadlines and therefore it would not be practical to consult more widely than it did already and since Council only meets three times a year, the suggested consultation process would probably not be possible. Professor Paul Jarvis agreed that it was important to add more gravitas to the reports. However, he felt that the Fellowship contained many skilful people with a great deal of knowledge and that it would be sad to see an end of the practice of seeking responses. A lot of unexpected information can and does surface through that means.
Presentations Fellows Biographical Index presentation by Dr Charles Waterston Dr Waterson presented Council with a Fellows Biographical Index, produced by himself and Mr Angus Shearer with the support of RSE staff, Jennifer Cameron, Lesley Campbell and Vicki Hammond. Dr Waterston explained that the Index contained information on former Fellows between 1783 and 2002. It is available in the Fellows Room, has been distributed to various deposit libraries and is also available electronically on the RSE web-site.
RSE Inquiry into Scotlands Energy Future Professor Maxwell Irvine, Chairman of the Energy Inquiry committee gave a brief overview of the report published in June 2006. Professor Roger Crofts CBE, Inquiry Secretary then gave the Secretarys perspective and outlined the key issues. A lively discussion followed, to which many of those present contributed. Sir Michael concluded by thanking the Energy Inquiry Committee and particularly Professors Irvine and Crofts for their contribution to the meeting. Finally he thanked all of those who had attended the meeting and remarked on how successful the meeting and the ensuing discussion had been. Sir Michael Atiyah OM
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TRUSTEES REPORT TO 31 MARCH 2006

The Council of the Society present their report for the financial year ended 31 March 2006. Structure, governance and management The RSE Council, chaired by the President, comprises twelve Trustees, including three VicePresidents, the General Secretary, the Treasurer, the Fellowship Secretary and five ordinary members. Subject to annual reelection, Council members serve for three years, except the General Secretary and Treasurer, who may serve for up to four years. All are volunteers and unpaid. The Council is responsible for the strategic direction and policies of the RSE, and normally meets quarterly. An Executive Board has delegated responsibility from the Council for the operational delivery of many of the RSEs activities. It is chaired by the General Secretary, and also has as its elected members, the Treasurer, the Convenors of the main operational committees and the Curator, as well as the Chair of the RSE Scotland Foundation and senior executive staff. The Board meets quarterly and reports to the Council. The Council members and the office-bearers serving on the Executive Board are all elected annually by the Fellowship in a postal ballot. New members of Council and the Executive Board are given an extensive briefing
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pack and an introduction to the operations of the RSE through discussions with the Chief Executive and senior staff. Reporting to the Council through the Executive Board are several operational committees, including the International Committee, the Research Awards Committee, the Meetings Committee and the Young Peoples Committee. These Committees largely, but not exclusively, comprise Fellows of the RSE and are concerned with the operational delivery of the RSEs varied activities. All Fellows are actively encouraged to participate in the RSEs activities. There are two other charitable trusts founded by and closely connected to the RSE: the BP Research Fellowships Trust (the BP Trust) and the RSE Scotland Foundation (the Foundation). The Foundation plays a leading role in the continued development of the RSEs public outreach activities and manages the premises in George Street and its Trustees are appointed for three years by the RSE Council. The BP Trust was created following a donation of 2m in 1988 from BP to support a scheme of three-year postdoctoral research fellowships in specified subjects and which are awarded at the sole discretion of the RSE. The RSE President, General Secretary and Treasurer are the BP Trustees, ex officiis.
The financial statements of the Foundation and the BP Trust are consolidated with those of the RSE for the first time this year, following changes in recommended accounting practice. This has required restatement of prior year figures. The Scottish Science Advisory Committee, whose members are appointed following open competition by the Council of the RSE, provides independent strategic advice on scientific issues to the Scottish Executive. Its funding, received as a separate grant from the Scottish Executive, is administered through the RSE. Statement of Councils responsibilities Under the Laws of the RSE, the Council has responsibility to control all matters concerning the affairs of the RSE and set the overall strategy and policy. The Treasurer of the RSE has a duty to present to the Fellows at the Annual Statutory Meeting the accounts for the preceding financial year to 31 March. Under charities legislation, the Council is required to prepare accounts for each financial year which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the RSE and of its financial activities during the year then ended. In preparing these accounts, the Council should:
- select suitable accounting policies and apply them consistently - make judgements and estimates that are reasonable and prudent - ensure that the recommendations of the Statement of Recommended Practice (Accounting by Charities) have been followed - prepare the accounts on a going concern basis unless it is inappropriate to assume the RSE will continue its activities. The Council has a responsibility for keeping proper accounting records which disclose with reasonable accuracy at any time the financial position of the RSE and which enable it to comply with the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 and the Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992. It has general responsibility for taking such steps as are reasonably open to it to safeguard the assets of the charity and to prevent and detect fraud and other irregularities. Risk management The Audit and Risk Committee, operating on a joint basis with the Foundation, reports directly to Council and the Foundation, and is chaired by an ordinary member of Council. Its remit includes keeping under review the effectiveness of internal control and
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Trustees Report to 31 March 2006
risk management systems in the RSE and its connected charities. The Council believes that the existing systems and the structure of decision-taking and reporting through the staff management group, Executive Board and Council continues to provide assurance that risks are properly assessed and carefully managed. Objectives and activities The RSEs mission is the Advancement of Learning and Useful Knowledge. To fulfil this, it promotes learning and puts the multidisciplinary expertise of its Fellows to work for the good of Scotland and its people. It has two roles: - to serve as Scotlands national academy of science and letters - to support research and innovation in Scotland The RSE has set three strategic objectives over the period of its corporate plan from 2004-2007: - to continue to deliver a range of core activities, including those covered by existing arrangements with funders and partners - within these activities, to prioritise selected action areas and, where necessary, seek the resources needed for development - to encourage wider Fellowship and public participation and
better integration in the delivery of the RSEs programmes The RSE seeks to achieve these objectives by: 1 Providing authoritative, independent advice and making recommendations to policy decision-takers. 2 Supporting and enhancing excellence in the Scottish research base. 3 Supporting the commercialisation of research and innovation. 4 Communicating knowledge and understanding. 5 Promoting the international awareness of Scottish research and innovation. 6 Sustaining and utilising the expertise of its multidisciplinary Fellowship, and recognising outstanding achievement and excellence. Achievements in the year Overview This section includes the main achievements of the RSE, the Foundation and the BP Trust, reflecting the fact that the Financial Statements are presented on a consolidated basis for this Group of connected charities. Their activities are described in more detail below, according to the six main strands set out in the Corporate Plan.
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The highlights in what was a successful year and which are detailed in the report included: - A smooth handover of Presidency from Lord Sutherland to Sir Michael Atiyah, from the Statutory Meeting in October 2005. - A major independent inquiry into Scotlands Energy Future. Following extensive analysis and consultation begun in May 2005, a comprehensive report from a committee chaired by Professor Maxwell Irvine was launched in June 2006, to much acclaim. - An award of 900,000 over 3 years by Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland to fund the next phase in a successful programme of awards for research into the ageing population and improving the quality of life of older people. - A major independent review of the Scottish Executive-funded RSE Research Fellowship programme carried out by Sir John Enderby. This found the scheme to be well-run and providing very good value for money. Recommendations for significant enhancement and expansion of the scheme were made. - The announcement of all RSE Research Awards in the Scottish Parliament Debating Chamber in a session jointly chaired by
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the Presiding Officer, The Rt Hon George Reid MSP, and the RSE Vice-President, Professor John Coggins. This provided an impressive setting for a constructive discussion on attracting and retaining research talent in Scotland. - A Steering Group on Science and Society, chaired by Professor David Ingram, set up to give independent advice to the Scottish Executive on the award of grants for various Science and Society initiatives. - Significant growth in the RSEs international activities including four new agreements signed with overseas National Academies, increases in the numbers of international exchanges and the visit of the EU Research Commissioner Dr Janez Potocnik. - The third Gannochy Innovation Award presented to John Harrison in October at an impressive ceremony at the Royal Museum of Scotland. The Gannochy Trustees agreed to continue this annual award and with increased funding from 2006/07. - The Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation choosing the RSE as the recipient of a transfer of its remaining funds of 124,000. The funds will be used to organise a series of international conferences on Drugs
Futures, dealing with different aspects of the scientific, medical and social issues of drug development, delivery and use. Against a positive background in operational delivery, it is also pleasing to report that the financial position strengthened, with an increase in net incoming resources from 184,000 to 551,000. The sum shown for 2005/06 includes 150,000 in restricted income received in the year to be expended in future years and 293,800 in various Restricted Funds not available for the general running of the RSE. The net incoming resource (before transfers or investment gains) arising in the General Fund is 40,800, reflecting that normal operational activity contributed a modest, but growing, amount to the overall surplus. There were some low points in the year most notably the death of Professor Ian Stevenson, who had ably served the RSE as Programme Convener, until ill health forced him to retire; some conferences were cancelled or postponed, mainly because of difficulties in raising the necessary external funds; there was also a disappointing decline in the number of suitable applicants for Enterprise Fellowships. This lead to a decline of almost 200,000 in income from Scottish Enterprise and no appointments were made to the PPARC scheme. The quality of
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successful applicants, however, remained encouragingly high. Providing independent advice The RSE started an independent Inquiry into Energy Issues for Scotland in May 2005. The Inquiry was conducted and funded independently of Government and we are particularly grateful to the Binks Trust for generous support. Chaired by Professor Maxwell Irvine and with Professor Roger Crofts as Secretary, the Inquiry Committee took evidence during the year from nearly one hundred expert witnesses, received nearly two hundred written submissions and held meetings in Lewis, Orkney, Shetland, Inverness, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and London. In addition, a delegation visited Finland to observe its approach to energy issues. Following approval of the Report by Council, a Summary Report was published and launched at the RSE in June. This was web-cast live. The Summary and the Full Report were available thereafter, without charge, on the RSE website, and the Summary Report was freely distributed. The Report attracted widespread attention and comment. Without the dedication and expertise of the Inquiry Committee and donations from a range of sources, it would not have been possible to undertake this major
activity. Events will be arranged throughout Scotland to enhance public understanding of this complex issue. Using the expertise of its Fellows, the RSE responded to various consultations and submitted evidence and advice to 21 parties. These submissions are also available on the RSE website. The Scottish Executive launched its Scottish Science Centres Network Strategy in December 2005, with nearly 11m being available over three years. The Steering Group on Science and Society, chaired by Professor David Ingram, gave independent advice to the Scottish Executive on the distribution of funds in 2006/07. The Steering Group also advised the RSE Council on the feasibility of setting up a separate charitable company to disburse funds for this important activity, and discussions with the Scottish Executive are continuing. The Scottish Parliament Science Information Scheme continued to attract enquiries from MSPs and their researchers, and attempts were made during the year to encourage greater use of the scheme, which is run in association with the Royal Society of Chemistry. The Science in Parliament event in November 2005 provided an opportunity to promote the Scheme with examples of the types of briefing that
can be made available to inform MSPs on topical subjects. Supporting research excellence The RSEs Research Awards continue to support some of the most outstanding young scientists and innovators working in Scotland today. The benefits of their research are far-reaching, with work in areas such as healthcare, energy, the environment, communications technologies and our ageing population, all advancing the social and economic well-being of Scotland. It is only through valuable partnerships with key bodies such as BP, the Caledonian Research Foundation, the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland and the Scottish Executive that we are able to provide these awards. To each of these partners, we offer our sincere thanks for their continuing support. Each year we hold an award ceremony to announce the awards made to an invited audience, including funders and policymakers. In 2005 it was held in the Scottish Parliament and combined with a seminar on attracting and retaining research talent in which new and existing award holders also contributed their experience and views. The report of proceedings is available on the RSE website. This April, part of the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotlands annual
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meeting was devoted to the work of Research Fellows and postgraduate students appointed previously under this scheme to enable a wider audience to appreciate the importance of their work. The following awards were made during 2005-2006: - one BP Personal Research Fellowship - three Scottish Executive Personal Research Fellowships - three Scottish Executive Support Fellowships - three Scottish Executive Science Fellowships for Teachers. - seven CRF European Research Fellowships - Cormack Prizes: one Undergraduate Prize, two Postgraduate Prizes and five Vacation Research Scholarships - six Lessells Travel Scholarships In May 2005 an independent expert group was formed to review the Research Fellowships funded by the Scottish Executives Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department. The Steering Group was chaired by Sir John Enderby CBE, FRS, and also included Sir Brian Follet FRS, Professor Wilson Sibbett CBE, FRS, FRSE and a Scottish Executive Observer. They reported on the success and value of the programme to RSE Council in
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September 2005 and made the following recommendations to enhance and expand the scheme to fulfil the Scottish Executives policy objective to attract and retain research talent in Scotland: - Personal (three-year) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships should be lengthened to a minimum of four years to enable the Research Fellows to apply for Research Council grants. This would also place the Research Fellows in a strong position to secure a permanent academic position within their University. - The Personal Research Fellowships should cover Full Economic Costs. - The number of Personal Research Fellowships made each year should be increased to at least six. Currently the RSE can award up to three. - The schemes should be extended appropriately to include Arts and Humanities subjects. The Review took place against the background of introducing Full Economic Costing for university research and was received positively by Scottish Executive officials and Ministers. However, spending constraints in the current year have meant that it was not possible either to introduce the Full Economic Costing in 2006/07 or to provide the significant extra funding to implement the other Enderby recommendations at this
time. The RSE Council believes that Full Economic Costing and the Enderby recommendations are key aspects of developing a smart, successful Scotland and it is hoped that they will be taken forward as part of the next Scottish Executive Spending Review. Also supported by the Scottish Executive are the Royal Medals of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, its most prestigious award recognising research excellence and scholarship. The 2005 medals were awarded to Professor Sir David Edward for his outstanding contribution to law in the European Union and Scotland and Professor William Hill, one of the worlds most eminent quantitative geneticists. Supporting commercialisation and innovation The Enterprise Fellowships schemes run by the RSE aim to increase the commercialisation of academic research through technology transfer from the academic institution into a profitable commercial company. This activity helps create sustainable companies with high-value jobs and contributes to the economy in the long term. The RSE is responsible for three Enterprise Fellowship Schemes, funded separately by Scottish Enterprise, PPARC and BBSRC. Both the Research Council schemes operate on a UK-wide
basis. The BBSRC scheme attracted an excellent number of applications for a new Fellowships programme. Following a rigorous selection process, the first BBSRC Enterprise Fellows took up post in October 2005. During the year, ten Scottish Enterprise Fellowships (a decline from the previous year), four BBSRC Enterprise Fellowships and no PPARC Enterprise Fellowships were awarded. The Gannochy Trust Innovation Award of the Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotlands highest accolade for individual achievement in innovation. It was created in 2003, in partnership with the Gannochy Trust, to encourage and reward Scotlands young innovators for work which benefits Scotlands wellbeing. The purpose of the award is to encourage younger people to pursue careers in fields of research which promote Scotlands inventiveness internationally, and to recognise outstanding individual achievement, which contributes to the common good of Scotland. In 2005 this award was presented to Mr John Harrison in recognition of the contribution he has made to the development of surfactant technologies and solutions. Communicating knowledge and understanding A. Communications The RSE website is updated regularly and provides informa34
tion for Fellows and the public. Details of all the activities supported by the RSE are posted on the site, as are reports from events and press releases. The majority of application forms for Research Awards and Exchange Fellowships submitted are downloaded from the site and lecture tickets are available online and are increasingly processed by this method. Media briefings and press releases are provided for all major events and launches and there has been appreciable media coverage of most of the significant activities in the RSE programme. Three issues of ReSourcE, the RSE newsletter, were published and distributed to the Fellowship and around 2,000 others, including business leaders, journalists, research institutes, schools, MPs, MSPs and interested individuals. Fellows also receive a monthly ebulletin, which enables them to keep up to date with and, if appropriate, further disseminate information on the RSE and its work. The fifth issue of Science Scotland (on Energy) was published in May 2006. Science Scotland aims to promote the excellence of Scottish research, particularly to an overseas audience.
B. Publications The RSE continues its long tradition of publishing with its two journals, Transactions: Earth Sciences and Proceedings A: Mathematics, which are published on behalf of the RSE by the RSE Scotland Foundation. Six issues of the Proceedings A journal were published during this financial year on a regular bi-monthly schedule issues 135.2 to 136.1 inclusive. Four issues of Transactions were published. Copies of the journals are also sent to over 300 exchange partners worldwide. Both journals are highly regarded by academics as publication vehicles, and they maintain a respectably high impact factor in comparison to similar journals in their fields. A new-look, broader remit Transactions journal will appear next year with a slight change in title to include Environmental Sciences and with a revised cover design. A dedicated marketing drive will re-launch the journal with a Special Issue (provisionally entitled Holocene Environmental Change Lessons from Small Islands) to reflect the environmental theme.
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C. Events The Events Team delivered public events as follows: - 16 Lectures, including The Robot in your Head by Professor Noel Sharkey; the Gunning Victoria Jubilee Prize Lecture: Energy A Challenge for Materials Chemistry by Professor Peter G Bruce; Climate Change by Professor John Mitchell; The Lisbon Earthquake: 250 Years On and Counting by Lord Sutherland of Houndwood; Who You Are or Where You Are? by Professor Sally J Macintyre; and the CRF Prize Lecture, entitled Once There Was a Golden Age How We Judge Television: Then and Now by Joan Bakewell. Several full reports have been published and are available in hard copy from the RSE, or on the RSE website. - The RSE lecture in the Edinburgh Lecture series, held in association with the Quincentenary celebrations of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri spoke on Inside Surgery from Without: Therapeutic Interventions from Images. - Four Discussion Forums: The Ethics Of War by Professor Richard Sorabji and Professor John Kelsay; Artificial Intelli36
gence: In Your Life Today by Professor Aaron Sloman and Professor Wolfgang Wahlster; Science Meets Religion by Professor Simon Conway Morris and Professor Wentzel van Huysteen; Earth, Wind, Fire and Water: Tsunami by Dr Chris Browitt, Julia Horton and Diane Johnson of Mercy Corps. These all met with an encouraging response, with audiences being over target in most cases. - A conference Creation of Wealth, supported by Bank of Scotland, to debate the future of Scotlands economy. The speakers were drawn from across industry and commerce, the universities and the public sector and the audience also represented a wide range of interests. A full report of the lively debate was published which included conclusions such as the need to build on existing success and to promote a joined-up approach to economic development. - The Robert Cormack Bequest workshop held at the University of St Andrews, including a lecture Beauty in a dark Universe by the 2005 Carnegie Centenary Professor, Mario Livio. - In addition there were events primarily for Fellows and
these included the Triennial Dinner, held at the University of Edinburgh in June, attended by the Presidents of the Royal Irish Academy, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and senior representatives of the British Academy and the Royal Society; the New Fellows admission ceremony and induction in May; and the Annual Statutory Meeting in October. D. Education The Young Peoples programme covered the length and breadth of Scotland with: - 11 Talk Science schools lectures. Lecturers visited schools throughout Scotland, from Dumfries to the Highlands, and covered diverse topics, including genetics and the chemistry used in common medicines. - Startup Science Masterclasses for S1 and S2 students in Dundee, St Andrews, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Heriot-Watt Universities. - Maths Masterclasses in Aberdeen, Dundee, West Lothian and Glasgow for Primary 6 and 7 students. - Roadshows in Stranraer and Fort William. A two-day event, the roadshows include science workshops for
primary and secondary school students, talks for secondary students and a talk for the wider community. - A Discussion Forum for Highers students in St Andrews on Climate Change. This year the Education Team produced a set of CD-Rom and web-based teaching resources based upon the Discussion Forum so that schools throughout Scotland could hold their own minidiscussion forum and contribute to a national survey of students views. - Two Science, Engineering and Technology Summer Schools in partnership with HeriotWatt University introducing Highers students to university life. - A Christmas Lecture, Who Are You?, by Professor Sue Black OBE FRSE at Elgin Academy for local school students and separately for the general public. The lecture explored the topics of identity and forensic anthropology, drawing on Professor Blacks experiences around the world. Promoting the international awareness of Scottish research and innovation The success of the RSEs international programme continued during the year. New bilateral
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agreements were signed with the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. An informal agreement was signed with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and with the Cuban Academy of Sciences. The programmes of international exchanges were well subscribed, with a total of 53 exchanges taking place 26 on the bilateral programmes run with China, Poland and Taiwan and 27 on the open programme with visits to or from Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Chile, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, and USA. These represented increases in the length of international exchanges from a total of 8 to 55 weeks for bilateral exchanges, and from 37 to 83 weeks for open programme exchanges. The RSE European Policy Forum masterminded a successful visit in May 2005 by the recently appointed EU Research Commissioner Dr Janez Potocnik and arranged a conference on Language Learning and Teaching in Scotland in March 2006. The RSE was also involved in several high-profile international events, including: a High-Tech Forum in Life Sciences, hosted by the Universi-
ty of Edinburgh, and a Micronanotechnologies workshop held at the RSE, both with the National Science Council of Taiwan an Open Day for Chinese researchers in Scotland, held at the RSE in September, arranged by the RSE China Forum a joint event with the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic on Nanomedicines of the Future held at the University of Strathclyde in November Utilising the expertise of the Fellowship The multidisciplinary membership of the RSE makes it unique amongst learned societies in the UK. Its peer-elected Fellowship of men and women encompasses excellence in the Sciences, Arts, Humanities, the Professions, Industry and Commerce. In the Ordinary Fellowship this is represented as: the Life Sciences (36.4%); Physical Sciences, Maths and Informatic Sciences (37.6%); Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities (18.5%); Economics, Business and Industry (7.5%). The RSE currently has 1320 Ordinary Fellows, 33 Corresponding (overseas) Fellows and 71 Honorary Fellows. In March 2006, following the most careful scrutiny of 177 Candidates for Fellowship by the 12 specialist discipline committees (Sectional Committees) and review of their
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recommendations by the four sector groups, then the Fellowship committee and Council, and finally a postal ballot of current Fellows, the RSE announced the election of 55 Ordinary, four Corresponding and four Honorary new Fellows. Most of the new Fellows attended and much appreciated the induction day in May. RSE Fellows are involved with the Young Peoples programme as speakers and workshop/master class organisers. In the International area they are often key speakers at international meetings and take lead roles in relationships with sister academies, etc. Evidence and Advice submissions are compiled from views polled from the Fellowship. Fellows are heavily involved in Conference organising committees and at an earlier stage are instrumental in suggesting meetings for future sessions. Fellows serve on the Editorial Boards of the Transactions and Proceedings A journals, and the Executive Editors in particular, play a vital role in maintaining the high standard of papers published. Fellows also serve on the committees responsible for short-listing, interviewing and selecting recipients of the various Research and Enterprise Awards administered by the RSE. The part that these Fellows play, individually and collectively, in the success of the RSEs activities cannot be underestimated. The
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Council is extremely grateful for their support. The year under review included the handover of Presidency and other key changes in Senior Office Bearers. It was also the first full year of operating the new governance and management structures approved in 2004. Both of these were successful and the streamlining of the structures is making a positive contribution to the effectiveness of operations. RSE Scotland Foundation In addition to the publication of journals, the Foundation has been successfully facilitating the dissemination of useful knowledge through letting the conference facilities in George Street. Gross income from this activity was higher than the previous year, through a small increase in numbers of lettings and increased recovery of costs incurred. The Foundation is also responsible for letting surplus space to tenants and this has continued successfully. BP Research Fellowships Trust The income from the BP Trusts investments, which are managed separately from the RSE own funds, were just sufficient to support the appointment of one new three-year postdoctoral research fellow in 2005/06; there were three such research fellows in post during the year. The research fellowships are adminis-
tered by the RSE. As the costs of maintaining a steady state of three Fellows in post is increasing faster than sustainable investment income, the Trustees made representations to BP for additional funding to maintain the highly prestigious nature of these awards. The initial response was not encouraging but further discussions with BP are taking place. Performance monitoring The performance of the Group, relative to the detailed targets set in the Management Plan approved by Council, is reported quarterly to the Executive Board, which then reports to RSE Council and to the Trustees of the other connected bodies. The overwhelming majority (> 95%) of the targets were reached or exceeded; those that were not arose either through unexpected external changes or not being able to secure the resources necessary to deliver them to the very high standard expected. As many of the objectives have long-term outcomes, measurement, where possible, is carried out on a periodic basis by review of the impact of schemes, for example the Enderby review of research fellowship. Future plans Plans for 2006-2007 have been developed in the context of the existing three-year Corporate Plan.
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The key objectives and financial targets for 2006 07 are to widen the impact, throughout Scotland and internationally, of operational programmes and to achieve the financial performance measures set in its 2006/07 budget. The RSE has three operational programmes for 2006/07: 1 Public Benefit - promoting, sharing and supporting Scottish scientific and cultural research, excellence, innovation and knowledge transfer in Scotland and internationally - recognising outstanding achievement and excellence - providing authoritative, independent advice to policy decision-makers 2 Fellowship - maintaining and recognising Fellowship expertise - communicating and engaging with the Fellowship to encourage even greater participation in the RSES activities. 3 Management & Administration - managing financial, human resource, communication and information technology systems and controls - maintaining the building and its facilities and services
All of the key outputs within each of these programmes will contribute to one or more of the following public benefit outcomes: - attracting and retaining world-class research talent in Scotland. - awareness of Scotland as a world-class location for research and development. - fostering knowledge transfer from a science and cultural base. - public appreciation and understanding of science and culture. - inspiring young people, primarily in the field of science, but also other areas covered by the wider school curriculum. - informing decisions taken by Parliaments and policymakers. Financial review and policies Investment powers and policy The management of the investments of the RSE and the BP Research Fellowships Trust is carried out by Speirs & Jeffrey & Co on a discretionary basis. The objectives set by the Council are first to ensure a sufficient level of income to meet the target set annually by the Council and thereafter to invest for capital growth potential. The Council has
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delegated the detailed monitoring of performance to the Investment Committee, which includes at least one ordinary member of Council, and which makes comparisons against a composite benchmark reflecting the mix of assets held and the WM income constrained Charities index. The income targets for the year for both portfolios were exceeded, although the total return values have underperformed by 2% (RSE) and 4% (BP Trust) relative to the benchmark. Representatives of the Investment Committee meet twice annually with the investment managers to discuss their compliance with the constraints set by the Committee and risk environment. In the year under review no compliance issues arose which required to be reported to the Committee. Operating policies grant making The RSE makes grants to individuals in higher education institutions in support of research activities in the categories of Postdoctoral Research Fellowships, Support Research Fellowships, Post-graduate Studentships, Undergraduate Vacation Scholarships and Enterprise Fellowships. Each of these categories is specifically funded from various sources, including the RSEs restricted funds. The basis of eligibility and selection varies according to the
detailed scheme regulations, which are published on the RSEs website (www.royalsoced.org.uk). Grants are also made in support of research activities of Fellows of the RSE, including support for travel connected with research or scholarship, small scale specialist meetings, to assist research visitors to Scotland to undertake collaborative research work with a Fellow, to assist a visiting lecturer to come to Scotland, to assist research collaboration between two institutions in Scotland or between universities and industry and to assist in the publication of books written by Fellows. These grants are funded by the RSEs designated Grants Fund. The Grants Committee is responsible for making awards in accordance with the detailed rules set out by the Council of the RSE for the disbursement of the Grants Fund. Details of committee membership are to be found in the RSEs annual directory and on its website. Reserves policy and funds The RSE holds a number of restricted funds resulting from bequests for particular purposes, details of which are set out in note 2 to the financial statements. The Council has also created designated funds, where the RSE has also set aside sums from its unrestricted funds, the purposes of which are set out in note 2 to
the financial statements. The General Fund represents the balance of unrestricted funds arising from past operations, which are not invested in fixed assets or designated for a specific purpose. The Council has examined the requirement to hold unrestricted funds, and concluded that, whilst the present level of reserves gives adequate working capital for core costs, it would be desirable to have a General Fund reserve in the range of three to six months expenditure on central costs. They have also reviewed the purposes and amounts of each of the designated funds and are satisfied that it is appropriate to continue to allocate the unrestricted funds for the purposes described in note 2 to the financial statements. In particular, the RSE should continue to maintain a Development Fund to give flexibility to respond to new initiatives on a timely basis without the need for specific fundraising. Implementation of SORP 2005 The financial statements have been drawn up to conform with the recommendations of the revised Charity Statement of Recommended Practice (SORP 2005). Compliance with SORP 2005 will become mandatory in 2006 07 under the new charity accounting regulations issued under the Charity and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005
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and applicable from 1 April 2006. The main changes, other than minor presentational changes, are the consolidation of the two connected charitable trusts and the review of accounting for multi-year grants, such as postdoctoral research Fellowships. This has required changes in accounting policy and restatement of prior year figures, as described in note 20 to the financial statements. Result for the year For the first time, as part of the implementation of SORP 2005, the results presented comprise the consolidated accounts of the RSE and its two connected charitable trusts, the Foundation and the BP Trust. The results and balances of these connected trusts are included in the consolidated financial statements as restricted funds. The overall result at the net incoming resources, or revenue, level was a surplus of 551,000, with the General Fund result contributing 40,800 of this sum. As well as non-recurring items, this result includes 150,000 of restricted purpose income received in advance of carrying out the activities for which the income has been provided. SORP 2005 requires that such income be recognised as received and placed in a fund against which the future costs are set. This is a change from
previous practice which was to carry forward such income to be recognised in the period in which the activity took place. Implementation of SORP 2005 has also required a change of accounting policy in relation to the recognition of income received to fund research fellowships. This has resulted in the restatement of the 2005 figures as set out in note 20. A further restatement was required to incorporate the FRS 17 pension adjustments. The net movement in funds for the year after including gains on investments, and FRS 17 pension movements, rose to 199,000 in the General Fund and 1,238,000 overall. This reflects a number of non-recurring items and the continuing recovery of the investment portfolio. Income and Expenditure Total incoming resources Total incoming resources of 3.72m have decreased by 0.7% or 0.026m from last year. This comprises increases in voluntary income and investment income offsetting a decrease in income for charitable activities. The latter arises mainly from the change in accounting policy on research fellowships, as receipts taken to income in the year were less than in 2005. Voluntary income (note 4), which includes grants, has increased as a result of the receipt of the balance
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of 124,000 from the Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation. This fund is a restricted fund to be used to support a series of conferences on the broad theme of Drugs Futures. This will include pharmacology, neuroscience, genetics, psychology and social policy aspects. Subscription income from Fellows, including generous support from voluntary contributions, and associated Gift Aid tax recovery increased by 15,000. The first instalment, 28,000, of a legacy from the estate of Mrs SM Heggie, widow of Dr James Heggie was received and has been added to the Heggie fund, designated to be used in support of young people activities. Investment income (note 4) was boosted by interest received on cash, much of which is held in the designated and restricted income funds. Incoming resources from charitable activities (note 5) includes funds raised for the RSEs Inquiry on energy which reported after the financial year end. Fluctuations in numbers of appointments reduced the income for Research and Enterprise Fellowship schemes from the Scottish Executive and Scottish Enterprise, offset by new Enterprise Fellowships funded by BBSRC. Meetings income fell as a number of planned conferences were deferred to fit with availability of
key speakers. Income for other activities has remained broadly steady reflecting the maintenance of activity levels. Resources expended Total resources expended have decreased by 11% (0.4m) from last year. This is a direct result of the changes in support for Research and Enterprise awards discussed below. Cost of generating funds (note 6) includes the cost of the Fellowship office, the costs of building management in respect of income from letting of surplus space as well as fundraising costs, both direct and management time in securing funding. Grants payable of 1.81m have decreased by 19% (0.43m). The 2005 expenditure included 0.28m for the establishment of the provision for future commitments on the fellowships awarded with funding from the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland. A decrease in the average number of Scottish Enterprise fellows in post and hence payments of their awards comprises the balance of the difference. Other expenditure on charitable activities has remained broadly steady, other than the increased expenditure on the RSEs Inquiry on energy. Governance costs have decreased by about 4,000 (2%) overall and represent less than 4% of total
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income. During the year, the Council undertook a review of the level and purpose of all the Designated Funds. The transfers shown in the Statement of Financial Activities represent the release from the Capital Asset Reserve of a total of 101,000 to match the writedown of buildings and the capital repayment of the loan to the Foundation; and a transfer on consolidation from the RSE Scotland Foundation restricted fund balance to the General Fund equivalent to the net interentity income received in the RSE. Balance sheet Consolidated net assets continue to rise, being up 12.4% overall to a total of 11.2m; the major reason being the 15% increase from 4.88m to 5.62m in the investment portfolio and the increase in restricted income funds. Net current assets have increased by 54% to 1,665,000. Of the total cash balance, 714,000 is allocated to Designated funds, the major part of which is the Development Appeal Fund and the Building Maintenance Fund; a further 779,000 relates to restricted funds including the capital receipt of
124,000 from the Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation. Fundraising Over the past year, an assessment has been made of the potential for fundraising. The conclusion reached is that the RSE is better placed to obtain support for specific programmes than to secure funds though the more traditional methods. As a consequence the RSE is now developing programmes from funding and one of these is being actively progressed. Conclusion and future prospects The consolidated results for the year reflect satisfactory progress in operational activities. The RSE aims to continue to maintain its careful financial management to provide small surpluses to increase the level of General Fund and give financial flexibility. The new Corporate Plan for 2007 2012 which is in preparation will set out the framework within which this will be achieved. Signed on behalf of the Council Edward Cunningham CBE Treasurer September 2006
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AUDITORS REPORT AND ACCOUNTS

We have audited the financial statements of Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) for the year ended 31 March 2006 which comprise the statement of financial activities, the group balance sheet, the charity balance sheet, the cash flow statement and the related notes. These financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the accounting policies set out therein and in accordance with the Statement of Recommended Practice 2005 and applicable accounting standards. This report is made solely to the RSE Trustees, as a body, in accordance with regulation 7 of The Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992. Our audit work has been undertaken so that we might state to the RSE Trustees those matters we are required to state to them in an auditors report and for no other purpose. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than the RSE and the RSE Trustees as a body, for our audit work, for this report, or for the opinions we have formed. Respective responsibilities of Trustees and Auditors As described in the statement of Trustees responsibilities, the Council is responsible for the preparation of the financial statements in accordance with applicable law and United Kingdom Accounting Standards (United Kingdom Generally Accepted Accounting Practice). Our responsibility is to audit the financial statements in accordance with relevant legal and regulatory requirements and International Standards on Auditing (UK and Ireland). We report to you our opinion as to whether the financial statements give a true and fair view and are properly prepared in accordance with the Laws of the RSE, the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 and Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992. We also report to you if, in our opinion, the Trustees Annual Report is not consistent with the financial statements, if the RSE has not kept proper accounting records, if we have not received all the information and explanations we require for our audit, or if information specified by the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 and Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992 is not disclosed. We are not required to consider whether any statement in the Trustees Annual Report concerning the major risks to which the charity is exposed covers all existing risks and controls, or to form an opinion on the effectiveness of the charitys risk management and control procedures.
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We read other information contained in the Trustees Annual Report and consider whether it is consistent with the audited financial statements. We consider the implications for our report if we become aware of any apparent misstatements with the financial statements. Our responsibilities do not extend to any other information. Basis of audit opinion We conducted our audit in accordance with International Standards on Auditing (UK and Ireland) issued by the Auditing Practices Board. An audit includes examination, on a test basis, of evidence relevant to the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. It also includes an assessment of the significant estimates and judgements made by the Trustees in the preparation of the financial statements, and of whether the accounting policies are appropriate to the RSEs circumstances, consistently applied and adequately disclosed. We planned and performed our audit so as to obtain all the information and explanations which we considered necessary in
order to provide us with sufficient evidence to give reasonable assurance that the financial statements are free from material misstatement, whether caused by fraud or other irregularity or error. In forming our opinion we also evaluated the overall adequacy of the presentation of information in the financial statements. Opinion In our opinion the financial statements: - give a true and fair view of the state of the Groups and the RSEs affairs as at 31 March 2006 and of the Group incoming resources and application of resources for the year then ended; and - have been properly prepared in accordance with the Laws of the RSE, the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 and Charities Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992. - have a Trustees Annual Report which is consistent with the financial statements. Henderson Loggie Registered Auditors September 2006
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ACCOUNTS
Group statement of nancial activities (incorporating the income & expenditure account) for year ended 31 March 2006
Note No General Fund Designated Funds Restricted income Restricted funds 2006 Total 2005 Total Restated Income Voluntary income Activities for generating income Investment income 4 4 4 656,584 43,411 699,995 229,706 929,701 41,361 59,623 100,984 100,984 1,920,940 1,920,940 143,942 203,257 190,761 537,960 232,537 770,497 841,887 203,257 293,795 1,338,939 2,383,183 3,722,122 660,916 202,169 266,663 1,129,748 2,618,649 3,748,397
Incoming resources from generated funds Incoming resources from charitable activities Total incoming resources Expenditure Cost of generating funds Charitable activities Governance Total resources expended Net incoming resources before transfers Transfers between funds Other recognised gains/(losses) Gains/(losses) on investment assets Realised gains Realised losses 6 6 6 5
(109,753) (664,330) (114,799) (888,882)
(2,944) (25,636) (6,025) (34,605)
(1,770,940) (1,770,940)
(69,258) (22,780)
(181,955) (143,604)
(180,207) (147,621)
(384,627) (2,845,533) (3,236,511)
(476,665) (3,171,092) (3,564,339)
21, 22
40,819 189,578
66,379 (101,818)
150,000 -
293,832 (87,760)
551,030 -
184,058 -
2,816 (371) 2,445
11,996 (1,582) 10,414 101,311 76,286 5,763,669 5,839,955
150,000 150,000
59,951 (13,013) 46,938 560,341 813,351 4,112,724
74,763 (14,966) 59,797 685,437 (58,000) 1,238,264 9,972,891
50,955 (7,399) 43,556 383,042 (1,000) 609,656 9,363,235 9,972,891
Unrealised gains Actuarial losses on Lothian Pension Fund Net movement in funds Restated balance brought forward at 1 April 2005 Balance carried forward at 31 March 2006
23,785 (58,000) 198,627 96,498 295,125
4,926,075 11,211,155
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Group balance sheet at 31 March 2006

Note 2006 Fixed assets Tangible xed assets Fixed asset investments Investments at market value 15 5,624,323 9,902,807 Current assets Debtors Cash at bank and in hand Money Market deposits Designated funds Money Market deposits Restricted funds Money Market deposits General funds 16 176,516 303,379 714,060 860,288 188,252 2,242,495 Current liabilities Creditors: amounts falling due within one year 17 (576,796) (363,711) 135,243 495,552 681,660 118,342 8,501 1,439,298 4,879,164 9,261,077 14 4,278,484 4,381,913 2006 2005 2005
Net current assets Total assets less current liabilities Provision for liabilities and charges Net assets excluding pension fund Lothian Pension Fund Dened Benet Scheme liability Net assets after pension fund liability Funds General Fund Less: Pension reserve 18
1,665,699 11,568,506 (237,351) 11,331,155 (120,000) 11,211,155
1,075,587 10,336,664 (287,773) 10,048,891 (76,000) 9,972,891
19
415,125 (120,000) 295,125
172,498 (76,000) 96,498 5,763,669 4,112,724 9,972,891
Designated Funds Restricted Funds Total funds
21 22
5,839,955 5,076,075 11,211,155
The accounts were approved by the Council on 4 September 2006 and signed on its behalf by: Edward Cunningham, CBE Treasurer
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Auditors Report and Accounts
RSE balance sheet at 31 March 2006

Note 2006 Fixed assets Tangible xed assets Fixed asset investments Investments at market value Historical cost: 2006 2,006,102 2005 1,921,750 Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation 15 (b) 1,937,944 6,842,845 Current assets Debtors Cash at bank and in hand Money Market deposits Designated funds Money Market deposits Restricted funds Money Market deposits General funds 16 95,435 222,502 714,060 779,411 269,129 2,080,537 Current liabilities Creditors: amounts falling due within one year Net current assets Total assets less current liabilities Provision for liabilities and charges Net assets excluding pension fund Lothian Pension Fund dened benet scheme liability Net assets after pension fund liability Funds General Fund Less: Pension reserve 19 415,125 (120,000) 295,125 Designated Funds Restricted Funds Total funds 21 22 5,839,955 1,848,580 7,983,660 172,498 (76,000) 96,498 5,763,669 1,343,828 7,203,995 18 17 (582,371) 1,498,166 8,341,011 (237,351) 8,103,660 (120,000) 7,983,660 (265,726) 983,044 7,567,768 (287,773) 7,279,995 (76,000) 7,203,995 62,285 377,985 681,659 118,341 8,500 1,248,770 1,984,752 6,584,724 14 15 (a) 2,365,581 2,539,320 2,420,445 2,179,527 2006 2005 2005
The accounts were approved by the Council on 4 September 2006 and signed on its behalf by: Edward Cunningham, CBE Treasurer
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Group cash ow statement for the year ended 31 March 2006

2006 Cash ow statement Net cash inow/(outow) from operating activities Returns on investments and servicing of nance: Interest received Dividends received 69,048 225,422 294,470 Capital expenditure and nancial investment: Purchase of tangible xed assets Proceeds from sale of investments Purchases of investments Capital receipt (19,343) 429,971 (429,893) 124,015 104,750 Net cash ow before nancing: Appeal receipts Increase in cash in the year Reconciliation of net cash ow to movement in net funds Increase in cash in the year Net funds at beginning of year Net funds at end of year (note 28) Reconciliation of net movement in funds to net cash outow from operating activities Net incoming resources before transfers Retirement benet scheme current service cost Retirement benet scheme contributions Retirement benet scheme nance cost Appeal receipts Dividends receivable Interest receivable Depreciation Capital distribution from Fleck Bequest (shares and cash) Capital distribution from Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation (Increase)/decrease in debtors Increase in creditors Movement on provision for liabilities Net cash inow/(outow) from operating activities 551,030 81,000 (89,00) (6,000) (13,361) (224,827) (69,048) 122,773 (124,015) (41,872) 213,085 (50,422) 349,343 184,058 68,000 (74,000) (3,000) (22,475) (221,591) (45,072) 119,324 (41,079) 4,967 56,792 48,031 73,955 761,924 1,304,055 2,065,979 351,126 952,929 1,304,055 748,563 13,361 761,924 (11,791) 244,101 (244,101) 882 (10,909) 328,651 22,475 351,126 45,072 220,533 265,605 349,343 73,955 2006 2005 Restated 2005 Restated
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notes to the nancial statements
1 Accounting basis
The accounts have been drawn up to comply with the provisions of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 and the Charity Accounts (Scotland) Regulations 1992, and follow the recommendations of the Statement of Recommended Practice for charities (SORP) approved by the Accounting Standards Board in February 2005 and applicable accounting standards. The accounts have been prepared under the historical cost accounting rules as modied to include the revaluation of investments. The accounts comprise four primary nancial statements: the statement of nancial activities incorporating the income and expenditure account, the Group and RSE balance sheet and the cash ow statement. The consolidated nancial statements include the nancial statements of the RSE and of entities which are under its control: RSE Scotland Foundation and BP Research Fellowships Trust. As the objectives of each of these entities are narrower than the Society, they have been treated as restricted funds. No SOFA or income and expenditure for the Society has been presented as permitted by SORP.
Designated Funds Staff Restructuring Fund to provide exiblity in staffing arrangements Development Appeal Fund to provide development nance to implement the RSEs Corporate Plan. Capital Asset Reserve Fund representing the book cost of the rooms at 22-24 George Street and 26 George Street together with the building project loan to the RSE Scotland Foundation. Building Maintenance Fund a reserve to support the future maintenance of the fabric of the rooms. Dr James Heggie Fund income from this fund supports the RSEs activities with young people. Grants Fund a fund created by contributions and legacies from Fellows and used to provide grants to support research activities to Fellows. Programme Fund a fund created to act as a source of funding for meetings activities. C H Kemball Fund income from this fund is used to provide hospitality for distinguished visitors from other learned societies and Academies. Restricted Funds Robert Cormack Bequest to promote astronomical knowledge and research in Scotland Lessells Trust to fund scholarships abroad for engineers Auber Bequest to fund research in Scotland and England by naturalised British citizens over 60 years of age Prizes Fund to fund various prizes Dryerre Fund to fund postgraduate scholarships in medical or veterinary physiology
Piazzi Smyth Legacy Fund to fund high altitude astronomical research CASS Fund to fund academic / industrial liaison Retailing Seminar Fund to fund a programme of seminars on retailing Fleck Bequest Fund to promote interest, knowledge and appreciation of science and its applications throughout Scotland Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation Fund to fund a series of conferences on the broad theme of Drugs Futures. Restricted Income Fund income funds received for expenditure on current projects. RSE Scotland Foundation a trust to advance the education of the public in Scotland in science, engineering and technology. BP Research Fellowships Trust a trust to fund postdoctoral research fellowships in Scotland.
3 Accounting policies
Incoming resources Voluntary income Subscriptions are accounted for on the basis of the subscription year to October 2006 and include income tax recoverable on the subscriptions paid under Gift Aid. Revenue grants are credited to income in the period in which the RSE becomes entitled to the resources. Donations of a recurring nature from other charitable foundations and one-off gifts and legacies included in other income are taken to revenue in the period to which they relate. Investment income Interest and dividends are accounted for in the year in which they are receivable.
Incoming resources for charitable activities Incoming resources for activities are accounted for on an accruals basis.
2 Funds
The RSEs funds are classied in accordance with the denitions in SORP into Restricted Funds, where there are restrictions placed by a donor as to the use of income or capital, Designated Funds where the Society has set aside sums from its unrestricted funds for a particular purpose and the General (unrestricted) Fund. The classications made are as follows: General Fund A discretionary Fund available to Council to meet the ordinary activities of the Society.
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Publication income receivable in foreign currencies is converted into sterling at rates of exchange ruling at the date of receipt. Incoming resources for research fellowships are accounted for in the period in which the RSE becomes entitled to the resources. Income received for specic projects, and received in advance of the commencement of the project, is deferred. If the project were not to proceed as planned the RSE would not be entitled to retain the funds. For performance related grants, where entitlement to the incoming resource only arises with the performance of the specic outputs agreed under the contracts, income is deferred. Resources expended Expenditure and support costs All resources expended are included on an accruals basis, having regard to any constructive obligations created by multi year grant commitments. Where directly attributable, resources expended are allocated to the relevant functional category. Overhead and support costs are allocated to functional category on the basis of direct staff costs in each area of activity. Cost of generating funds The cost of generating funds includes expenditure incurred in supporting the Fellowship and incurred on fundraising initiatives.
Charitable activities Grants payable are recognised as a liability when the RSE is under an actual or constructive obligation to make a transfer to a third party. Where grants are time related to future periods and are to be nanced by specic grants receivable in those future periods they are treated as liabilities of those periods and not as liabilities at balance sheet date. Such grants are disclosed as future commitments. Governance costs Governance costs are those incurred in connection with the management of RSE assets, organisational administration and compliance with constitutional and statutory requirements. Tangible xed assets, depreciation and repairs
The RSEs principal assets are its buildings in George Street, Edinburgh. Under FRS15 the Society depreciates the buildings assuming a 50 year life. It is the policy of the Council to maintain the buildings to a high standard. Provision is made to provide for upkeep of the buildings as required through a designation from General Fund. Any permanent diminutions in value are reected in the statement of nancial activities. Costs of repairs and maintenance are charged against revenue. Expenditure incurred in the improvements to 26 George Street is being depreciated over the period of the lease to the RSE Scotland Foundation from the date of completion of the refurbishment to 30 June 2047.
Minor equipment is charged against revenue in the year of purchase. Computer and audio-visual is depreciated on a straight line basis over 3 20 years. Investments Investments are stated at their market value at the balance sheet date. Gains and losses on disposal and revaluation of investments are charged or credited in the statement of nancial activities and allocated to funds in accordance with their proportionate share of the investment portfolio. Pensions The RSE participates in dened benet pension schemes which are externally funded. The cost of providing pensions is allocated over employees working lives with the Society and is included in staff costs.
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4 Incoming resources Current year 2006
Voluntary income Fellows Individuals and legacies Companies Charitable trusts Scottish Executive Public sector bodies Bank interest Other interest Dividends Other 176,022 41,361 143,942 479,000 1,562 841,887 RSE Scotland Foundation Rental income RSE Scotland Foundation Charitable activities RSE Scotland Foundation Interest BP Research Fellowships Trust Interest BP Research Fellowships Trust Dividends 841,887 203,257 203,257 63,999 101,806 165,805 838 4,211 122,941 293,795 Activities for generating income Investment Promotion of research 258,210 651,000 560,305 1,469,515 1,469,515 Other charitable activities 13,572 35,000 181,889 412,060 38,611 681,132 232,536 913,668 Total 2006 176,022 54,933 35,000 584,041 1,542,060 598,916 63,999 101,806 1,562 3,158,339 203,257 232,536 838 4,211 122,941 3,722,122
Prior year 2005

Voluntary income Fellows Individuals and legacies Companies Charitable trusts Scottish Executive Public sector bodies Bank interest Dividends Other 161,397 37,475 50,524 411,002 518 660,916 RSE Scotland Foundation Rental income RSE Scotland Foundation Charitable activities RSE Scotland Foundation Interest BP Research Fellowships Trust Interest BP Research Fellowships Trust Dividends 660,916 Activities for generating income 202,169 202,169 Investment 42,424 92,603 135,027 603 2,045 128,988 266,663 Promotion of research 562,678 678,542 629,873 1,871,093 1,871,093 Other charitable activities 21,164 11,700 153,697 302,974 39,448 528,983 218,573 747,556 Total 2005 161,397 58,639 11,700 766,899 1,392,518 669,321 42,424 92,603 518 3,196,019 202,169 218,573 603 2,045 128,988 3,748,397
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4 Incoming resources (continued) 4a Voluntary income
2006 15,400 138,971 21,651 176,022 19,917 13,361 28,000 479,000 124,025 1,562 841,887 2005 Restated 15,400 126,507 19,490 161,397 9,445 41,079 22,475 15,000 411,002 518 660,916
Contributions from Fellows Admission fees Annual subscriptions Income tax recoverable under Gift Aid Lessells Trust additional receipt Fleck of Saltcoats capital distributed Appeal receipts Legacies Scottish Executive Grant General activities Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation Other income
In addition to the donations set out above, the RSE receives donations made specically in support of activities which are included in activities income (see note 27d).
5 Incoming resources from charitable activities

2006 Scottish Executive Grant Research Fellowships Franco-Scottish PhD scholarships Caledonian Research Foundation Scottish Enterprise BBSRC Enterprise Fellowships PPARC Enterprise Fellowships Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland 651,000 12,000 21,410 426,550 83,932 37,823 236,800 1,469,515 Scottish Executive Grant re Scottish Science Advisory Committee Scottish Executive Grant International activities Scottish Executive Grant Science & Society Gannochy Trust Meetings Inquiry income Gifts in kind (secondments of staff) International activities Educational activities Sale of sundry publications 170,626 170,001 72,060 96,277 40,906 105,000 8,750 15,102 2,410 681,132 RSE Scotland Foundation Journal publications RSE Scotland Foundation Conference facilities letting 110,038 122,498 232,536 2,383,183 Further information relating to grants, donations and receipts and their application is set out in note 27. 2005 Restated 632,542 21,186 615,953 59,920 541,492 1,871,093 149,372 119,975 100,000 76,362 37,625 34,750 10,290 609 528,983 126,250 92,323 218,573 2,618,649
56

6 Resources expended
2006 Direct costs Costs of generating funds Fundraising Fellows subscriptions Appeal donations RSE Scotland Foundation Building management BP Research Fellowship Trust Investment fees Total costs of generating funds Charitable activities Prizes and grants Promotion of research (note 8) Meetings International Science & Society and Education Evidence Publications and library Academic industry links SSAC 325 325 26,282 83,471 2,944 112,697 68,933 181,630 26,282 83,471 2,944 112,697 68,933 325 181,955 250 250 Support costs (Note 11) Total 2006 Direct costs
2005 Support costs (Note 11) 19,560 83,475 3,129 106,164 73,793 179,957 Total 2005 Restated 19,560 83,475 3,129 106,164 73,793 250 180,207
97,886 1,417,593 38,163 109,275 32,524 31,438 20,413 170,627 1,917,919
29,912 274,117 167,903 97,175 64,184 98,735 12,424 7,678 752,128 27,664 77,169 104,833 856,961
127,798 1,691,710 206,066 206,450 96,708 130,173 32,837 7,678 170,627 2,670,047 98,317 77,169 175,486 2,845,533
99,363 1,828,759 64,273 125,682 10,714 1,291 23,938 149,372 2,303,392 103,099 103,099 2,406,491
31,744 270,504 153,791 94,438 71,658 83,912 12,841 8,004 726,892 30,517 72,611 103,128 830,020
131,107 2,099,263 218,064 220,120 82,372 85,203 36,779 8,004 149,372 3,030,284 133,616 72,611 206,227 3,236,511
RSE Scotland Foundation Journal Publications RSE Scotland Foundation Conference facilities letting
70,653 70,653
Total cost of charitable activities Governance (note 10) RSE RSE Scotland Foundation BP Research Fellowships Trust Total governance costs Resources expended
1,988,572
14,538 1,785 1,057 17,380 2,006,277
106,286 19,938 126,224 1,164,815
120,824 21,723 1,057 143,604 3,171,092
27,612 1,250 1,188 30,050 2,436,791
98,692 18,879 117,571 1,127,548
126,304 20,129 1,188 147,621 3,564,339
Central support costs as set out in note 11 have been allocated to activities in proportion to the employment cost in each area of activity.
57

7 Grants payable
2006 Promotion of research (note 8) Prizes and grants 1,691,710 127,798 1,819,509
2005 2,099,263 131,107 2,230,370
8 Promotion of research
2006 2005
Scottish Executive Fellowships Franco-Scottish PhD scholarships CRF European Fellowships Scottish Enterprise Fellowships Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Fellowships PPARC Enterprise Fellowships BRSRC Enterprise Fellowships Robert Cormack Bequest John Moyes Lessells Scholarship Auber Bequest Awards Henry Dryerre Scholarship Designated funds DS McLagan Travel Grant
513,322 12,010 17,332 373,331 221,772 35,521 71,607 5,314 19,060 5,600 16,484 1,802 1,293,155
545,708 16,804 532,688 517,690 53,307 289 4,240 23,474 1,000 15,874 28 1,711,102 25 1,711,127 117,632 1,828,759 270,504 2,099,263
Direct costs: General Funds Library RSE BP Research Fellowships Trust 1,789 1,294,944 122,649 1,417,593 Support costs (note 6) 274,117 1,691,710
An analysis of institutions and individual awards made under this expenditure heading is included in the Societys Review 2006,obtainable from the address on the back cover.
58

9 Publications
2006 Income Journals
2005
110,038
126,250
Expenditure Journals RSE Editorial and management costs RSE Scotland Foundation Publishing costs Support costs Editorial Support costs Publishing 16,877 59,070 12,424 27,664 116,035 Year book and directory Other publications 11,583 3,536 131,154 16,761 96,994 12,841 30,517 157,113 10,917 2,364 170,394
The RSE Scotland Foundation became publisher of the RSEs journals and year book with effect from the 1997 volumes. The RSE retains copyright and incurs editorial costs in respect of these publications. The RSE has made a donation to the RSE Scotland Foundation equivalent to its net decit on publications.
10 Governance
2006 Management and secretariat Audit fee Other professional advice from auditors 109,356 9,005 5,305 123,666 RSE Scotland Foundation Management and secretariat 19,938 143,604 2005 120,276 8,172 294 128,742 18,879 147,621
59

11 Support costs
2006 Total payroll Less: Paid by SSAC Salaries (note 12) Value of secondments Staff training, agency and recruitment costs Non- cash pension cost adjustments Other costs Establishment expenses Computer and equipment costs Communication, stationery and printing costs Travel and subsistence, hospitality Publicity Miscellaneous Professional fees Depreciation 129,120 16,751 53,378 19,506 19,196 1,796 11,827 122,773 374,347 Total central costs 1,164,815 123,024 23,007 56,263 18,003 24,183 4,044 13,343 119,324 381,191 1,127,548 842,023 (71,510) 770,513 8,750 25,205 (14,000) 790,468 2005 763,268 (66,667) 696,601 37,625 21,131 (9,000) 746,357
Support costs have been allocated to activities in proportion to the employment cost in each area of activity as set out in note 6.
12 Employees
Total 2006 Wages and salaries Social security costs Other pension costs 682,790 50,640 108,593 842,023 Funded by Foundation (76,637) (5,048) (14,398) (96,083) Funded by SSAC (60,219) (5,455) (5,836) (71,510) Funded by RSE 2006 545,934 40,137 88,359 674,430 Total 2005 626,495 47,033 89,740 763,268
The average number of employees of the RSE including those employed under joint contracts with the RSE Scotland Foundation was 27 (2005: 27).Of these 2 were employed in respect of The Scottish Science Advisory Committee. One member of staff earned over 60,000 per year and is a member of a dened benet pension scheme.
13 RSE income and result for the year

General fund Total incoming resources Surplus / (decit) for the year Transfers Gains / (losses) on investments Actuarial loss on Lothian Pension Fund Net movement in funds 1,020,265 128,577 101,818 26,229 (58,000) 198,624 Designated Funds 100,984 66,379 (101,818) 111,727 76,288 Restricted funds 2,257,643 282,918 221,838 504,756 RSE Total 2006 3,378,892 477,874 359,794 (58,000) 779,668 RSE Total 2005 3,349,055 91,041 150,307 (1,000) 240,348
60

14 Tangible xed assets
Group 22 24 George Street Purchase cost Cost At 1 April 2005 Additions Disposals At 31 March 2006 Depreciation At 1 April 2005 Disposals Charge for the year At 31 March 2006 Net book value At 31 March 2006 At 31 March 2005 RSE Net book value At 31 March 2006 At 31 March 2005 948,613 970,673 1,416,823 1,449,773 145 2,365,581 2,420,446 948,613 970,673 1,416,823 1,449,773 1,831,233 1,875,700 81,815 85,767 4,278,484 4,381,913 132,365 22,060 154,425 197,695 32,950 230,645 260,370 44,467 304,837 259,739 (40,036) 23,295 242,998 850,169 (40,036) 122,772 932,905 1,103,038 1,103,038 1,647,468 1,647,468 2,136,070 2,136,070 345,506 19,343 (40,036) 324,813 5,232,082 19,343 (40,036) 5,211,389 26 George Street Purchase cost Improvements Computer and equipment Total
15 Fixed asset investments

Value at 1 April 2005 (a) Fixed asset investments Managed Funds Fixed interest UK equities Cash deposits RSE Managed Funds Fixed interest UK equities Cash deposits BP Research Fellowships Trust 453,794 602,737 1,082,252 40,744 2,179,527 495,153 834,539 1,293,305 76,640 2,699,637 4,879,164 75,507 105,972 29,515 (210,994) 75,507 105,972 31,981 (213,538) (78) (78) (68,221) (145,598) 213,819 (216,152) 216,152 8,471 25,067 33,538 26,259 26,259 59,797 125,092 (1,740) 202,903 326,255 71,599 (5,365) 292,951 359,185 685,440 594,643 706,969 1,194,139 43,569 2,539,320 642,259 935,146 1,428,344 79,254 3,085,003 5,624,323 Investments made at cost Proceeds on sale of investments Gain / loss Revaluation Market value at 31 March 2006
The gain on sale of investments measured against their historical cost was 181,526 (2005: Surplus (48,956). The historical cost of investments was 4,423,314 (2005: -4,277,377).
61
15 Fixed asset investments (continued)

(b) Loan by RSE to RSE Scotland Foundation 2006 Due within one year Due after one year 46,808 1,891,136 1,937,944 The loan bears interest at 4% per annum, capped at the amount of rent received by the Foundation and is repayable over the period to 30 June 2047, the expiration of the lease of 26 George Street. 2005 46,808 1,937,944 1,984,752
16 Debtors
2006 General debtors Prepayments and accrued income Income tax recoverable RSE RSE Scotland Foundation - Debtors RSE Scotland Foundation - Prepayments BP Research Fellowships Trust Group 65,361 5,827 24,247 95,435 63,734 6,492 10,855 176,516 2005 29,991 7,577 24,717 62,285 54,020 8,550 10,388 135,243
17 Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year

Group 2006 General creditors Accruals VAT payable University of Glasgow (note 22) Deferred income Symposia income deferred Advance receipts Publications 244,301 10,364 6,098 3,263 176,698 44,550 91,522 576,796 Deferred income and advance receipts analysis At 1 April 2005 Gannochy Trust award Publications receipts SSAC income French PhD scholarships 2,892 2,000 12,324 60,000 77,216 Journal receipts Symposia income 60,384 3,620 Received in year 198,385 170,000 12,000 380,385 141,176 45,783 Recognised in year (96,277) (2,000) (170,626) (12,000) (280,903) (110,038) (4,853) At 31 March 2006 105,000 11,698 60,000 176,698 91,522 44,550 2005 210,467 4,308 6,665 1,049 77,216 3,620 60,384 363,709
62

17 Creditors: Amounts falling due within one year (continued)
RSE 2006 General creditors RSE Scotland Foundation current account Deferred income University of Glasgow (note 22) Symposia income deferred 209,284 148,576 176,698 3,263 44,550 582,371 2005 175,193 8,648 77,216 1,049 3,620 265,726
18 Provision for liabilities and charges

Commitments for research fellowships At 1 April 2005 Group & RSE New commitments: Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland Research Fellowships Grants cancelled or recovered Grants paid in the year Recovery of administrative expenses At 31 March 2006 The provision represents amounts payable under a constructive obligation in respect of research fellowships due as follows: 2006 07: 169,459; 2007 08: 67,892.
287,773 221,772 (272,194) 237,351
19 General Fund
At 1 April 2005 Prior year adjustment (note 20)
172,498 (76,000) 96,498
Net movement in funds for the year from statement of nancial activities At 31 March 2006
198,627 295,125
20 Prior year adjustments and change of accounting policy

As previously stated Research Fellowships Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland 287,773 (287,773) FRS 17 Retirement benets 9,000 (1,000) 8,000 (84,000) (76,000) Adjusted total
Incoming resources Resources expended Other gains/(losses) Net movement in funds Balance brought forward April 2004 Adjusted Balance carried forward 31 March 2005 3,460,624 (3,285,566) 426,598 601,656 9,447,235 10,048,891
3,748,397 (3,564,339) 425,598 609,656 9,363,235 9,972,891
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20 Prior year adjustments and change of accounting policy (continued)
Changes in accounting policy The implementation of SORP 2005 included a review of the nature of the grants received and payable for Research Fellowships. It has been agreed that there is a constructive obligation for Fellowships extending beyond the balance sheet date in respect of the Lloyds TSB Foundation Research Fellowships and in accordance with SORP guidance a provision has been made for the future costs of the Fellowships Scheme; the income received, which was previously treated as deferred income, has now been recognised in full. The full implementation of FRS 17 Accounting for Pensions has required the recognition on the balance sheet of the opening pension liability of 76,000.
21 Designated Funds
At 1 April 2005 Capital Asset Reserve Building Maintenance Fund Staff Restructuring Fund Development Appeal Fund Programme Fund CH Kemball Fund Grants Fund Dr James Heggie Fund 4,405,198 207,086 44,113 336,453 94,008 18,829 486,139 171,843 5,763,669 Investment Other income Expenditure Gains / (losses) income 8,456 1,801 13,912 3,839 880 22,708 8,027 59,623 13,361 28,000 41,361 (6,025) (2,944) (18,746) (6,890) (34,605) 3,107 80,250 28,368 111,725 Transfers At 31 March 2006 (101,818) (101,818) 4,303,380 209,517 45,914 360,782 97,847 22,816 570,351 229,348 5,839,955
The transfers represent the release from the Capital Asset Reserve of a total of 101,000 to match the depreciation of buildings and the amount of capital repayment of the loan to the Foundation.
22 Restricted Funds
At 1 April 2005 Robert Cormack Bequest Lessells Trust Auber Bequest Prizes Fund Dryerre Fund Others
Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation
Investment Other income Expenditure Gains / (losses) income 4,655 16,537 15,175 3,257 19,745 3,402 62,771 838 127,153 190,762 19,917 124,025 1,920,940 2,064,882 435,794 2,500,676 (6,993) (25,025) (11,074) (5,871) (23,606) (1,227) (1,770,940) (1,844,736) (266,142) (136,728) (2,247,606) 16,450 58,442 53,630 11,510 69,780 12,023 221,835 385,444 607,279
Transfers At 31 March 2006 (87,760) (87,760) 113,763 423,903 382,604 78,625 488,623 87,036 124,025 150,000 1,848,580 101,881 3,125,614 5,076,075
99,651 354,033 324,873 69,729 422,704 72,838 1,343,828 19,151 2,749,745 4,112,724
Restricted Income Fund RSE RSE Scotland Foundation BP Research Fellowships Trust Total
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22 Restricted funds (continued)
Prizes Fund comprises The Keith Fund, The Neill Fund, The Makdougall-Brisbane Fund, The Gunning-Victoria Fund, The James Scott Prize Fund, the Bruce-Preller Lecture Fund, The WS Bruce Memorial Fund, The Dr DA Berry Fund, The Henry Duncan Prize Lecture Fund and The BP Prize Lecture in the Humanities Fund. Others comprise the Piazzi-Smyth Legacy Fund, The Retailing Seminars Fund and The CASS Fund. The Restricted Income Fund represents restricted income received and expended in the year. Under the terms of the Lessells Trust the University of Glasgow is entitled to 10% of additional amounts received by the RSE from the Trust. The balance included in creditors at 31 March 2006 represents the total sum apportioned but not yet paid over to the University (note 17).
23 Analysis of assets between funds

Group General Fund balances at 31 March 2006 are represented by: Tangible xed assets Investments Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation Current assets RSE Scotland Foundation current account Deposits Cash Current liabilities Provisions for liabilities and charges Pension fund liability 147 142,246 57,533 (148,576) 188,252 303,379 (127,856) (120,000) 295,125 RSE General Fund balances at 31 March 2006 are represented by: Tangible xed assets Investments Loan to RSE Scotland Foundation Current assets RSE Scotland Foundation current account Deposits Cash Current liabilities Provisions for liabilities and charges Pension fund liability 147 142,246 57,533 (148,576) 269,129 222,502 (127,855) (120,000) 295,125 2,365,435 822,516 1,937,944 2,774 714,060 (2,774) 5,839,955 779,411 (303,166) (237,351) 1,848,580 1,574,558 35,128 2,365,581 2,539,320 1,937,944 95,435 (148,576) 1,762,600 222,502 (433,795) (237,351) (120,000) 7,983,660 2,420,445 2,179,527 1,984,752 62,285 (8,648) 808,500 377,985 (257,078) (287,773) (76,000) 7,203,995 2,365,435 822,516 1,937,944 2,774 714,060 (2,774) 5,839,955 Designated Funds 1,912,902 4,659,561 (1,937,944) 116,209 148,576 860,288 (446,166) (237,351) 5,076,075 Restricted Funds 4,278,484 5,624,323 176,516 1,762,600 303,379 (576,796) (237,351) (120,000) 11,211,155 4,381,913 4,879,164 135,243 808,503 495,552 (363,711) (287,773) (76,000) 9,972,891 Designated Funds Restricted Funds 2006 2005
2006 Restated 2005
24 Pension costs
(a) Universities Superannuation Scheme The RSE participates in the Universities Superannuation Scheme, a dened benet pension scheme which is externally funded and contracted out of the State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme. The assets of the scheme are held in a separate trustee-administered fund. The fund is valued every three years by a professionally qualied independent actuary using the projected unit method, the rates of contribution payable being determined by the trustee on the advice of the actuaries. In the intervening years the actuaries review the progress of the scheme.
65

24 Pension costs (continued)
(a) Universities Superannuation Scheme (continued) It is not possible to identify each Institutions share of the underlying asset and liabilities of the scheme and hence contributions to the scheme are accounted for as if it were a dened contributions scheme. The cost recognised within the result for the year is equal to the contributions payable to the scheme for the year. The latest actuarial valuation of the scheme was at 31 March 2005. The most signicant assumptions, those relating to the rate of return on investments and the rates of increase in salary and pensions are as follows: Past service liabilities Investment return Salary increase Pension increase 4.50% 3.90% 2.90% Future service liabilities 6.20% 3.90% 2.90%
At the valuation date the market value of the schemes assets was 21,739.7 million and the value of past service liabilities was 28,308.1 million. The value of the assets represented 77% of the benets that had accrued to members, after allowing for expected future increases in earnings. The contribution rate payable by the RSE was 14.0% of pensionable salaries. The actuary has conrmed that it is appropriate to take the pension charge to be equal to the actual contribution paid during the year.
(b) Lothian Pension Fund The RSE also participates in the Lothian Pension Fund, a dened benet pension scheme established under Local Government Pension Fund Regulations. This scheme has determined that it is possible to ascertain the shares of assets and liabilities relating to individual admitted bodies. The assets of the scheme are held in a separate trustee-administered fund. The fund is valued every three years by a professionally qualied independent actuary using the projected unit method, the rates of contribution payable being determined by the trustee on the advice of the actuaries. In the intervening years the actuaries review the progress of the scheme. The latest actuarial valuation of the scheme was at 31 March 2005. The major assumptions used by the actuary were that, over the long term, the return on the schemes assets would be 6.2% per annum, salary increases would average 4.4% per annum and present the future pensions would increase at a rate of 2.9% per annum. At the valuation date the market value of the schemes assets was 2,089 million and the value of past service liabilities was 2,445 million. The value of the assets represented 86% of the benets that had accrued to members, after allowing for expected future increases in earnings. The contribution rate payable by the RSE was 315% of employees contributions of 6% of pensionable salaries, amounting to 18.9%. The actuary has conrmed that it is appropriate to take the pension charge to be equal to the actual contribution paid during the year.
66

(b) Lothian Pension Fund (continued) The valuation at 31 March 2005 has been updated by the actuary on an FRS17 basis as at 4 May 2006. The major assumptions used in this valuation were: 2006 % Rate of increase in salaries Rate of increase in pensions in payment Discount rate Ination assumption 4.6 3.1 4.9 3.1 2005 % 4.4 2.9 5.4 2.9 2004 % 4.4 2.9 5.5 2.9 2003 % 4.0 2.5 5.4 2.5 2002 % 4.3 2.8 5.9 2.8
The assumptions used by the actuary are the best estimates chosen from a range of possible actuarial assumptions which, due to the timescale covered, may not necessarily be borne out in practice.
Scheme assets The fair value of the scheme assets, which are not intended to be realised in the short term and may be subject to signicant change before they are realised, and the present value of the schemes liabilities, which are derived from cash ow projections over long periods and thus inherently uncertain, were: Value at 31 March 2006 000 Equities Bonds Other Property Cash Whole scheme assets 2,170,000 156,000 283,000 40,000 2,649,000 000 of which RSE share Present value of scheme liabilities Surplus/(decit) in the scheme Pension liabilities 1,130 (1,250) (120) Value at 31 March 2005 000 1,616,000 134,000 193,000 146,000 2,089,000 000 485 (561) (76) Value at 31 March 2004 000 1,554,000 116,000 149,000 18,000 1,837,000 000 345 (429) (84)
67

(b) Lothian Pension Fund (continued) The movement in the net pension liability during the year comprised: Value at 31 March 2006 000 Decit at beginning of the year Current service cost Past service cost, settlements and curtailment Employer contributions Net return on assets Expected return on employer assets Interest on pension scheme liabilities 39 (33) 6 Actuarial gains Actual return less expected return on pension Experience losses on Scheme liabilities Changes in assumptions underlying present Actuarial gains/(losses) Decit at end of the year History of experience gains and losses 2006 Difference between the expected and actual return on scheme assets: Amounts (,000) Percentage of year end scheme assets Experience gains and losses on scheme liabilities: Amounts (,000) Percentage of year end present value of scheme liabilities Total amount recognised in statement of nancial activities: Amounts (,000) Percentage of year end scheme assets (58) (4.6)% (1) (0.2)% 15 3.5% (119) (38.6)% (30) (2.4)% (1) (0.2%) (96) (31.2)% 171 15.2% 13 2.7% 48 13.9% (11) (5.5)% 2005 2004 2003 171 (30) (199) (58) (120) 13 (14) (1) (76) 48 (1) (32) (15) (84) 29 (26) 3 18 (19) (1) (76) (81) 89 Value at 31 March 2005 000 (84) (68) 74 Value at31 March 2004 000 (109) (49) 60
(c) Pension charge The total pension charge for the year, including FRS17 adjustments, was 94,593 (2005: 89,740).
25 Transactions with Council members

No member of Council received any payments other than reimbursements of expenditure on travel and subsistence costs actually and necessarily incurred in carrying out their duties as Councillors and Officers. The aggregate of such reimbursements to those Council members who charged expenses amounted to 6,344 (2005: 3,930).
26 Connected charitable trusts

(a) RSE Scotland Foundation The RSE Scotland Foundation is a charitable trust, recognised in Scotland as Scottish charity number SCO24636. It was created in March 1996 with the object of advancing the education of the public in Scotland in science and engineering and in so doing to conserve the scientic and cultural heritage of Scotland. The President, General Secretary, Treasurer, Curator and a Vice-President of the RSE are ex officiis Trustees of the Foundation, which draws on the resources of the RSE in carrying out its objects. The Foundation also has ve nominated Trustees. The Foundation became publisher of the RSEs journals under a Publications Rights License effective from 1 January 1997.
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26 Connected charitable trusts (continued)
(a) RSE Scotland Foundation (continued) On 1 July 1997 the RSE granted to the Foundation a 50-year lease over 26 George Street carrying an obligation to refurbish the building within a three year period. The Council of the RSE agreed to make funding of up to 2.3 million available to the Foundation in support of the refurbishment. The agreed terms of the loan are as described in note 13. (b) BP Research Fellowships Trust The BP Research Fellowships Trust funds a scheme of three-year post doctoral fellowships administered by the RSE.
27 Supplementary information: grants, donations and receipts

(a) Scottish Executive Grants Income 2006 Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong learning Department Promotion of research Scottish Science Advisory Committee Activities grant International activities Science and Society Other departments Scotland in the Netherlands Brain science event 1,542,060 18,000 15,000 1,392,518 651,000 170,000 479,000 170,000 72,060 668,542 160,000 411,000 119,976 2005
Direct costs Scottish Science Advisory Committee Meetings Science & Society and Education Publications Promotion of research Joint Scottish French PhD studentships Evidence International activities Management and secretariat Buildings Establishment expenses Maintenance 170,000 12,677 23,218 525,333 12,000 846 109,275 853,349
Staff and other costs 182,553 83,970 12,424 125,667 73,235 60,725 106,286 30,565 13,286 688,711
2006 Total 170,000 182,553 96,647 35,642 651,000 12,000 74,081 170,000 106,286 30,565 13,286 1,542,060
2005 Total 160,000 119,826 60,839 36,292 622,542 36,000 76,331 152,974 79,081 35,209 13,424 1,392,518
The Scottish Executive provides grant-in-aid under the powers of S.23 National Heritage (Scotland) Act 1985 to meet the costs of Scottish Executive-funded Research Fellows, the cost of maintaining the RSEs premises and a share of the RSEs staff and other costs.
69

27 Supplementary information: grants, donations and receipts (continued)
(a) Scottish Executive Grants Income At 31 March 2006 the nancial commitment in respect of Personal and Support Fellowships awarded subject to Scottish Executive funding in the years 2006-7, 2007-08 and 2008-09 amounted to 356,800, 219,000 and 97,500 respectively. These amounts are treated as obligation of future years to be nanced by specic funding expected to be made available from the Scottish Executive. (b) Scottish Science Advisory Committee Expenditure in relation to the Scottish Science Advisory Committee comprised: 2006 Balance brought forward Chairmans fee, salaries and other staff costs Establishment Office costs Travel and subsistence Committee and working groups R&D in Business E-Health Initiative PR and publicity Printing Professional services (12,324) 93,995 14,528 2,154 5,452 7,624 39,447 2,444 4,982 170,626 Balance carried forward 11,698 170,000 2005 (1,696) 91,469 14,589 4,121 6,784 7,452 15,786 4,446 4,725 149,372 12,324 160,000
(c) Recurring donations in support of activities Expenditure in relation to the Scottish Science Advisory Committee comprised: Caledonian Research Foundation Income Promotion of research & innovation Receipts Meetings income 21,410 7,463 28,873 426,550 426,550 236,800 236,800 Scottish Enterprise Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland
Costs Promotion of research Lectures RSE administration and staff costs recovery 17,332 5,483 6,058 28,873 373,331 53,219 426,550 221,772 15,028 236,800
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27 Supplementary information: grants, donations and receipts (continued)
(c) Recurring donations in support of activities (continued) The Caledonian Research Foundation supports postdoctoral fellowships in biomedical sciences and European visiting fellowships; a prize lecture and an international conference. The Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland supports postdoctoral fellowships, postgraduate studentships and lectures and conferences to fund and disseminate research aimed at improving the quality of life for an ageing population. (d) Other donations in support of activities The RSE gratefully acknowledges all those who make donations in support of activities. The companies, trusts and other bodies which made donations of 1,000 or more in support of activities in the year ended 31 March 2006 were as follows: Aberdeenshire Council Binks Trust Buccleuch Estates Ltd Darwin Trust HBOS Highlands & Islands Enterprise Institute of Physics James Weir Foundation Scottish & Southern Energy plc Scottish Enterprise Energy Team Scottish Natural Heritage Total E & P UK plc
28 Analysis of net funds/(debt)

At 31 March 2006 Cash ows At 1 April 2005
Cash at bank Deposits general Deposits designated funds Deposits restricted funds
303,379 188,252 714,060 860,288 2,065,979
(192,173) 179,751 32,400 741,946 761,924
495,552 8,501 681,660 118,342 1,304,055
71
Royal Society of Edinburgh Schedule of Investments- movements at valuat Year Ended 31 March 2006 ion. Opening Market Value (197) (93) (279) 1,367 (227) 2,179 8,052 4,944 111,364 134,227 133,138 135,676 8,249 5,037 111,643 132,860 133,365 133,497 78,086 0 105,972 75,507 29,051 39,171 2,601 5,871 0 (1,716) (2,774) Purchase Cost Sales Proceeds Gain/(Loss) on Sale Revaluation for Year Closing Market Value
Investment Current Holdings
Closing No.
Gilts 7.5% Treasury 2006 7.25% Treasury 2007 Treasury 5.75% 2009 Treasury 5% 2012 Treasury 5.5% 2008/ 12 Treasury 5% 2014
7,716 4,632 105,000 130,000 130,000 130,000
Other Fixed Interest R B of Scotland 387% 2010/49 7. European Inv't Bank 4.75% 2018
70,000 100,000
76,370 103,198
SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS
73
63,968 62,775 77,010 66,920 60,180 25,219 62,308
Investment & Unit Trusts Aberdeen Asian Income Fund Aberforth Geared Cap & Int Trust Aberforth Smaller Co Trust plc Duneden Income Growth Inv Trust Murray International Trust Scottish Mortgage & Trust 0 50,850 52,900 114,000 122,820 113,220
75,000 45,000 5,000 57,000 27,600 24,000
5,681 2,138 6,975 19,380 45,678 45,240 15,667 9,600 19,550 10,150 (127) 8,049 6,993
81,188 52,988 33,425 133,380 168,498 125,160 79,635 72,375 96,560 77,070 60,053 33,268 69,301
Financials Barclays HSBC Holdings Ord US$ 0. 50 Legal & General Group Ord 2.5p Lloyds TSB Group Provident Financial Prudential Royal Bank of Scotland 25p Ord
11,824 7,500 68,000 14,000 8,500 4,984 3,700
Royal Society of Edinburgh Schedule of Investments- movements at valuat Year Ended 31 March 2006 ion. Opening Market Value 2,102 2,630 12,840 4,713 14,424 9,583 4,732 72,520 42,066 51,388 49,394 0 59,680 37,353 36,964 39,811 Purchase Cost Sales Proceeds Gain/(Loss) on Sale Revaluation for Year Closing Market Value
Closing No.
Consumer Burberry Group Diageo Unilever Ord 1.4p
1,021 8,000 7,142
Pharmaceuticals Astrazenica Glaxo Smith Kline Ord 25p
1,772 3,282
49,041 20,474 2,102 23,273 0
Services Associated Briti Ports Holdings sh 0.25 BAA Firstgroup GUS Northgate Ord 5p Rank Group Sainsbury (J) Ord 25p 38,921 47,707 13,215 30,519 0 38,873 37,775 10,120 4,574
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41,598 0 81,800 4,140 4,140 5,515 (5,094) 1,376 30,570 34,950 21,718 19,718 22,890 6,433 2,243 5,415
0 5,451 3,850 2,881 2,300 14,200 13,037
0 13,382 3,138 1,978 2,832 (6,852) 5,573 10,263 34,600
0 45,189 16,353 30,395 26,105 32,021 43,348 42,628 116,400
Utilities National Grid Transco National grid B pref Scottish Power
7,446 0 20,000
Industrials BOC Group Rotork Ord 5p
1,500 3,750 0
7,920
23,205 0 0
Royal Society of Edinburgh Schedule of Investments- movements ation. Year Ended 31 March 2006 valuat Closing No. 9,976 6,021 210,994 213,820 33,538 326,255 58,617 51,517 2,495,748 Opening Market Value 48,641 45,496 2,138,780 Purchase Cost Sales Proceeds Gain/(Loss) on Sale Revaluation for Year Closing Market Value
Resources BP Ord US$0. 25 8,868 Shell Transport & Trading Org 25p2,752 1,132, 958
TOTALS
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Schedule of Investments
PRIZE LECTURES
Caledonian Research Foundation Prize Lecture 2005 Joan Bakewell 17 (Edinburgh) and 19 (Glasgow) October 2005 TELEVISION AND CULTURE. WAS THERE EVER A GOLDEN AGE? Joan Bakewell was born in Stockport Cheshire and educated at Stockport High School for Girls and Newnham College, Cambridge where she took an Honours Degree in Economics and History. Her broadcasting career spans some 40 years: she first made her mark in television in the 1960s as a presenter of BBC 2s Late Night Line Up. In the 1970s she presented BBC travel programmes and Granadas Report Action. In the 1980s she was Arts Correspondent for BBC television, and in the 1990s she wrote and presented The Heart of the Matter for BBC 1, and My Generation and Taboo for BBC 2. Currently she presents Belief for BBC Radio 3. Her autobiography, The Centre of the Bed, was published in the autumn of 2003; her book, Belief, in May 2005. She has been Chair of the British Film Institute, served on the board of the Royal National Theatre, and is currently Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts. There is much glib and casual talk these days about television that boils down to a focus on two concepts that are now rooted in the discourse about the state of television and media as they are today. The concept of the golden age and the concept of dumbing down. They go together in the sense that if you believe that the first describes any part of televisions history, you probably also believe that latter has taken over in the last decade. You will probably also be over 50 years of age, of the male gender and have recently left the higher realms of television employment, and feel the youngsters are getting it wrong. Whatever it is. I intend to examine both concepts and to
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put them into some sort of historical perspective. The Golden Age as a phrase derives from the Greek and Roman poets who, imagining the beginning of things, conjured this idea of a utopian time, a Golden Age when all was harmony and man lived in peace with himself and nature. That was clearly a fiction. But the term lives on because what it says is meaningful for people. Why is that so? First, The Golden Age always describes the past: it is never now. Rarely do people say were living in a Golden Age, although we may well be a golden age of supermarkets, for example, almost certainly a golden age of cheap
flights but somehow we dont acknowledge that yet. It always take time to view things in perspective. Some examples: The Golden Age of Jazz was in the 1930s and 40s; of English poetry in the late 16th century; of the novel in the mid 19th century; of Impressionism in the late 19th century; Russian poetry the 1820s; American photography in 1940s. You get the idea. So, Golden Ages were always in the past. They usually describe an activity that was relatively new, and when people were experimenting with a new form. In the case of cheap flights that process would be mass marketing. In consequence, many of the dominant players exhibited characteristics later seen to be amateurish. The Golden Age came and went because the process was evolving at a rapid rate and the swift evolution of its practice either leads to new things, or gets stuck in familiar modes. Think Elizabethan poetry, for example a major surging breakthrough that slowed down the decades into the metaphysical poets. Then, as time went by, The Golden Age is recalled and referred to, often to disparage what came later. Something of the excitement, it was felt, had been lost.
In 1825, when Samuel Coleridge was working on his treatise, The Use of a University (which was never published), he describes what he calls his new clerisy, the members of his National Church. They are to be: distributed throughout the country so as not to leave the smallest integral part or division without a resident guide, guardian and instructor; the object and final intention of the whole order being these : to preserve the stores and to guard the treasures of past civilizations, and thus to bind the present with the past; to perfect and to add to the same and thus to connect the present with the future; but especially to diffuse through the whole community and to every native entitled to its laws and rights, that quantity and quality of knowledge which was indispensable both for the understanding of these rights and for the performance of the duties correspondent. That was Coleridges vision of the intelligentsia and it was the shadow of that concept that stood behind the idea of public service broadcasting as Lord Reith conceived it, and as generations schooled in his BBC sought to follow. Thats why, in 1970, when Nicholas Garnham and I interviewed all the main players in British television as it was then, and used them to illustrate our portrait of television at that time,
Prize and Bequest Lectures
we called our book The New Priesthood. We conceived of television at that time as having the role within the culture that Coleridge defined. No one would assign to it that role today. (The book, long out of print, captures the mood of the movers and shakers in television at that time, who saw it as their role to make the best programmes they could conceive, and to spread them as widely as possible among everyone.) This, then, was the supposed Golden Age of Television and its characteristics were appropriately those of a newly arrived technology. To us today it appears clumsy, awkward, amateurish. It was also black & white and changing rapidly. Only in 1955 had there been any challenge to the monopoly in the BBC. BBC2 arrived in 1963, the year before I was signed up to join one of its most adventurous running shows: Late Night Line Up. Line Up had a small but very significant place in television history. Our programme brief was to talk about television itself. We began, quite humbly, as an early-evening, 15-minute programme carrying trailers for what was coming on BBC2 throughout the evening. In those days BBC2 only began transmitting at 7pm. Our trailers interviews with producers, writers, star actors and such proved so successful that we were moved to
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the end of the channel, around 11.15pm each evening, to discuss and review the nights programmes and to talk about what was coming up the following day. We were on air, 364 days a year, no summer breaks and no weekends off. We were there as consistently as the daily news. Not surprisingly, we built up a following. Television was the focus. But it was also our subject matter that drew the audience. People wanted to see programmes talked about and within hours of their being transmitted. Sometimes the star from a television play, which may have gone out live, would come into our studio still in costume to talk about the role. We talked about sport, about comedy, about drama, about the daring new documentaries like Man Alive and about the many new current affairs programmes. In the 1960s there might be as many as six current affairs programmes each week. The BBC had Panorama, Gallery, Tonight, 24 Hours. ITV had This Week and World in Action as well as the many regional programmes the different ITV companies were each obliged to transmit. There was a lot for Line Up to discuss and to criticise. Television itself was the hot topic of the day. The primacy of current affairs in the television schedules was at its peak in the 60s and 70s. In a series of BBC4 programmes in
March of this year, Steven Barnett Professor of Communications at the University of Westminster examined televisions programme schedules over four decades. He discovered that current affairs are now at their lowest peak-time level since 1955. Since then, too, the entire scheduling of programming has changed. In 1955, 10% of BBC programmes were arts & culture and 25% were childrens; only 1% soaps. By 1995, soaps had risen to 4% and by 2005 are nearly 20%. If we are measuring a golden age by the place in the schedules for high culture and serious programmes, then the peak for drama, current affairs, arts and science was certainly in the 60s and 70s. Incidentally, News has remained steady over four decades at around 12-13%. But there were other considerations. Television at that time also provided a cultural glue. It united people who might otherwise have nothing in common but a love of Coronation Street, or an eagerness to see the latest exploration into the lives of people different from themselves, or the animal kingdom only then being opened up by the pioneering and enduring genius of David Attenborough. There were no VCRs or DVDs in those days, so the entire audience watched the programmes simultaneously. On Line Up we discussed the very programmes they would be
discussing next day in the office, the factory, the school, the neighbourhood what today we call the water-cooler effect. Television was seen as important, a way of learning more about the world, of catching up on a neglected education, of being in touch with places and people previously unknown. Television was an important player in the cultural landscape, which at that time was extending the horizons of everyone. It helped to create the culture we have today. Today we take it for granted: in the 60s and 70s it was still a dazzling miracle and a challenge to radical young programme makers who wanted to open up debates on every conceivable subject. Many of those debates happened on Late Night Line Up. In 1968, revolution swept the campuses of Europe, the workers and students of Paris took to the streets and threatened to bring down the French government. Late Night Line Up invited all the ringleaders to come to London; we handed our studio over to them and invited them to explain their intentions. A cartoon in the popular press at the time shows two gendarmes in a Paris street, one saying to the other Its quiet tonight, to which the other replies, Yes theyre all over in London on Late Night Line Up.. Many writers, artists, directors, musicians wanted to be heard on
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this new medium. Line Up opened its doors. In our tiny cramped studio (originally meant for weather forecasting) we brought together the latest emerging groups The Bee Gees, the Kinks, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Janis Joplin and Jimmie Hendrix; classical musicians such as Lucio Berio, Arthur Bliss, Stockhausen, John Cage; jazzmen such as Buddy Rich, Duke Ellington; folk legends such as Arlo Guthrie. We pioneered the mixing of genres, convinced that the existing barriers between so-called popular art and high art needed to come down. So we would mix poetry with politics, fashion with philosophy: Allen Ginsberg, Martha Gellhorn, Roger McGough, James Baldwin. There was always an excuse somewhere in the television schedules to enlarge on such diverse subjects. I focus on Line Up because first, its what I know, and also because it represents a microcosm of the times and the attitudes of the times, which are so different from today. There was another sense in which looking back now those days is touched with a nostalgia for a Golden Age. The programme makers knew where they were, literally. They were either in the BBCs Television Centre, or at Lime Grove Studios, or one of the major regional BBC headquarters, or they were at one of the major
regional ITV companies headquarters Granada in Manchester, Yorkshire in Leeds, Scottish Television in Glasgow, Westward in Plymouth and so on. There was a convergence, each morning, on these major television factories. Through their gates flocked the many disciplines it takes to get television programmes on the air: make-up girls, costume and set designers, set builders, actors, presenters, dancers, lighting men and cameramen, writers, producers, editors. They were almost always in the same building, making television. There were obviously also planners and schedulers, controllers and finance executives, but they didnt set the tone, the mood of the building. In that sense, it felt as if the creative forces were in power, and for us indeed, in that sense, it was a Golden Age. In 1982 along came Channel 4, created to give greater choice to the public. It was the result of consultation and lobbying among the very people who had led the creativity of the 1970s. People like Roger Graef, creator of the fly-onthe-wall documentary style; Tony Smith, editor of 24 Hours and creator of Nationwide. Channel 4 was to be a second public service broadcaster. It was the deliberate policy of Jeremy Isaacs, its first director, to schedule programmes for minority groups: actually seeking out those whose tastes
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might lie beyond what was not yet referred to as the mass market. Television was not yet commodified. It remained in the aspirations of those who were making it an arena for ideas a place where the audience could learn and engage with all that was going on, and share in the diversity of the countrys theatre, music, comedy, sport and current affairs. Coleridge would have approved. In the 1980s and 90s all that changed. Changes fuelled by two things: technology and management. In the 1980s, with the arrival of John Birt, the new management system he put in place at the BBC closed down the design and scenery departments, make-up went, the costume department, too. Even the celebrated radiophonic workshop, which famously created the signature tune for Dr Who, was abolished. Such restructuring was no doubt at the behest of the management consultants brought in by John Birt at an estimated cost to the BBC of 22 million a year. The role of management as the crucial determinant of how institutions should function the new and prevailing ethos of the 1980s was taking shape in the BBC, as it was doing in all other aspects of life in Britain. As I am sure you will know, it has done the same in those illustrious and historic centres of learning called universities. Programme makers
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themselves were required to be managers. Management experts would have you believe that before the management revolution, all was careless, slipshod, unfocused, financially out of control. Well they would say that wouldnt they? I am not here to argue the merits of management systems, but their way of thinking certainly shifts and governs the philosophy of institutions. The fact is that for all the disparagement now heaped on the old BBC in the name of management efficiency, it certainly worked, it operated within the licence fee, it delivered on its remit. So, in those early days we had novelty, cohesion, enthusiasm and something else. We had permission. This was a question of leadership, and with the arrival of Hugh Carleton-Greene as Director-General of the BBC in the early 1960s, the spirit of enquiry and disrespect was given free rein, and was to puncture for ever the hidebound hierarchy of good manners that had inhibited creativity. As a consequence, we had That was the Week that Was, the programme that began the entire dismantling of the culture of deference and led on to the whole swathe of satire and comedy shows that have their current expression in Little Britain and Bremner Fortune and Bird. Carlton-Greenes philosophy was that the BBC should lead with
innovative and original programmes the public could never dream of, but would enjoy and support. He would have scoffed at focus groups, as being uninformed about what was possible and unimaginative about the creative process. Ask the public what television they want and they will only answer they only can answer in terms of what they know. What focus group could have conceived of Monty Python or Fawlty Towers? I understand The Office played badly to focus groups. Another inspirational figure of the time was a young drama producer from Scotland, a short stocky ebullient man, who had been made a producer and given great freedom to follow his own taste under Sydney Newman, the charismatic Canadian who revolutionised BBC television drama when he took over as its Head in the 1960s. This Scotsman was James McTaggart, the mastermind behind the Wednesday Play, a man deeply committed to traditional values, with an eye for talent and ideas. His story editors included the young Tony Garnett and Ken Loach. In January 1965 he began delivering a series of single plays by writers such as Simon Raven, John Hopkins, Hugh Whitemore, Michael Hastings, David Mercer, Troy Kennedy Martin and Christopher Logue: a roll call of the best writers of the
day. The list also included Nell Dunns Up the Junction and Dennis Potters Stand up, Nigel Barton and Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton. There were some 32 single plays in all, and this is what seems so amazing today they were all made within just one year and transmitted in a prime time slot on BBC1. That has to count as some kind of Golden Age. Today the single play is all but dead as a genre. By the 1980s the best writers were already writing series: fine series such as, in 1981 Alan Bleasdales Boys from the Black Stuff; 1985 Troy Kennedy Martins Edge of Darkness; and in 1986 Potters Singing Detective. Today they are creating series like Shameless, Bodies, and Outlaws series that, on the whole, live and die by the ratings. Shameless is the exception: it got poor ratings at the start but Channel 4 stuck with it. In Mactaggarts day, even when a play had low ratings (which some of them did), the single play was guaranteed its slot at the heart of the television culture. James legacy has been to give his name to the annual MacTaggart lectures at Edinburghs Television Festival where the corporate world of broadcasters and the eager world of independent producers come together to argue creative, but also management, matters of
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contemporary television. It would break James MacTaggarts heart. For us then, the programme makers, the 60s and 70s had indeed been golden: and for the public we produced vibrant and original programmes that constantly challenged and often outraged them. It was where the debate about the kind of society we lived in was taking place and we set the agenda. No one worried us about ratings; no one talked about programme costs. The existing BBC structure was such that others took care of such matters, and we, the creative people, were allowed to get on with what we were good at, which was making programmes. Today there is no one in any creative programme making team who is not aware of financial constraints or the need to achieve audience figures. That is in the parlance the name of the game. Having said that, the BBC of the 60s knew that Line Up was cheap to put on the air and so kept it going for some eight years, between 1964 and 1972. Now we come to the downside, and there was a downside a notso-Golden-Age. The technology was very rudimentary then. Line Up had a very small studio, three cumbersome cameras, three chairs and a coffee table, not much more. Captions were made by sticking letters of the alphabet onto cards which were then
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mounted in sequence on a music stand, and changed by hand as the camera focused on them. Line Up was black & white at the start, only later pioneering the BBCs first colour cameras. There was little scope for visual interest. The focus was on the talk, the ideas, the person. Production values were nil, camera angles hardly changed, the style of interview was respectful and unassertive. Until Robin Day and John Freeman came along and changed the way interviewers talked, to interrupt an interviewee who was speaking was considered bad form. Something of that tradition endured in arts and general programmes such as Line Up. As an example of our work on Line Up, a copy of my interview with the artist Marcel Duchamp, the father of conceptual art talking at length the only such record is in the Tate Modern. This interview was done in an afternoon and transmitted with minimal editing later that night. No effort was made to contextualise who my guest is or his work, there were no external points of reference, no alternative views, or comments. The piece is stark, traditional and old fashioned. But it did one thing supremely well, something we scarcely counted at the time, and to which little regard has been paid since: it focused on the human face, it listened to one individual, gave
them time, allowing them space for their mannerisms, personality and idioms to emerge. Today there would be so much cutting and styling of the content that its identity would be that of the filmmaker, rather than the subject. For all its crudeness, that was its value then and its value now. It is also interesting to note the other cultural differences from today. My accent, which was a good deal more cut-glass in those days, because the Queens English was expected of broadcasters, and the fact that Duchamp is smoking. In fact we all smoked, even the presenters, during the programmes. The very basic form in the Duchamp interview quickly developed in all sorts of ways as the technology advanced. A short while later, an interview with the French novelist, Georges Simenon, demonstrates two great leaps forward. We were outside the studio, a move of major significance in the plays of the time, which lost the fustiness of studio sets and moved freely into the contemporary landscape. Also the interview was made on film, not tape, a great advance in the subtlety and beauty of the image. We took two cameras and had plenty of time to edit. The filmmaker was interested in the aesthetic of film and also in a post-modern examination of the medium, We filmed for three
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whole days, two cameras running all the time, with magazines of film running 10 minutes at a time and costing 120 each a lot of money in those days. There was no portable monitor to check as we filmed and the film had to be developed when we got back to London. That could take an age, but we had the time. Abundant resources resulted in a film way ahead of its time in style and approach. The claims we make that something of value about television in the 60s and 70s has been lost concern ideas, freedoms, leadership and originality. Strangely enough, those concerns are endorsed by, of all people, John Birt, architect of the massive overhaul of the BBC that changed so much. Giving this years McTaggert Lecture he had this to say: Though much in the public service is blooming there are areas of programming in need of visionaries. And the overall balance needs to shift towards more art, more authorship, more scholarship, more substance in short some of the schedules are a bit barren. We need more truth and we need more beauty and he goes on: let us not tabloidise our intellectual life. So how has it happened? And, indeed, what is John Birts
responsibility for the direction television has taken? I speak primarily of the BBC in this discussion because it is by far and away the embodiment of public service broadcasting which has, in the popular mind at least, prime responsibility for keeping up standards. So it time to turn now to the concept of dumbing down a phrase that pollutes the discourse with its implied elitist condescension and class snobbery. It is always an insult and as such has, as a phrase, no place in an examination of exactly what has happened. I prefer to explore how technology and management have had an impact on ideas and on the way our society talks to and sees itself. But politics come into this too. Mrs Thatcher had no love for the BBC. In 1984 the Panorama programme, Maggies Militant Tendency, looked into the alleged extreme-right wing connections of certain MPs. Neil Hamilton and Gerald Howarth sued. By 1986, the year when the case came to court, Norman Tebbit had become Chairman of the Conservative Party and was intent on getting tough with the BBC. This ran parallel with the emergence of independent programme-making companies, which the Tories felt should, in accordance with their own philosophy, be given a
chance in the market place. In the autumn of 1986, Tebbit attacked Kate Adies reporting from Libya. In September, Douglas Hurd named Marmaduke Hussey as the Tory choice to be Chairman of the BBC. Hussey moved quickly to settle the Panorama case out of court and all in the Current Affairs department were suddenly aware they were under attack. The Tory press joined battle and ran a sustained campaign, vilifying the BBC and suggesting that the BBC was in a state of collapse. The truth was that it was making serious programmes the government didnt like. Real Lives, a programme that attempted to give a balanced look at the situation in Northern Ireland, was denounced as being uncritical, precipitating a rare strike among the BBCs journalists. I was one of them. Then a first World War One drama series, The Monocled Mutineer, which a BBC press release described as being factual, turned out to be a dramatised version by Alan Bleasdale, based on a true story. The nuance mattered. The anti-BBC press was up in arms. In February 1987 Special Branch raided BBC Glasgow and seized material intended for a programme about Britains Secret Society. Within six months of his arrival, Hussey sacked the BBCs Director General, Alasdair Milne and brought in John Birt from LWT as deputy
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Director-General, in charge of BBC Journalism. Things were about to change. For me they certainly changed: ten days after a momentous meeting, when John Birt confronted the entire News & Current Affairs department with his changes, I was sacked. Coverage of the arts had no place in current affairs and was one of the areas where savings could be made. What was at stake was the BBCs licence fee. The BBC depends on it. Today it amounts to 2,940 Million raised annually from the viewing public. If the Thatcher government moved against the licence fee in the then pending negotiations about its renewal, the BBC would be pole-axed. John Birt set about safeguarding the licence fee and he did that with a major management revolution. It was in tune with the times; it matched his own temperament. He had after all trained as a engineer and it was his aim to transform the BBC into a welloiled, precisely functioning machine and thus ensure the future of the licence fee. He pulled it off. This and the BBC website are his greatest achievements. You will notice I havent spoken about programme style and content for quite a while. Thats appropriate, because systems and structures became the overriding concern of BBC management and filtered down into the ethos of
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the department heads and executive producers. The world Mrs Thatcher was creating highly individualistic, self-interested, centred on the free market arrived at the BBC. The world of television was substantially overhauled by the Broadcasting Act of 1990, which opened the ITV franchises to competitive bidding and let Channel 4 sell its own advertising. The BBC was now required by law to buy at least 25% of its programming from independent producers. Two years later John Birt became Director-General and in 1996 split the BBC into Production and Broadcast. Now BBC staff producers had to bid for commissions from their own colleagues, the BBC Controllers, in competition with the now fiercely-competitive ITV and the burgeoning independent market. Competition was fast and furious. At the same time Birt ordered cuts. The BBC Production Handbook at the time declared that it would have to win commissions by efficient working and competitive pricing, continuing, the major effort will have to be in the programme-making process, if we are to bridge our funding gap. The time spent on set-up, the shooting and recording of programmes and the length of time in post-production is where the key savings will be made.. The producers had become
salesmen of their own wares, to the programme controllers who wanted to beat the opposition at any cost. The BBC accounts department was expanded to deal with all the administration. Where are the programmes in all this? Several interesting ideas developed at that time and suited the new imperatives: programmes about ordinary people were cheap to make, often fascinating and popular with the public. There had been a fine tradition of observational documentaries from the time of Man Alive in the 60s. Now the idea was pushed further, giving us ever more intrusive keyhole pictures of individual lives. The docu-soap was born. Among the heroes of the genre were the airport courier, Jeremy and Maureen and her driving school exploits, both of whom became nationally famous, got themselves agents and took off round the country, making public appearances. The public picked up on this and saw there was a good living to be made, a whole lot more exciting than many routine jobs, if only you could feature on a television programme. Their craving for self-exposure was to play well with the populist regime that came in when Greg Dyke succeeded John Birt in 2000. Where one series had succeeded, others followed: popular and entertaining programmes about ordinary people living their lives.
The success of the genre was not in doubt. But what happened under the financial and competitive constraints of the time was that the idea was copied and over and over. In the end, it seemed they were just too many. Thats when people began to notice and speak critically of the lack of new ideas: the phrase dumbing down was suddenly on everyones lips. Greg Dykes arrival put many of John Birts changes into reverse. He changed the mood, the attitude: he put a lot more money into programmes. Posters declaring One BBC went up round BBC offices. One of them read: Cut the Crap. Not the most elegant of phrases Lord Reith would have winced but it was one that struck home. People knew exactly what it meant. Morale recovered. But Dyke is a highly competitive man, with a string of triumphs at LWT he was every bit a populist. He set out to beat ITV and he succeeded. He did it with a massive increase in money for programmes and the promotion of popular taste. Thus, a programme series on Impressionism was presented by Rolf Harris and a series on geology was presented by Alan Titchmarsh. The notion of dumbing down, of falling standards, comes into play when serious programming is relegated to off-peak times of day to liberate peak hours for
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popular and competitive scheduling. Thus under Greg Dyke, Panorama was moved to late on a Sunday, often referred to as the graveyard slot but where I had for years earned a healthy audience for The Heart of the Matter. Highly popular programmes were now stripped across five days a week by BBC, ITV and Channel 4 The Weakest Link, EastEnders, Big Brother the art of scheduling had fallen to the claims of ratings. Heart of the Matter had already suffered in the 1990s when there was much concern with audience share that percentage of the total audience that each programme commands. We were told our target share was 21%: thats very high for an issues-based documentary, albeit a popular one like ours. We already had 19%, we pushed it to 20% and were deemed to have failed. We were subsequently moved later, where we could get a larger share of the, by then 11pm dwindling audience. We reached our 21% target, but with fewer actual viewers. This was deemed a success. If you care about ratings it is indeed a success; if you care about public service broadcasting, it was a betrayal of what it stands for. Ratings as a prime criterion will regularly be in conflict with the other values that public service broadcasting implies. Sometimes but not always. Thatcherism throughout the
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80s and 90s fuelled a huge consumer boom and a shameless pleasure in spending money on ourselves. It represented a new freedom for ordinary people, and they wanted to see programmes about renewing their homes, buying and selling houses, decorating, gardening, improving their way of life. Far from being dumbing down, this seems to me to express an aspirational wish we all have to make life better. And it perfectly reflects what has happened in the broader culture. In the 60s and 70s, the broader public was only beginning to explore the possibilities of the consumer society; Harold Macmillans phrase from the 1960s so mocked at the time youve never had it so good, was about to come true. In the 80s and 90s national measurements of poverty and need began to rate a television set as a necessity of life; people expected to have a car, families began to have two, foreign travel filtered down from the upper class and wealthy to virtually anyone who could get a few hundred pounds together. This social revolution bred an interest in how to spend and in how to enjoy all these new commodities. Along with the economic revolution went a personal one. Given more leisure, but also more pressure, given the fragmentation of working life, of the work/home
balance as women entered the workplace, there were many crises in personal and family life. Television has come to reflect these. Wife Swap is a deliberately saucy title with a shamelessly populist appeal. In fact, the programmes offer, in the most entertaining form, an insight into the nature of marriage, its tensions and rewards, revealing with considerable accuracy the subtle ways men and women interact, and in the interest of the bond they have, modulate and adjust their behaviour. Or not. Similarly programmes about child care and nannies actually teach us skills about child care which we might assume we knew already, and didnt. Likewise cookery! Cooking has become a national obsession, with innumerable and copycat programmes featuring different cooks. But the format was transcended by the arrival of Jamie Oliver and his campaign against obesity in schools and the unhealthy nature of school meals. Is this dumbing down? I dont think so. It was the essence of what public service broadcasting should do and is now working its way into the governments health initiatives. And then came Big Brother a stroke of brilliance to take its title from the ever-looming figure who spies on all our lives in George Orwells dystopian novel 1984. It transformed the television
landscape. It took over the summer schedules in 2000 and has dominated them ever since. It was joined by Celebrity Big Brother in 2003, also is repeated every year. Television was rocked by its impact, its popularity, and by the tabloid response which was to embrace it totally, making celebrities of its characters and prompting a chance for everyone to become somebody. It is the ultimate democratisation of the television technology. As a programme, it is well conceived, thoughtfully constructed, finely contexted and absolute schlock. It commands the biggest audiences, the biggest advertising, the daily news agenda. It is indeed dumbing down, but it makes the BBC green with envy, as one BBC executive put it to me: We should have thought of that!. What do people mean when they express concern about falling standards, citing Big Brother? They certainly mean the bad language, overt sex and general bad behaviour. In terms of both the old moral ways and, indeed, contemporary ways of behaving, Big Brothers standards are low. But it is an entertainment; its contributors are volunteers; its place in the schedules is prime time, but not in any way prolonged or dominant over the year. I hate it: but it is part of the cultural landscape, a landscape
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shaped by other technological considerations. As well as the five terrestrial channels, there are now 38 shopping channels, 22 childrens channels, 26 for sport, 29 for music, 30 for pornography, 86 for lifestyle and dozens of film, news, religion and ethnic minority channels and thats only the beginning. When the analogue spectrum is closed down in 2012, it will be possible to have hundreds more. We are looking at millions of books in the biggest library in the universe. Amid all this, at present, the five terrestrial channels still hold their own in the overall viewing picture in the UK, and at the heart of the five nestles the cherished and seemingly threatened concept of public service broadcasting, supposed upholder of so-called standards in this great new sci-fi world of television broadcasting. But see it from the audience point of view, and there is even more. If the broadcasters have many channels, digi-cameras, slick editing facilities and simultaneous transmission so do the public. They can now make and edit their own films on camera, on their mobile phones. They not only have VCR and DVD to record programmes, they have computer games, the web, and a constant supply of films from organisations such as Screen Direct, who keep me supplied with around, on
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average two films a week. The choices extend into the future like a hall of mirrors, replicating ever more into the greater distances that lie ahead. How could it not be that, in all this cacophony of options, the issues of the moment would be competition and ratings, of which Big Brother is a prime example. In 2002, The Communications Act brought in Ofcom as the regulatory body. This together with the producers association PACt, nudged the BBC into offering far more of its programmes to independent producers. Soon some 50% of its programmes could be made by non-BBC organisations. With the renewal of the licence once again in the offing, the talk is now of how to sustain public service broadcasting, that is programmes created for the benefit of the public, over and above concerns about ratings and competition. Ofcom have issued a Broadcasting Review which proposes a new concept, that of Public Service Publishing, a channel committed to public service to which independents bid for space. There is talk too of the BBCs licence being top-sliced to support that other public service channel, Channel 4. All this must be debated and fought for. Now is the time. As for programmes my lecture tonight has been looking back, not forward. I believe the BBC has
over the years, despite the buffeting of ratings wars and the stringencies of Birt budgeting, a record of marvellous and creative achievements. ITV has often set the pace: The Jewel in the Crown, Brideshead Revisited, Cracker, Prime Suspect were all theirs. With digital channels came BBC4, devoted every evening to the arts and a huge success; BBC3, where such wild successes as Little Britain and Nighty Night began, sets the pace for adventurous and outrageous comedy. Scattered across the channels, not always easy to run down, are plenty of fine programmes. You will have your own list: The Blue Planet, Coast, The Power of Nightmares, 7 up - recently 49 up, The History of
Britain, Dead Ringers, Waking the Dead. Quality is proliferating rather than in decline. The BBCs Natural History Unit, legendary for the many programmes it made with David Attenborough, is currently producing more programmes than ever. This countrys television often despite its confusing and conflicted organisation has wonderful programme makers. They are world class at the front line of standards. As we move towards the ending of analogue in 2012, the system must be created that can best sustain them. Copyright Joan Bakewell 2005
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The Royal Society Clifford Paterson Lecture Professor Wilson Sibbett Chair, Scottish Science Advisory Committee 31 October 2005 OPTICAL SCIENCE IN THE FAST LANE The Clifford Paterson Lecture is a Royal Society Prize Lecture to be given at the Royal Society in London and one other location of the speakers choice. The Clifford Paterson Lecture is given annually on electrical science and technology, inclusive of the science and technology of electronic materials, components and systems. The General Electric Company Limited endowed the lecture in 1975 in honour of Clifford Paterson. Clifford Copland Paterson FRS undertook the creation of the GEC Research Laboratories in 1919. This followed a career at NPL, Teddington where he became a world expert in the measurement of photometric units. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1942. Wilson Sibbett is currently the Chair of the Scottish Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) and Chief Advisor on Science to the Scottish Executive. Distinguished for his research on ultrashort pulse laser science and technology, Professor Sibbett, in his work with ultrafast exposure streak cameras, first demonstrated the technique of direct sub-picosecond observations of physical phenomena. Professor Sibbett presented several complementary aspects of his research, set in a context that matched at least some of the criteria that qualify for a Clifford Paterson Prize Lecture. Sir Clifford Paterson became renowned as the person who could take cutting-edge research results on the development of the magnetron from a university laboratory and translate them rapidly and efficiently into device designs that were compatible for volume production in an industry (The General Electric Company) that was under pressure to deliver to a war effort. The transitioning of fundamental science towards practical scientific and technological outcomes continues to be a challenge and Professor Sibbetts specialist area of femtosecond optical science and technology is typical of many possible current examples. The starting point of the lecture was an introduction to the basics of laser physics with a particular emphasis being directed to the methodology by which the output of the lasers can be produced in
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the form of a periodic sequence of intense, ultrashort light impulses. Although the so-called modelocking techniques had been around since the mid-1960s, Professor Sibbett concentrated here on a scheme described as as Kerr-lens mode locking (or KLM) because this brought practicality to the entire sector of ultrafast laser development. Discovered in his research group at the University of St Andrews in 1989, the KLM technique enabled lasers to produce picosecond (1012s) and femtosecond (10-15s) optical pulses with unprecedented system simplicity and reliability as well as with exceptionally enhanced output powers and tunability. Although first demonstrated in a titanium-doped sapphire laser, there have been numerous subsequent developments that have led to refined system configurations that offer desirable attributes such as higher efficiencies and reduced physical footprints. In contrast to the early ion-laserpumped dye lasers, where electrical-power to femtosecondpulse efficiencies were as low as 10-5%, he was able to now present examples of modern diode-pumped solid-state counterparts that have stunning
electrical-to-optical (wall-plug) efficiencies as high as 10-15%! Professor Sibbett gave a brief overview of some of the advances in ultrafast laser development where versatility and practicality have been realised for a range of laser types. Additionally, by picking up both on selected emphases on specific characteristics of available ultrafast lasers, and on ongoing application-related challenges in optoelectronics and photonics, he indicated why he believes that the evolving generation of more integrated and controlled, ultracompact, femtosecond lasers can deliver to an ever-widening user base. By way of illustration, he included brief descriptions of ultrafast science and technology, ranging from snapshot-femtosecond imaging, multi-photon imaging, micromachining in the eye and in biological cells, optical time division multiplexing in datacommunications, through to weapons decommissioning using ultrafast lasers. The consistent theme throughout was one of translating laboratory research through to laser systems that are fit for a wide variety of purposes. Clifford Paterson would hopefully approve!
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The Gannochy Trust Innovation Award Lecture John Harrison Development Director, Surfactant Technologies Ltd (STL) 6 February 2006 Good evening ladies and gentlemen and may I say what a pleasure and honour it is to be presenting to you this evening as the winner of the Gannochy Innovation Award of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 2005. I would like to take the opportunity this evening to give you all a complete overview of our MicroEmulsions technology and all the details of our company, including our background, our company structure, the markets and industrial applications where we hope the technology will have greatest impact, the benefits and advantages of the technology, some information on our international operations, our manufacturing and product approvals and the key lessons that we have learned. Most importantly I would like to guide you through what the Gannochy Award has done for us to date, what our status is at present and what the award holds for the future of our technology, and the Scottish economy at large. The whole project was begun back in 1999 by the winning of a Royal Society of Edinburgh and Scottish Enterprise (RSE/SE) Enterprise Fellowship in Oil and Gas. From this point the technology was developed through a number of SMART Awards from the DTI and Scottish Executive. A number of other awards gave recognition to both the company and the technology, culminating in the winning of the Gannochy Award in October 2005. We have also been finalists in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for the last three consecutive years. To the end of February 2006, we have secured almost 700K of revenues; we have six employees working both full and part time for the business, and we have offices and access to manufacturing facilities in locations in Grangemouth and Aberdeen in Scotland and in Houston, Texas in the USA. To date, operating as a small start up company, we have operated off a shoe string budget, being funded with just over 0.5million over the last five years. The large majority of this seed funding has been provided by the winning of numerous technical and commercial awards and by a considerable level of investment by the founders. In addition, the company has been supported by the Bank of
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Scotland and the DTI with the award of a Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme. This sum, along with the revenues from sales of products and services, has totalled over 1million and has been sufficient to secure our Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio and to develop the company to its present status. You will notice the lack of business angel and traditional VC investment and I will comment upon this later on in the presentation. I would now like to move on to outline our company structure. Surfactant Technologies Ltd (STL) has been set up as a holdings and management company primarily developing and maintaining the Intellectual Property (IP) portfolio. This IP is then exclusively licensed to a range of wholly owned subsidiaries and spin-out companies, with each selling and marketing the technology to its own industrial sector. For example we set up Surface Active Solutions Ltd (SAS) to focus on the oil and gas industry. We have then set up and launched Aboleo Ltd to market the technology to the inks & printing industries. We have set up Ocean Blue Solutions Ltd as a shell company to market to the consumer sector and we have also set up MicroChem Technologies LLC (MCT) a US company set up with partners in the United States to focus on the waste management sector. Accordingly I think
that you will agree that there is a considerable amount of work ongoing in association with the application of this technology from our base here in Scotland. Id like now to introduce you to some of the key areas of application within the oil and gas industry that have been identified and where we are actively demonstrating, using and marketing the technology. First of all, the technology has application in downhole cleaning and remediation applications that is to say cleaning operations within the well itself. Conditions here are hostile, often with high pressures and high temperature ranges from just above freezing to over 100 degrees centigrade, and the products also have to cope with various salinity loadings from fresh water to saturated brine systems. The technology therefore must be robust enough to cope with these extreme environmental variables and must clean oil contamination and displace/ remove oil contaminated residues effectively in order to be successful. The technology must also be capable of cleaning a variety of surfaces from steel hardware to rock formations, and particulate matter such as sands and barites. The technology can also be used to clean mud pits, vessels and surface system engineering. Again, the technology must efficiently clean a variety of oil96
based contaminants from surfaces without entailing the use of excessive logistics and without suffering detrimental effects from other chemistries. The third key area of opportunity really is the holy grail of the industry and this is the onsite cleaning of oil-contaminated solids and particulates such as drill cuttings and barite solids such that they may be disposed of in an environmentally sound manner. This has not been possible in the last 25 years or so and represents an area of tremendous value for the technology. The final area of application is in the splitting and remediation of oil-contaminated slops and other liquid waste streams. This has application in both the upstream offshore industry and the downstream refinery markets. These very complex waste streams are notoriously difficult to deal with and SAS has been able to demonstrate that we can use the technology to treat these waste streams in order to produce a clean oil phase for recycling and re-use, a clean water phase for filtration/polishing and disposal and also a clean solids phase also for safe disposal. The key drivers in all these areas are operating efficiencies and hence operating cost, and also European environmental legislation. Each and every one of these
applications has a huge market potential associated with it, often being in the order of 1billion per annum globally. Id now like to move on and talk about the innovation itself. As you will have gathered, this is an advanced chemical cleaning technology which relies upon surfactant chemistry. Surfactants are molecules that have the capability to reduce the interfacial surface tension within the medium that they are dissolved and can thus lower interfacial surface tensions between liquid/ solid, liquid/liquid, and liquid/air interfaces. Surfactants are schizophrenic molecules consisting of two very different moieties. One part of the molecule is hydrophilic (water-soluble) and the other part is hydrophobic (oil-soluble). These molecules therefore have two very different and distinct tendencies. When such molecules are introduced into systems of oil and water they align themselves at the oil-water interface with the oilsoluble part of the molecule becoming solubilised into the organic phase and the watersoluble part being solubilised into the aqueous phase accordingly. When surfactant molecules are linear in structure, they align themselves in parallel to each other, forming a liquid membrane one molecule thick at the interface. This forms a radius of
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curvature of zero i.e. a flat monolayer. Imagine now if we re-design the molecular structure such that the molecule resembles a cone or a wedge shape. When these molecules now align themselves at the interface, they will form a radius of curvature at that interface. In this manner surfactants have the ability to break down oil into small droplets and disperse them into an aqueous medium and vice-versa. These spheroid structures are often referred to as micelles. More complex structures can also be formed depending on relative component concentrations, oil type, surfactant design and on environmental variables eg. temperature and salt concentrations. Therefore we can assume lamellar phase structures, worm or rod type micellar structures, hexagonal and bi-continuous structures etc. These structures are dynamic in nature but we can visualise them accordingly as distinct structures in order to simplify our understanding of these systems. Emulsions are well known and work in a similar way to microemulsions. However the droplets formed in emulsions are relatively large large enough to scatter light, and so they appear to us as cloudy colloidal solutions or suspensions. The molecular packing at the interface is also not as efficient as with microemul98
sions, so gaps are left at the oilwater interface. Oil droplets can therefore coalesce under this scenario and the result is bulk phase separation of the emulsion into separate and distinct organic and aqueous phases. Microemulsions on the other hand form droplets which are so small that they do not scatter light and therefore these systems appear to us as transparent and optically isotropic solutions. The molecular packing at the oil/water interface is also very much more efficient such that there are no areas of direct oil/water contact at the interface. This yields much lower interfacial surface tensions sometimes orders of magnitude lower that those achieved in emulsion systems. Microemulsions are also thermodynamically stable that is to say that they form spontaneously and do not require an energy input to form. Emulsions require to be manufactured by inputting energy through shearing and agitation. When this input of energy is withdrawn the emulsion structure begins to break down again. So we have here a unique chemistry that is patent-protected, employing new materials technology (albeit in liquid form). This is an enabling technology, since it provides a new set of capabilities and therefore enables us to carry out field operations in a way not previously possible. It is also a
game-changing technology, setting a new paradigm in the industry with performance data that has not been achieved before. The key benefits of the technology are as follows: Firstly, the products are water-based. The products are water-soluble, they are non-toxic and they are readily biodegradable, giving them a very strong set of Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) advantages. Secondly, the technology is more efficient than more conventional cleaning technologies, both in terms of its speed and in its cleaning capabilities. This therefore has significant ramifications on improving costs as less chemical is required. The most important advantage, however, is on the practical side. The technology allows for waste minimisation, and in the field has given results reducing waste production by 70-100%. But what does this equate to in real terms? In some instances this has resulted in the amount of oil being discharged to the environment being reduced by as much as two orders of magnitude and, on average, can reduce the amount of hazardous oil contaminated waste by as much as 1000 metric tonnes per well drilled. We can separate out recovered solids and recycle the wash solution, and we can even split the microemul-
sion systems formed to recover oil for re-cycling and a clean water fraction for safe disposal on site. We now have successfully developed fully integrated systems that can also clean up the solids recovered within the same process, again for safe disposal at the site of production, producing virtually zero waste at source. The STL Group now has international operations with a global manufacturing and supply chain network led by UK operations. Manufacturing development is carried out at the UK base to service the easttern hemisphere and this capability has now been established in Houston to service the western hemisphere accordingly. There is significant export potential to the eastern hemisphere from our Scottish manufacturing bases, covering a geographic area from Scotland to New Zealand and everywhere in between. Our UK operations are based primarily in Grangemouth in central Scotland and in Aberdeen in the North East. Our US operations are now established in the Clear Lake area to the south-east of Houston, Texas. Thus far we have achieved a set of ongoing approvals for use in the field by a number of key operator clients predominantly ExxonMobil, BP, Shell, British Gas, Statoil, Chevron Texaco and ConocoPhil-
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lips. These service packages are delivered via a number of the global service providers in this industry, including MI/SWACO, Baker Hughes, SPS International, BJ Services, ICS, OTT and TWMA. And so to the important part of the presentation the Gannochy Award itself and the prize money allocation. Just what impact is this award having on our operations? In summary, the award is providing finance for two specific areas. The first is in the area of European product certification. Prior to being able to market each chemical product, it is a legal requirement that the products be certified by the government of each geographic region prior to being used offshore. This can accrue costs of up to 10K per product and usually takes 3-6 months to complete. This work is broadening our offering and the range of commercially available products and, in turn, the number of oil and gas industry applications that can be addressed. The second area to be targeted is the manufacturing setup. On average this costs 3-5K per product and I will cover this in more detail in a moment. So I would like to focus first on the European product certification process. Each chemical component from each product must be submitted to independent accredited laboratories to under-
go a regime of extensive testing and evaluations. This involves carrying out a series of toxicity tests on several species of marine organism found in a number of different trophic levels within the marine ecosystem. Other tests are also carried out to evaluate the biodegradability and various physico-chemical characteristics of the chemicals for assessing their bioaccumulation potential, for example. This data is then compiled into two different 25-30 page detailed Harmonised Offshore Chemical Notification Format Forms (HOCNF Forms) for each product to be certified one form for the UK and one form for the Norwegian governments. This process is carried out in conjunction with the use of extensive government guidelines specific to each European country. In the UK this data is submitted to the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), where it is subject to processing through a computer modelling program known as the CHARM Model. From this a Hazard Quotient (HQ) value is generated according to a logarithm and a DTI/CEFAS Template is produced as a certificate to confirm completion of the process. Each product is given a coloured rating according to a sliding scale depending on the HQ value, eg. Gold, Silver etc. in the UK. A similar process is used
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in Norway and the products are given a similar colour rating in this case Green, Yellow, Red etc. This data is also stored in the national databases and can be accessed by the oil operators and their service companies according to their requirements. With regard to the setup of the manufacturing processes, again this is a complex operation involving a number of individuals within subcontractor organisations predominantly managers, process engineers, team leaders, plant managers etc. A range of considerations has to be taken into account, including volumes, packaging and labelling requirements, lead times and logistics. A variety of processes must also be completed, including preliminary risk assessments, and chemical and operating hazard assessments for HS&E; operational health statements must be completed along with an environmental impact statement for each stage of the manufacturing process. IPC authorisation must also be acquired from the water authorities and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA). Process operating sheets must also be produced along with Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) and analysis protocols. Technical and engineering training must also be completed prior to production beginning. This therefore can be a
long and arduous process, but has to be completed and reassessed for every level of manufacturing, from small scale through to intermediate and then bulk manufacturing. Thus far, as a direct result of the Gannochy Award, we have carried out four manufacturing jobs in Scotland one for the downstream oil and gas refinery industry, two for the upstream oil and gas industry and one for the inks and printing sector. Although this innovative group of companies alone may not apparently have a significant number of employees, the innovation itself in much broader terms will have a significant economic benefit to the Scottish chemical manufacturing industry and related supporting logistical (engineering and service) operations based in Scotland. For an area and major industrial chemicals sector that is, and has been, suffering significant decline over recent years, it is innovations in new materials technology such as this which has the possibility to stimulate and rejuvenate the sector and geographic area providing exciting new world-beating opportunities once more. This has many obvious social knock-on effects that are so needed in deprived areas that have so much to offer. History itself indicates the very real opportunities that exist in such an area, and the specialist skill sets
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still remain in the region which will enable this technology to flourish. But the benefits are indeed far more significant and broadly felt than just on a local basis. The advantage of locating in Scotland has meant that the group and our partners now support sales and product exports across the eastern hemisphere from the local manufacturing base servicing an area which spreads from Scotland to New Zealand and all regions in between. In addition, the group has set up sales lines in the Americas, resulting in inward investment into the country. It has also meant that there will be significant environmental benefits both in Scotland in the local vicinity and also covering a far broader geography. It is hoped that the technology will be used to remediate oil contamination and waste management problems at the BP Grangemouth facility and beyond in the oil and gas offshore sector. In addition, there will be very significant reductions on environmental impacts from other industry operations. In a nutshell, many thousands of metric tones of oil contaminated hazardous waste will be remediated, or not even produced in the first instance, by the successful implementation of this technology.
Before moving on to other industries, I would like to highlight some of the challenges that we have faced thus far in setting up the business over the first few years. Good planning and organisation have been key, both in terms of market research and business planning. Attaining the right legal structure surrounded by the right legal and professional representation has also been essential and it has taken some years to find the right partners in this respect. In addition, finding the right people for the team has also been a challenge, not only to find those who are committed to the vision of the founders and who share the same sense of determination, but also those who truly understand the requirements and demands with developing young companies and growing the strategies of these companies. Securing the intellectual property portfolio has also been key for the STL Group. In our case it was imperative to secure an assignation rather than an exclusive licence deal, and this process took three years with a great deal of legal expense. However, having secured this vital asset, it has been possible to move the business on commercially with product sales initiated in the knowledge that access to, and ownership of, that IP was secure.
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Finding suitable facilities and at the right location has been difficult and especially so when flexibility and the right to expand have been required. In addition, finding facilities at the right price for small growing companies has also not been quite so straightforward. This is an essential foundation that is required upon which to grow an emerging business. Finally, the funding of such a business has also been a challenge. We have chosen the route of debt funding over the more traditional business angel and venture capital funding routes. Although this has made cashflow more of an issue, it has made more sense for STL in the longer term. We found it hard to secure investment in the early years from individuals and organisations that could share the long-term vision of the company founders and finding interests that were aligned over similar timescales was very difficult indeed. In fact, realising a company valuation that provided an incentive to gain a significant level of investment was extremely rare, if not impossible, even despite having achieved proof of concept, the securement of the IP portfolio, having the support of a professional team and proof of sales in the international marketplace with a huge potential upside in the medium to longer term. So long as a sound business
model can be proven, I would suggest that debt funding is an extremely viable alternative route. We now face a new set of challenges as we progress in developing and growing the business. One of the most challenging areas for us has been in combating the politics and vested interests that exist within the industry. Breaking contractual relationships that may have been established for some years is not easy, and in some circumstances can be virtually impossible. It takes both patience and a considerable amount of work to influence not just key individuals within organisations but also the organisations themselves. In some instances one has to simply accept that strategies may not be aligned in their entirety and therefore alternate routes to market must be sought. Legislative issues have been a considerable hindrance for us particularly with regard to the lengthy and expensive process of the product certification process. Time and a lack of resources have also always been against us. Particularly so with regard to people and working capital. Within our organisation it has been particularly the intangible assets and, most importantly looking forward, the quality of our people that will ultimately determine the level of our success. Clearly, increasing the value of
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what we do both in terms of the products and the services that we offer will be what maximises our value in the medium to longerterm. Our facilities and the flexibility that we are able to maintain in order to grow and adapt to our changing requirements will also be important. In Scotland this has not been simple to secure and continues to be one of the most important foundations that we need in order to build our future operations. The absolute key though has, and will continue, to be maintaining and developing the continuing strategic working partnerships that have been established over the past three years. These partnerships, be it through technology development and/or sales and marketing, will be essential in maximising market penetration of the technology at large and ultimately in maximising the value of our proposition for merger and/or ultimate exit. We have successfully run to date a parallel role of development and marketing such that the market is well educated and aware of the technology on a global basis. Networking and customer interfacing will continue to be a full time activity and a rigorous PR campaign will ensure continued gain in market share. Our export strategy and international logistics
will also continue to be expanded in order to support this growth, and closer relationships are being built with suitable financial backers in order to support our working capital needs. Flexibility will be key to managing cashflows throughout the often painful process of rapid growth and expansion, but we believe that it can be done without the need for securing business angel or VC funding, and hence the company strategy will remain on track as the founders have laid out over the past five years. For those who are interested in our continuing development, please feel free to visit our new websites from the end of February of this year, namely www.surfaceactive.com and www.surfactanttechnologies.com. These sites will be kept updated such that all relevant information regarding the companies and the technology can be readily accessed. And now for something completely different Aboleo the company that we have set up to focus on the inks and printing sector. This company is being launched this year through the winning of another Scottish Enterprise SCIS Award for new product development. Thus far we have identified three significant areas of application for the technology within the sector. First in the area of inks manufacture,
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secondly within niche applications of precision cleaning particularly so in the market of cleaning UVbased inks. Finally there are opportunities in the areas of janitorial products floor cleaners, wipes and the like. Each of these areas is driven once again by economics and operating cost, as well as tightening environmental legislation. However, the main distinction as a driver in this market segment is the need for outstanding quality and product performance. The volumes of product are smaller but the high added value of the products for very significant opportunities is great, offering huge potential. As for the oil and gas sector, each and every one of these applications is valued at over 1billion per annum. Screen printing is one niche area on which we will begin to focus our efforts for the printing of CD, labels etc. These clients can range from small scale to the extremely large scale, operating on a 24/7 basis with bespoke operating equipment. In this market, time is money and downtime minimisation is key. We firmly believe that our technology can offer substantial benefits in this regard and the first active trial of the product range is now underway. Initial screening of our products to date suggests that, compared to the more traditional solvent-based technologies being used, our
microemulsion technology is indeed more efficient in its cleaning performance and will reduce downtime by enabling a single-pass cleaning operation to be employed without encountering problems such as ghosting and smearing residues. There may even be evidence to suggest that our cleaning technology could also increase the operational life of the screens accordingly another significant value added in a field that needs every advantage it can find. Waste minimisation is also being achieved in this sector, bringing with it all the Health, Safety and Environmental advantages discussed above. And so ladies and gentlemen I must bring the presentation to a close. However, this cannot be done without saying a few words of thanks. In no particular order I would like to first thank Scottish Enterprise for their continued support of our various projects and certainly without this support we would not be where we are today. In particular I would like to thank both Andy McNab and Campbell Murray for their support in the early days. I would also like to thank Michael McCuaig and all those at the Bank of Scotland for their continued support. We look forward to continuing with our working
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relationship for many years to come. I would like to thank our Board and the Team at large for their commitment to the cause and for their support in all aspects of running the business. Again I look forward to many more years of working together in building a whole host of successful high growth companies in Scotland and beyond. I would like to thank friends and family for their total dedication and understanding over all these years, without which I most certainly would not have managed to achieve the things that I have. Their sacrifice both personally and financially has been more than I could have ever asked for and I am truly grateful in this regard.
Finally, and by no means least, I would like to thank all those at the Gannochy Trust and the RSE for making this truly remarkable award possible and for providing me with these opportunities. May I end by providing some insight into the returns on this award by informing you that the STL Group have already completed and continue to negotiate a number of major supply deals that will result in 5-15million of revenues over the coming three years, with considerable knock on effects for the economy, environment and social wellbeing of Scotland at large in the years to come. Thank you very much indeed for your attention.
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The British Academy Shakespeare Lecture 2006 Professor Ian Donaldson FBA FRSE, Director, Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University 24 April 2006 SHAKESPEARE, JONSON, AND THE INVENTION OF THE AUTHOR The British Academy Shakespeare Lectures were established in 1910 through a gift from Mrs Frida Mond, who proposed that a lecture be given each year on or about 23 April on some topic relating either to Shakespeare or to some aspect of the literature of his age. On or about recognizes the inevitable difficulties of programming, but also perhaps a lingering uncertainty as to the precise date on which Shakespeare was actually born. We know that Shakespeare was christened in Holy Trinity Church, Stratfordupon-Avon, on 26 April 1564, and its satisfying to imagine that he may have been born three days earlier, though theres no surviving evidence to support this assumption. Over time, however, the temptation to commemorate on one and the same day Englands national poet and her national saint has proved irresistible. And if Shakespeare was not actually born on St Georges Day, its a remarkable fact that he died on that day, 23 April, in 1616. This was the same day, as legend has it, or nearly the same day, as honesty forces one to admit, that Spains most celebrated national writer, Cervantes, also met his death (22 April 1616). To be born and to die on the very same day in the calendar - if this
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was indeed the pattern of Shakespeares life - may seem, to modern observers, an intriguing coincidence, but in earlier times it carried a more portentous significance, seemingly reflecting the will of heaven, expressed through a particular conjunction of planetary forces. In the final act of Shakespeares Julius Caesar, Cassius, anticipating his own imminent death on the plains of Philippi, realizes the significance of the present date: This is my birthday; as this very day Was Cassius born. . . . 5.1.72-3 And later in the battle, facing the inevitable end: This day I breathed first. Time is come round, And where I did begin, there shall I end. My life is run his compass. 5.3.25 Shakespeares Cleopatra, revelling with Antony shortly before her
death, is struck by the same realization, that this day is the anniversary of her birth (3.13). Robert Burton, an ardent believer in astrology, satisfyingly met his death on the anniversary of his birth, while Oliver Cromwell died on the same day of the year on which he had fought two of his famous battles, of Dunbar and Worcester. Such symmetries were greatly prized in early modern England, and even when seemingly absent might be coaxed persuasively into existence. Thomas Dekker admired the seemingly well-shaped life of Elizabeth I, who came in with the fall of the leafe, and went away in the Spring: her life (which was dedicated to Virginitie) both beginning & closing up a miraculous Mayden circle: for she was borne upon a Lady Eve, and died upon a Lady Eve. Shakespeares great friend and rival Ben Jonson had little trust in the operation of the stars and no special respect, it would seem, for St Georges Day. While visiting Scotland, the country of his forebears, in 1618-19, he told William Drummond of Hawthornden that he could set horoscopes, but didnt believe in them, and that Henry Howard, first Earl of Northampton Jamess close advisor, a crypto-Catholic, employed in the pursuit of Jesuits and seminary priests had become his mortal enemy after
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Jonson had quarrelled with one of his retainers on a St Georges Day. This was probably (as my colleague Tom Cain has recently suggested) in 1605, on or about Shakespeares forty-first birthday, while Howard was being solemnly inducted into the Order of the Garter. Howard thereupon had Jonson brought before the Privy Council to answer charges of popery and treason in relation to the recent staging of his tragedy Sejanus. Shakespeare had been a principal actor in that play, and may conceivably, as Anne Barton has suggested, have helped in its composition. The date of Ben Jonsons own birthday - an occasion not yet celebrated by a British Academy lecture - was for many years a matter of dispute, despite his seemingly unambiguous announcement in his poem praising the achievements of his friend, Sir Kenelm Digby, who had won a notable naval victory off the coast of Turkey in 1628: Witness his action done at Scandaroon,/ Upon my birthday, the eleventh of June. For many years it was felt that this line must be textually corrupt, as poets dont normally refer to their own birthdays in this manner in poems ostensibly in praise of somebody else. The line was consequently amended to read, following the authority of an inferior manuscript, Upon his birthday, the eleventh of June.
Digbys still-extant personal horoscope, drawn up in his own hand, clearly shows however that he wasnt born in that month at all, but in July 1603. By a freakish chance, however, Digby was eventually to die on 11 June 1665, prompting an enthusiastic elegist to marvel, somewhat inaccurately, over the symmetries of his life: his birth, his famous naval victory at Scandaroon, and his death all seemingly occurring on the same day and month of the year. The lives and careers of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, the two supreme writers of early modern England, were intricately and curiously interwoven. Eight years Shakespeares junior, Jonson emerged in the late 1590s as a writer of remarkable gifts, and Shakespeares greatest theatrical rival since the death of Christopher Marlowe. Shakespeare played a leading role in the comedy that first brought Jonson to public prominence, Every Man In His Humour, having earlier decisively intervened - so his eighteenth-century editor, Nicholas Rowe, relates - to ensure that the play was performed by the Lord Chamberlains Men, who had initially rejected the manuscript. Though their professional pathways, like their styles of writerly self-presentation, were soon to diverge in ways I want now to describe, the two men
clearly continued to act, each to the other, as a powerful creative stimulant, irritant, and example. Shakespeare stands as the archetypal model of what the American critic Hugh Kenner, speaking of T. S. Eliot, was to term the invisible poet. He is the deus abscondus of his own creative world, whose seemingly mysterious and illegible personality has prompted centuries of ingenious speculation; whose very identity is still vigorously disputed in monographs bearing such titles as The Shakespeare Enigma; The Shakespeare Conspiracy; Shakespeare, Thy Name is Marlowe; Did the Jesuits Write Shakespeare?; Was Shakespeare Shakespeare? A Lawyer Reviews the Evidence. He is the writer who seems, in the suggestive title of Jorge Luis Borgess haunting fable, everything and nothing, his personal identity so widely dispersed throughout - so fully projected into - the characters who inhabit his imaginative world that it is seemingly nowhere ultimately to be found. Jonson is a writer of a quite different kind, who manifests himself (or so it seems) throughout his work, forever creating and presenting versions and portraits of himself. He is, one might say, the visible poet, whose writings pronounce his personal opinions, his literary ambitions, his material needs, his physical appearance,
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the date of his birth, his very name; who incorporates and instantiates himself within the literary text: Being a tardy, cold, Unprofitable chattel, fat and old, Laden with belly, and doth hardly approach His friends, but to break chairs or crack a coach. Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say here doth lie Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry . . . Father John Burgess Necessity urges My woeful cry, To Sir Robert Pye; And that he will venture To send my debenture. Tell him his Ben Knew the time, when He loved the muses; Though now he refuses To take apprehension Of a years pension, And more is behind. . . It is hard to think of another poet writing in English not even John Skelton, whose skittish measures Jonson follows in the lines just read, or Yeats, who studied Jonsons verse with such attention who so frequently offers himself as the object or subject of his own poetic scrutiny. This contrast between the two writers the one, seemingly
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absent from the text; the other, seemingly immanent; more pressingly, more personally, at our side assumes a particular interest in relation to the question of authorship. Shakespeare significantly uses the word author self-referentially on only two occasions in the entire canon, and then with an air of mild self-deprecation. One word more, I beseech you, says the speaker of the Epilogue of 2 Henry IV, If you be not too cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katherine of France; where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat unless already a be killed with your hard opinions. The word emerges again in the final Chorus to Henry V: Thus far with rough and all unable pen Our bending author hath pursued the story, In little room confining mighty men, Mangling by starts the full course of their glory. This author seems to apologize humbly, bendingly, through his actors, not just (in time-honoured style) for a lack of personal talent, but - one might almost say - for the very genre in which he dares to write; for the physical limitations of the playhouse in which he
works, and the dubious status of his chosen literary vehicle: the drama. Such diffidence speaks to an age in which plays, in the scale of literary creation, were not highly regarded; in which Sir Thomas Bodley, with fatal lack of speculative instinct, famously instructed his librarian not to bother collecting mere playbooks for his grand new repository in Oxford; in which dramatic composition was still largely a backroom and anonymous affair. The actual identity of the humble author of 2 Henry IV, the bending author of Henry V, would probably have been unknown to the majority of playgoers in the 1590s. Nowhere in the theatre of this time was the authors name displayed or evident. Theatre programs did not yet exist, and while theatrical playbills advertising the pieces to be performed might include the titles of the works in question and the names of one or two principal actors who were often well known to the play-going public the authors names were not thought worthy of mention in playbills until the final years of the seventeenth century, when their public accreditation attracted comment as something of a novelty. So far from constituting an enigma or a conspiracy, Shakespeares relative invisibility as a writer of plays was an unsurprising consequence of the working conditions of the
theatre of his time. Like the musical composer (a word first recorded in the late 1590s) the dramatic author, as an accredited professional category and a person worthy of public notice, did not yet fully exist. There was not even yet a settled term to describe such a person. The words most commonly used in modern times to denote a writer of plays, dramatist and playwright, did not appear until after the Restoration, if the Oxford English Dictionary is to be trusted, and seem to have been slow even then to move into popular currency. Playwright, as it happens the OED has missed these examples is a word that is actually found in a couple of epigrams written by Ben Jonson before 1612, where it is used as a term of unmitigated contempt. The word may be Jonsons invention. Heres one of the epigrams, To Playwright. Playwright me reads, and still my verses damns: He says I want the tongue of epigrams; I have no salt: no bawdry, he doth mean; For witty, in his language, is obscene. Playwright, I loathe to have thy manners known In my chaste book: profess them in thine own.
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This playwright presumptuously dares to pass judgement on a traditional poetic form, the epigram, of which, as a mere theatrical hack, he has no knowledge or understanding. From the second epigram addressed to the same figure, its possible to deduce that the hack in question may have been John Marston, who did in fact write poetry as well as plays, though Jonsons neologism witheringly confines him to the theatre. Stage-wright is another, equally hostile Jonsonian term to describe the same kind of theatrical drudge. The suffix reveals Jonsons own valuation of much dramatic work in his day as menial labour, and also perhaps a lingering sensitivity about the trade he himself had not entirely yet abandoned. After leaving Westminster School, William Drummond of Hawthornden noted, Jonson was put to another craft (I think was to be a wright or bricklayer) which he could not endure. Bricklaying was a craft to which, after various theatrical disasters, Jonsons critics on more than one occasion suggested he might return. Both Shakespeare and Jonson entered the theatre as actors, and moved into writing only by degrees. In the first unmistakable reference to Shakespeare after his arrival in London from the provinces, Robert Greene in 1592 famously describes him as a
bombastic player and would-be writer, a stealer of the ideas of others, an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers. He is (Greene goes on) an absolute Johannes fac totem a do-all, a Jack of all trades. Factotem here is an obvious term of abuse, and yet it would also have reflected with increasing accuracy the sheer range of Shakespeares professional duties in the Lord Chamberlains company, as player and shareholder, overseeing the hiring and payment of musicians and scribes and tiremen and stagehands and casual actors, the payment of rent, the division of income. Like Molire later in France, like Garrick and Sheridan later in England, Shakespeare led a busy and versatile professional life, in the midst of which, miraculously, he found time also to write his plays. Years later Ben Jonson was to call Inigo Jones, his collaborator on the Court masques, by a similarly abusive name, Dominus Do-all, that similarly expressed quite accurately the extraordinary range of Joness professional duties. Jonson was never much of an actor, according to John Aubrey, but Henslowe soon began to give him additional work, patching and mending old plays for revival, and working collaboratively with Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, Henry Porter, and others in his team on plays that Jonson chose
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significantly not to include amongst his later published work, and that are known today chiefly by their titles: Hot Anger Soon Cold, Page of Plymouth, Robert II, The King of the Scots Tragedy. With such jointly-written plays, it might often have been difficult to say precisely where responsibility for particular scenes, lines, and episodes finally lay. When Jonson and two fellow-actors from Pembrokes company, Robert Shaa and Gabriel Spencer, were incarcerated in Marshalsea Prison in 1597 following the performance of the notorious, now-lost satirical piece, The Isle of Dogs co-written by Jonson and Thomas Nashe (who had prudently fled to the safety of Great Yarmouth) - all those concerned, including the actors, who may have added their own improvised material, seem sturdily to have denied responsibility for whatever it was that had caused the offence; a pattern later repeated when Jonson and one of his two co-authors, George Chapman, were arrested following performances of another play which angered those in authority, Eastward Ho! In such contexts as these, the very notion of authorship seemed as elusive as some of the authors themselves (John Marston on this occasion appears to have slipped through the net). Yet as Jonsons career advanced from the late 1590s he began increasingly to create and assert
an authorial identity, a dramatic character resembling and representing himself, a figure who hovers generally just out of sight, almost within earshot, at the very borders of the dramatic action: he do not hear me I hope, says Carlo Buffone in Every Man Out of His Humour (Grex before Act 1, 342); I am looking, lest the poet hear me, says the Stage-Keeper in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair (7-8). This figure of The Author sends his agents and emissaries occasionally forward to speak on his behalf in prologues and epilogues, inductions and choruses, and threatens at times to intervene directly, to walk if need be straight on to the stage, to set matters right. Ben Jonson seems, like Bernard Shaw after him, to have been a disconcertingly close and demanding observer of his own plays in performance, to judge from Sir Vaughans rebuke to the character of Horace - a thinly disguised representation of Jonson - in Dekkers satirical comedy Satiromastix in 1601: you shall not sit in a gallery, when your comedies and interludes have entered their actions, and there make vile and bad faces at every line, to make gentlemen have a eye to you, and to make players afraid to take your part. In the Induction to Jonsons own comedy Cynthias Revels one of the three child actors (who are struggling between themselves as
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to who is to speak the prologue) asks where the author of the play may be at this moment. One of his companions insists that he is nowhere near at hand; for this author, unlike other authors, always keeps his distance, always behaves decorously behind the scenes: We are not so officiously befriended by him, as to have his presence in the tiring house, to prompt us aloud, stamp at the book-holder, swear for our properties, curse the poor tireman, rail the music out of tune, and sweat for every venial trespass we commit, as some author would. . . This elaborate denial, markedly at odds with other evidence of Jonsons behaviour in the playhouse, may well have prompted a smile amongst members of the company. Gossip Mirth in Jonsons later comedy, The Staple of News, has glimpsed the author in another mood, rolling himself up and down like a tun in sweaty agitation as he issues last-minute directions to the actors in the tiring-room (61-74). Never did vessel of wort or wine work so! His sweating put me in mind of a good Shroving-dish (and I believe would be taken up for a service of state somewhere, ant were known) a stewed poet! He doth sit like an unbraced drum with one of his heads beaten out. For that you
must note, a poet hath two heads as a drum hath. One for making, the other repeating; and his repeating head is all to pieces. Earlier in his career, at the start of his satirical comedy, Poetaster, Jonson had famously presented a Prologue clad in full armour, who speaks in robust defence of the plays Author, and explains his dress as follows: If any muse why I salute the stage An armed Prologue, know, tis a dangerous age, Wherein who writes had need present his scenes Forty-fold proof against the conjuring means Of base detractors and illiterate apes. In a wry rejoinder to this flamboyant gesture, Shakespeare begins Troilus and Cressida with another Prologue who enters clad in full armour . . . but not in confidence Of authors pen or actors voice, but suited In like condition as our argument. Suited: with this gentle play on words, Shakespeare insinuates his own sense of what may or may not be appropriate to the nature of theatrical representation. It is possible that Jonson himself could have been inside that suit of armour at the opening of Poetaster, speaking in his own voice
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about the perils and pains of authorship. It is even more likely that he appeared in his own person at the end of that play, in a highly unusual and complementary scene that was performed only once in the theatre before being (in the words of the quarto text) restraind . . . by Authoritie. In this Apologetical Dialogue, the figure of The Author is discovered in his study, lamenting the ignorance of his audiences and his critics, declaring his total indifference to their opinions, and - in a wonderfully tormented moment of simultaneous selfexposure and retreat - his wish to be left alone. Theres something come into my thought That must and shall be sung, high and aloof, Safe from the wolfs black jaw and the dull asss hoof. Though such a personal appearance by a dramatic author was (to the best of my knowledge) without precedent on the English stage, it was a not uncommon device, as Jonson would have known, in Greek Old Comedy. Jonson imports into the English theatre, and aligns himself with, a model of authorship derived partly from the example of Aristophanes and his contemporaries and partly also from those great master spirits, the poets of Augustan Rome Virgil, Horace, Ovid who are central characters
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in the action of his own comedy just ended, Poetaster. Jonson scatters these small selfportraits throughout his plays in almost Hitchcockian style as a kind of personal signature, a reminder of human agency, of the tenuous but enduring link between artist and artefact. Viewed in one light, they could be seen as a means of maintaining vestigial control over the work which the author has entrusted to the skills of the players and the critical judgement of the play-going public. Viewed another way, they seem to acknowledge, often with some humour, the authors impotence, his inability any longer wholly to direct or possess the work he has brought into being. When we do give, Alfonso, to the light A work of ours, we part with our own right; For then all mouths will judge, and their own way; The learned have no more privilege than the lay. Jonson wrote these lines to his friend Alfonso Ferrabosco composer, violist, lutanist, and musical instructor to Prince Henry on the publication of his musical Lessons in 1609, adding some words of classical consolation, taken from the writings of Horace and Persius, urging authors to pay no heed to anyones judgement other than their own. Giving a
creative work to the light, whether through publication or performance, parting with the authorial right - a word of great resonance in his work, anticipating in a moral, if not yet strictly legal sense, the modern notion of intellectual property, of copyright was always for Jonson a painful if not traumatic act, which he negotiates at times philosophically, at times with sardonic humour. When I suffered [the work] to go abroad, Jonson writes of The Masque of Queens, I departed with my right; and now, so secure an interpreter I am of my chance, that neither praise nor dispraise shall affect me. It is further agreed, says the Scrivener in the Induction to Bartholomew Fair, reading out Articles of Agreement with the Author, which purportedly bind the spectators at the Hope Theatre to behave themselves with good sense and decorum, It is further agreed that every person here have his or their freewill of censure, to like or dislike at their own charge; the author having now departed with his right, it shall be lawful for any man to judge his six pennorth, his twelve pennorth, so to his eighteen pence, two shillings, half a crown, to the value of his place provided always his place get not above his wit. The author: such repeated references even in humorous contexts such as this bring into
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prominence, and confer new status upon, the hitherto obscure writer of the dramatic work. Jonson, one might say, invents the idea of the author not in the same manner that he may invent such words as playwright, stagewright, poetaster, terms not hitherto known in English, but as Renaissance rhetoricians understood invention, inventio, as a happy discovery of an already existing term or subject which could be manipulated in a novel way. The word author was as old as creation itself, its dignity deriving from its evident association with the godhead, the author of eternal salvation, the author . . . of peace, the author and finisher of our faith, as the King James Bible has it; the author both of life and light, as Jonson himself writes in his Hymn On the Nativity of My Saviour. In this regard it resembles those etymologically related terms so favoured by Jonson, poet and maker, whose significance Sir Philip Sidney - God-like Sidney, as Jonson knowingly calls him had ringingly defended in his Apology for Poetry: Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison to balance the highest point of mans wit with the efficacy of Nature; but rather give right honour to the heavenly Maker of that maker, who having made man to his own likeness, set him beyond and over all the works
of that second nature: which in nothing he showeth so much as in Poetry, when with the force of a divine breath he bringeth things forth far surpassing her doings, with no small argument to the incredulous of that first accursed fall of Adam: since our erected wit maketh us know what perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching it. But these arguments will by few be understood, and by fewer granted. Thus much (I hope) will be given me, that the Greeks with some probability of reason gave him the name above all names of learning. It is curious to note that Jonson resisted his colleague Inigo Joness use of the term architect to describe his profession, as that word carried presumptuously, in Jonsons view a similar loading. God was the great architect, as Raphael, for example, was to call him in Paradise Lost, book 8. Architectonike was the term used by Aristotle to describe the ultimate end to which all knowledge is directed and subordinate: virtuous action. Joness Almighty architecture, on the other hand, was for Jonson mere technical work, a kind of trade dangerously close to bricklaying. Nor did Jonson despite the two mens close and brilliantly successful collaborations ever use the word author in relation to Inigo Jones, though he did use that term to
describe another of his collaborators, his choreographer on several court masques, Thomas Giles: The author was Master Thomas Giles, he says, when describing the intricate dances devised for The Masque of Queens. The precise meaning of that word author was still unsettled at this time. Like the notorious word begetter (To the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets, Mr W. H.), the term could bear a variety of meanings, indicating even at times the patron of an artistic work rather than its actual creator. Thus Lorenzo de Medici was described as the author, the auctor, of the church of San Gallo in Florence. The use of this word, F. W. Kent observes, may imply that Lorenzo was both entrepreneurially and creatively involved in its construction, but architectural historians almost unanimously attribute its design to Giuliano da Sangallo. In Thomas Hobbess discussion Of Persons, Authors, and things personated in Chapter 16 of Leviathan the author is seen as the ultimate owner and authorizer of words or actions that may however be spoken or negotiated or personated on his behalf by someone else, who is variously described by Hobbes as a persona, a person, an actor. The word Person is latine; instead whereof the Greeks have prosopon, which signifies the Face, as Persona in latine signifies the
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disguise, or outward appearance of a man, counterfeited on the Stage; and sometimes more particularly that part of it, which disguiseth the face, as a Mask or Visard: And from the Stage, hath been translated to any Representer of speech and action, as well in Tribunalls, as Theaters. Hobbes is here exploring a question that lay at the very heart of contemporary political and religious debate: where civil authority ultimately lay. Quentin Skinner, to whose acute analysis of this section of Leviathan I am much indebted, points to a curious oddity in Hobbess use of the theatrical analogy, for in the theatre of Hobbess time ultimate authority lay not with the author but with the regulating officer, acting on the monarchs behalf, known as the Master of the Revels, who licensed plays for theatrical performance. Jonson, according to John Aubrey, was Hobbess loving and familiar friend and acquaintance and closely associated with him and his intellectual circle during the 1620s and 30s. Its tempting to wonder if Hobbess thinking on the question of authorship may not have been stimulated by his familiarity with Jonsons own dramatic practice, even, conceivably, through conversations with Jonson himself. A comedy such as Bartholomew Fair explores the very terrain of chapter 16 of
Leviathan, asking where authority finally rests both within the theatre, and in society at large, presenting an array of petty officials who serve as agents or deputies persons, in Hobbess terminology who act on delegated authority, claiming, in a wild collision of conflicting interests, license or warrant for their actions deriving variously from the Judge of Pie Powders, from a guardian, from a husband, from the king, from the commonwealth, from scripture, from the Master of the Revels. Sir, I present nothing but what is licensed by authority, protests the puppeteer, Lantern Leatherhead, as the Puritan Zealof-the-Land Busy angrily demolishes his show. Thou art all licence, even licentiousness itself, Shimei!, exclaims Busy. I have the Master of the Revels hand fort, sir, responds Leatherhead. Busy: The Master of Rebels hand, thou hast, says Busy: Satans. In an epilogue written for performance of the play at Court, Jonson makes it clear that final authority, the ultimate licence or warrant for what is allowed in the kingdom, is firmly vested in King James himself. When Bartholomew Fair was performed before King James in 1614, Shakespeare had already retired to Stratford upon Avon, having made, in what must seem to modern eyes an astonishing act of neglect or renunciation, no
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apparent effort to bring his works together in collected form, to present a Shakespearian canon to the world. As is well known, Jonsons attitude to publication from his earliest years had been in striking contrast to that of Shakespeare. He methodically prepared quarto editions of his individual plays including, defiantly, those which had not succeeded in the theatre, and those over which he had, legally speaking, as Joseph Lowenstein has shown in remarkable detail, no formal rights of ownership confidently proclaiming his authorship on the title pages. In 1616, the year of Shakespeares death, the printer and bookseller William Stansby produced under Jonsons watchful eye a folio collection of The Works of Benjamin Jonson: a volume comprising more than a dozen Court masques, a handful of entertainments, a panegyrical address to King James on his entry to the first session of parliament in 1604, two substantial collections of verse, and most controversially a group of nine plays, a kind of writing never before included in England in any volume bearing the serious title Works. Pray tell me, Ben, wrote one wag later, where doth the mystery lurk,/ What others call a play you call a worke. Yet through the 1616 folio, modelled as it was in part on Renaissance
editions of classical authors, and in part on the great folio edition of King Jamess works published earlier that same year, Jonson was signalling his wish not only to elevate drama to a more serious literary status, but to present himself as no mere playwright, but rather as an author of classical range, dignity, and proportion. As we meet this evening to celebrate, on or about his four hundred and forty-second birthday, Shakespeares unrivalled genius, his undisputed standing in the field of English letters, it is worth recalling, if only in passing, that during the century or so following his death it was Ben Jonson, not William Shakespeare, who was reckoned by many good judges to have been the greatest writer England had ever produced. Such a verdict, however fantastical it may appear to later generations, was perhaps in part encouraged by Jonsons more forward style of self-presentation, of which Ive tried to give some taste tonight, but validated too by his sheer versatility and ambition as a writer, venturing as he did into so many branches of humanistic learning: as poet, as deviser of Court and civic entertainments, as dramatist, as historian, philologist, rhetorician, as writer on statecraft, social conduct, theology, as Englands first literary critic worthy of the name. Jonson too in his own fashion was a great factotum, a
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Dominus Do-All, but he found a more flattering name to describe his chosen role, and that name was Author. When in the early 1620s members of Shakespeares old company, heading off a venture from a rival bookseller, began to prepare for publication a collected folio edition of his dramatic works, they were assisted by Jonson himself, who prepared two poems which stand at the head of the 1623 First Folio. He may also as numerous small stylistic touches suggest have drafted the famous address To the great Variety of Readers that is signed by the players John Heminge and Henry Condell: It had bene a thing, we confesse, worthie to have bene wished, that the Author himselfe had liud to set forth, and ouerseen his owne writings; But since it hath bin ordaind otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envie his Friends, the office of their care, and paine, to haue collected & publishd them. . . The Author himselfe: Shakespeare here is dignified with the styling that, throughout his lifetime, he was generally reluctant to adopt, but that is now emphatically accorded to him by his friends, to whom the right of publication has passed.
That styling is repeated in the title of Jonsons poem To the Memory of My Beloved, The Author, Mr William Shakespeare, and What He Hath Left Us, in which those words, THE AUTHOR, are significantly emphasized in large-sized upper-case typography. Jonsons poem places Shakespeare above all other English writers for the stage, alongside the greatest dramatic authors of antiquity, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Seneca; hailing him as a Starre of Poets, now standing high in the heavens, visible and illuminating to all. The dramatic author is no longer an anonymous backroom boy, but has become at last a star. In another brief poem accompanying Martin Droeshouts famous engraving of Shakespeare, Jonson vouches for the likeness of the portrait, but urges the reader to study not Shakespeares picture but his book, through which his personality is expressed, and his life continues. Jonsons two poems at the head of the 1623 folio have proved over the years to be the most formidable barrier to those wishing to prove that Shakespeare was not Shakespeare, but somebody else; to assert that no real evidence exists to link the player from Stratford to the works attributed to him. A not uncritical appraiser of his greatest colleagues writings, Jonson could scarcely have expressed himself more clearly or
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unambiguously than he does on this occasion, affirming that this man, known and beloved by him, pictured in the accompanying illustration, was indeed THE AUTHOR of the works this volume contains. In death as in life, Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare are intimately linked through these verses in the opening pages of the 1623 Folio; a book which, together with Jonsons own 1616 Folio, was to become a foundational volume in the history of collected editions in
England, much imitated and emulated in the years to come, and in the establishment of Shakespeares own reputation as a writer, in Jonsons own phrase astonishingly predictive in 1623 not of an age, but for all time. The volume may also be seen as a landmark in the history of authorship itself; as what one might term, in homage to Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and much vexed textual argumentation still to come, the birth of the author.
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Caledonian Research Foundation Prize Lecture 2006 Professor Ronald McKay National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Monday 22 May 2006 at The University of Dundee Wednesday 24 May 2006 at RSE IMPLEMENTING THE PROMISE OF STEM CELLS IN SCIENCE AND MEDICINE In 1990, as part of an agreement with the Caledonian Research Foundation, the Society created an annual Prize Lectureship in Biomedical Science. In 1994 it was agreed that the prize Lectureship would alternate annually between Biomedical Sciences and Arts & Letters subjects. Prize Lecturers are expected to be of the highest international repute and this years recipient is certainly no exception to that rule. For the last ten years Ronald McKay has been head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at NINDS at Bethesda, Maryland. He is a Scot who graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1971 with Bsc Summa cum Laude and PhD in Molecular Biology. After postgraduate appointments with MRC in London and at the University of Oxford, he was appointed Staff Scientist in 1978 at Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory in New York. From 1984 to1993 he was Professor in Human Biology, MIT Cambridge Massachusetts. In 1998 Professor Mckay provided the first clear evidence that neuronal precursor cells could be identified. He demonstrated that contrary to accepted dogma, multipotential stem cells remain in the adult nervous system and these can proliferate and form clones which differentiate into neurons in vitro. His pioneering work has provided much of the experimental basis for the development of treatments for Parkinsons, Alzheimers and demyelinating diseases. It is a great pleasure for me to give this lecture in Edinburgh. I thought I might start off by talking about the origins of the nervous system and explain why I became interested in stem cells. This story takes place after a lecture at the old medical school, just on top of the hill here, by a man called Michael Gates who was, appropriately enough, interested in the development of
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the visual system. He had been telling us about how the retina is connected to the rest of the brain and about the experiments of an American called Roger Sperry, who concluded that the initial contact between the axons the wires going from the eye into the brain was appropriately mapped. As you look at me here, the image on your retina is
mapped directly before it goes into your brain. Sperrys conclusion was that, prior to functional connections information flowing to the system these wires from the retinal detectors had a position which must be specified by chemicals that told the brain that this wire was different from the next one. So, as I walked out of the building, I can remember quite distinctly thinking these academics theyll say anything. It seemed that there was no possibility of ever figuring out the biochemistry that Sperrys hypothesis had suggested. Sperry was a very distinguished scientist, got the Nobel Prize, so my irritation was an intellectual one lets just say. Subsequently, there was a technology developed in Cambridge hybridoma technology which allowed the generation of a precise series of chemical probes, even though the initial chemical had not been purified, because it was using the immune system to make specific antibodies. This technology demonstrated that Sperry had been right and that the nervous system is hugely complicated at the level of chemistry. So now we had another problem. How on earth were we going to understand all of this? What were all these molecules doing? What were they talking to? This seemed to be a much bigger problem than Sperry had suggested initially.
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It seemed to me that the solution to this problem was the idea of stem cells. We knew from work in Holland and at CalTech that, in spite of its extraordinary complexity in adult animals, the vertebrate nervous system is derived from a very simple tube of cells. The theory was that different neurones are made in different positions in the nervous system because different signals impinge on this, initially very simple group of identical cells. The first point that I want to make, therefore, is that the whole idea of stem cells in the nervous system and in another tissues, but I am using the nervous system to make the general point, is old. It is not something that was suddenly dreamed up in the last five years by somebody who wanted to have their name on the front page of the worlds newspapers. We knew a long time ago that the nervous system was composed of cells that developmental biologists call an equivalence group, which simply means that they all have the same potential. This is one way to define a stem cell. My next goal was to pull out these cells, to get hold of them and see what they can do. This has taken quite a while but thats the basic underlying idea. The field is presented as if its primary role in medicine is an applied role. But I want to discuss the potential of
stem-cell biology in the context of two neurological diseases: stroke, an acute injury to the nervous system; and Parkinsons disease, a chronic, late-onset neurodegenerative disease. But I want you to remember that the field is also hugely important scientifically. That Sperrys initial interest in the way the nervous system was constructed and later contributions were about the fundamental organisation of life and our ability to use the nervous system to detect changes in our environment. Growing up in Edinburgh, of course, I was exposed to a way of thinking which was not simply a set up to pass exams, but which indicated that I had actually read or at least could pretend that I had read things that David Hume and others had written, about the nature of thought. Although I am going to present a lot of this work as if its primary motivation was applied, thats just a ruse really. Thats not completely a joke, because it seems to me that it is fundamentally misguided to view this field as threatening our understanding of human dignity. In fact, completely the opposite is true. It is through our understanding of the nervous system and the development of our abilities that we gain in our knowledge of what makes us human and what makes us able to perceive, not just tragedy or
disease and how to respond to it, but all kinds of other wonderful things that human beings do with their nervous systems. This lecture is going to contain scientific results, but I am going to present them in this sequence talking about stroke, which is an ischaemic injury to the brain with the blood supplies blocked and the nervous system is hugely sensitive to such a change. In that context, I am going to discuss a very basic cell-survival pathway which regulates the possibility of regenerating adult tissue. Then I am going to talk about Parkinsons disease and three specific issues in the context of Parkinsons disease. How can we generate dopamine neurones? What are the mechanisms that control their survival? Finally, I will also talk about where in the developing organism dopamine neurones actually come from. The basic idea in stem-cell biology is that if you can control or understand the mechanisms that regulate cell number and cell type, and you understand that well enough to be able to generate differentiated cells which carry out the functions that are found in adult cells, then thats a technology of tremendous promise. So I want to come back to this idea of an equivalence group that there are cells in the early development of the brain that can give rise to many kinds of cell. The three main
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cell types in the brain are: neurones, cells that are wired up and can pass information very rapidly from one to the other; and two different kinds of glial cell, the astrocytes and the oligodendrocytes. If you think of a stem cell as giving rise to these three types of cell in a kind of flow-diagram way and has to make binary decisions, you can ask whether it can only do one thing at a time, or are all the fates present in the cell at one time? How does it happen? To look at questions like that, we built a machine which allows us to image this process over time, so we could see the number of days that it takes for stem cells to turn into the many cell types in the brain. Any individual cell can give rise to all the different cell types and it takes about a week. You cant speed it up. Cells divide, they generate daughter cells sibling cells to be politically correct and at the end we can identify which type of cell they are. We can also see that some cells have no real relationship to their siblings, but there are others of the same type which cluster together. This then allowed us to go backwards in time to ask when this restriction occurred. When exactly did these cells acquire this restriction, so they only generated cells of a particular type? At the fifth cell division, we took away protein FGF because we believed it was keeping the cells in
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division and when we took it away in a manner that we hadnt understood, we were triggering the cells perhaps to stop dividing so rapidly, and to change from the stem-cell state into the differentiated state. We then asked how quickly the change occurred and the answer was almost immediately following withdrawal of the FGF protein. That, I thought, is very cool. I am not going to go into this in a lot of detail, but you can imagine how we are looking with more and more precision at this issue. When it happens and what actually happens? Nobody really knows. Nobody really knows how one cell gives rise to another cell. This raises a lot of interesting issues, but I want to illustrate just one of the potential uses of this approach. When you withdraw the protein and begin to restrict the growth of the cells, they acutely switch the expression of genes which encode for very important proteins. Stem cells have a special protein in the nucleolus a structure critically important in controlling cell growth. When you initiate the change from the stem cell to the more restricted cells, this protein is switched off. The nucleolus is an important structure which has been studied for many years. One of the most famous scientists to have worked at the Cold Spring Harbor Labora-
tories in New York is a woman called Barbara McClintock, a hugely interesting intellectual and eclectic lady. On one of my visits there, when I was still an undergraduate in Edinburgh, I was chatting away to Barbara about what I thought the nucleolus did and she listened to me quietly and then she said to me, Well Ron, the reason I called it the nucleolus.. Barbara knew something important was happening with the nucleolus; that it was regulating growth and organising aspects of nuclear structure and the way this protein is involved in regulating growth looked to be hugely interesting. If you take the protein out of the cell, the cell comes out of the growth state but how? It now seems that it does so by interacting with another protein P53 the control of which is important in human cancers. Mentioning this allows me to make a very general point about the relationship of stem-cell biology and cancer which is the transition from the stem-cell state to a state where cells have a restricted fate. The growth control switches very rapidly between these two states and involves proteins that are of a very general importance in our understanding of cancer. Although Im talking about data based on the nervous system, the same rule applies in every tissue.
This means that in vertebrates at least, we are beginning to understand the biochemistry that controls the size of the different compartments that regulate the size of our tissues. Stem-cell biology is increasingly viewed as having a very important role in cancer biology and my view is that understanding this transition between the stem cells and their immediate progeny is going to be extremely important. I want to take this interesting growth and survival to another dimension for you and talk about a very simple experiment. In this, we took the stem cells from the nervous system at the stage of its development when all the cells would be roughly the same. We put the cells in a dish and then we asked: do they live or die? We know precisely when the cells die because we were able to photograph them every 15 minutes. This is important, because the cells that die tend to disappear very fast they just blow up and go away. So they are not there to see if you just look at the end of the experiment. The experiment showed that the cells die, essentially, very early. But if you add a single protein, Delta 4, to the system, you immediately stop this death process. Delta 4 is a protein with a very special type of receptor, called the notch receptor (discovered in 1919 by people working on the
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development of the fruit fly, Drosophila). In subsequent decades, people became increasingly interested in this receptor because it has the very unusual property of controlling pattern. There are many genes you could study as a developmental biologist, but what you want to understand is the pattern of the organism, how is the general organisation of the fruit fly controlled? The notch receptor is very important and has taught us a lot about how the overall pattern of flies, mice and men is controlled. It was thought that when the notch receptor is activated when ligands such as Delta 4 bind to it, it is cut by protease and the internal part of the receptor goes to the nucleus, where it turns on genes and the cell responds to that. But that process takes time, and the response we were seeing in our experiments happens very rapidly. This very rapid death suggested to us that it could not be under the control of the classic function of the notch receptor, so we came up with a story which has important features and I will discuss in more detail later, but summarise for you now. We showed that the notch receptor directly activates the classic cancer growth pathway, in which proteins are changed by phosphorylation cascade. The receptor is bound and, in most
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cases people think of these receptors being like the insulin receptor, a series of enzymes carries this information into the cell cytoplasm (not immediately into the nucleus) by modifying the proteins reversibly by adding phosphate groups to them. It transpired that this positive pathway, which is controlling growth, is inhibited by another well-known pathway. At this point, we are beginning to understand how one might stimulate and regulate the growth of stem cells, because stem-cell biologists need a lot of stem cells! Knowing this is not just something that helps you grow cells in the lab but it also helps you grow cells in tissues. Using rats with an induced ischaemic injury which results in a region of the brain being deprived of blood and with very reproducible damage to the underlying brain tissue we used a pump to introduce the protein, Delta 4, into the space in the middle of the brain. This caused a massive stimulation of stem cells in the brain and a very interesting effect on the behavioural recovery of the animals. My basic message to you is that you have to do the science to understand what you are doing. But the message is not that you understand it, but its so complicated that itll take forever to turn
into benefit. The message is that you have to understand it, because if you dont, you will never know what the benefit is. Sometimes, very simple experiments immediately show potential clinical benefits, and this is one. In stroke there are very few available treatments for people who have suffered this kind of ischaemic damage to the nervous system. There is some acute clinical care that can be applied to the injury itself, but subsequently, its very hard for individuals to be treated in a general way after an injury of this type. But these kinds of results suggest that there is indeed a regenerative process in the nervous system and that perhaps we can look forward to a systematic understanding of the mechanisms that might underlie therapies for stroke. Now I will discuss some of the data and give you a sense of how we came to these conclusions. If you add the ligands, Delta 4 or Kappa 1 to the notch receptor, you get an immediate activation of the enzyme AKT. This activation is represented by a change in the phosphorylation status of two particular amino acids, which goes up and down in five minutes. We are thus able to map how the whole pathway is activated sequentially over time, in pulses, in minutes. Downstream, however, there are changes that take place days later, which is of great
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interest to those involved in either stem-cell biology or cancer biology. So for example, there is the growth factor sonic hedgehog, which activates another receptor pathway of major interest in contemporary research in cancer biology. Our results have shown that the notch receptor is activating the sonic hedgehog system. A further experiment showed that other growth factors can inhibit the pathway at between 30 and 60 minutes. This information allows us to manipulate in both positive and negative pathways, something we have done using the cells which give rise to the pancreatic islets, the insulinproducing cells and were able to increase their numbers. This is important because, although the biochemistry is a little complicated, the conclusions are obvious. Further, these pathways are activated in tissue and thats also an obvious extension of interest. In another experiment, we inserted a needle into the space that exists in all of our brains and deposited the Delta 4 protein once only into the space. Five days later, there was a massive increase in the stem cells in that region of the adult central nervous system. What are these cells? Are they present all over the brain? Are they influencing all kinds of other behaviours that the
brain performs? We are just going to ask one question: if we give this rat a stroke, what happens if we pump in these proteins for a few days? What we are doing here is something very simple. A lot of the time when people think about measuring behaviour in animals, they think it is complicated but if it was complicated, we couldnt do it in a Federal facility in the United States. So we do very simple things. For example, you give a rat an injury of this type, you hold it up, you place it up against a table and you see which paw does it puts down first. If you injured one side of the brain, it tends not to use the paw that is regulated by that side of the brain. So you can develop a very simple set of tests to look at the motor behaviour of an injured rat. What you see is that the animals get progressively worse over the next six weeks. In the control group, we put artificial cerebral spinal fluid (ACSF) on its own into the brain; but when we added either Delta 4 or FGF2 to the ACSF, the animals were stabilised. When both proteins were added together, there was a very clear behavioural benefit that lasted for several weeks. Now we need to be clear about this. We are not saying that we have found a therapy for stroke.
What we are saying is that we have a test to ask questions about why these animals are showing this behavioural benefit. Further, there are a multiple cell types that could be involved and only one type is of the nervous system. There are other major cell types to consider. First, those of the vascular system after all, it was this which was damaged initially to cause the stroke. The second very important tissue system that is very likely to be involved here is the immune system. It is increasingly clear that in almost every area of medicine, that there are multiple cell types interacting to generate the disease, or available to be manipulated to generate the benefit. A major component of the benefit is the manipulation of the immune response that follows this kind of injury. But I am trying to take you through a set of experiments that end up in this behavioural test after injury, to give you a sense of where this field might be going. It seems very exciting that it is possible to control the numbers and activity of stem cells in adult tissues by manipulating such a fundamental pathway. One way to view these responses is that regenerative biology my main interest is actually just the flip-side of cancer biology. The pathway that I have discussed is the classic cancer pathway. If you invited one of
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your colleagues interested in the signalling mechanisms that regulate cancer she/he would understand every feature of that pathway. The exciting conclusion is that, if this is the case, then we already know a lot about the molecular mechanisms that regulate regeneration in tissues, which would suggest that perhaps this field is going to start moving even faster. Now I want to talk about a different kind of injury. In this case, its one that comes on in an expected way. You dont suddenly develop Parkinsons disease. You slowly find that you cannot perform certain tasks that previously you took for granted. I asked one woman I know who has Parkinsons disease when she first knew that there was something wrong. She said that she goes riding all the time and because the saddle is heavy, she picked it up in a particular way to put it on a fence. One day she realised she simply couldnt stand and swing it to her right, but had to turn round and do it the other way. She thought this completely weird so went to the doctor, who called in the neurologist, who told her she had this progressive motor disease, Parkinsons disease. So, Parkinsons disease very often first appears in an asymmetric way and the main advances in our understanding about Parkinsons disease have
come in recent years from human genetics. I now want to tell you a story about human genetics and use it as a way of setting your imagination. I want to set your expectations in a particular way. When I was a student, I went to lectures and eventually got captured by the idea of DNA. There was a particular group that took pity on me and showed me how to do things. One of those in the group was a person called Ed Southern who became famous because he developed a technology that made it possible to measure the chemical distance between genes for the first time. Before that, very complicated and tedious genetics experiments were needed, which required breeding animals to know where genes were and how the resultant animals were related to each other. Ed had developed this technology, which came to be named after him, the Southern Blot. The Southern Blot measured the chemical distances between genes and was the beginning of the Human Genome Project. Now we know where all human genes are in relation to one another and their sequences. We also now know that many individuals in the population carry mutations in specific genes that influence their risk of getting Parkinsons disease. The Southern Blot paper was published in 1975; 30 years later
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we are in a completely transformed world. I am asking you to use that measurement to calibrate your imagination and not expect necessarily that were going to have a cure for Parkinsons disease, or radically improve our understanding of Parkinsons disease tomorrow, but I hope the next 20 minutes will allow you to see that human genetics and stem-cell biology may interact in a very interesting way as we go forward to understand the mechanisms that give rise to human disease. What happens is that you find the gene, but then it is very often a long process to understand why that particular protein is influencing the disease. How can we help? One of the reasons Parkinsons disease became a focus for attention in the stem-cell field is that it affects a particular group of neurones the dopamine neurones very dramatically. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that has very interesting effects on our nervous system, one of which is that it regulates our sense of mood, our sense of whether this experience is rewarding or not. If I could, I would give you a lot of drugs to make you think that this was a rewarding experience. I could send you out to Princes Street at the weekend and you could find a source of drugs of this type, because most recreational drugs target the
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dopaminergic system. Dopamine is a very important neurotransmitter, regulating the behaviour of many other regions of the brain. But the dopamine neurones themselves, the cells that make dopamine, are a very small group. They are generated in the ventral mid-brain and they send their axons all over the brain, so they have 25 times more synaptic connections than the classic types of glutaminergic neurones which sit in your frontal cortex. Dopamine neurones are a very unusual type of cell. It is quite clear that these neurones die in Parkinsons patients. But because they are such a small group of neurones with such a big effect, the idea arose that perhaps, if the cells die, why cant you replace them? That idea has some merit and one of the reasons that our group has become well known is that weve shown that you can indeed replace missing dopamine neurones, by growing them in the lab. I am going to show you data that support the conclusion that these lab-generated neurones actually work in the brain of an animal. I am not going to try to persuade you that grafting dopamine neurones grown in the lab is the only, or perhaps the major, reason to develop our interest in where dopamine neurones come from.
What I am going to try to persuade you is that we have to be able to grow the neurones in order to study them intensely, to understand how they work and control dopamine release. How is it that when you feel something good, I understand that it is dopamine saying to other cells in your brain that this is something good? There are many more interesting things to find out about dopamine neurones than simply to grow them and stick them in an unthinking way into the heads of patients. I am going to try to illustrate that by talking about three issues around whether we can indeed look forward to growing dopamine neurones from stem cells in large numbers. What might human genetics mean in terms of understanding the survival and function of the dopamine neurones? I am going to tell you that dopamine neurones come from events that happen very early in the development of a mammalian embryo. We will look at the idea of making clinically important cells from embryonic stem cells. But first I want to talk about why embryonic stem cells? The answer really is very simple. Embryonic stem cells have a very special property, which is that they can be grown for a long period in a laboratory outside the animal and retain their extraordinary
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potential to generate all the cells of the body. It has transpired that, by rather simple manipulations, you can elicit this developmental potential in a laboratory, in a controlled culture system. You might imagine that this is not a trivial thing to do, but its not hopelessly complicated. In the first sets of experiments from our group we showed that we could make dopamine neurones and oligodendrocytes, which are the cells at risk in multiple sclerosis and demyelinating diseases. We could also make pancreatic islets which secrete insulin in an appropriate way when they are exposed to glucose. We did all this using mouse embryonic stem cells. Just briefly, I want to discuss the developmental potential of the group of cells that comprise the very early (8-cell stage) human embryo. Depending on your particular cultural background there are different kinds of ethical problems associated with these cells, but ethical issues clearly exist here. I am going to talk about the developmental and clinical potential and then I will make another couple of comments about these embryonic cells and how they arise during embryonic development in something called the epiplast. At present, we dont really know how human and mouse
embryonic stem cells fit in the normal path of the early embryonic development, but we will find that out before too long. That is clearly going to be of great importance to us in terms of understanding these cells and their properties, and also of great importance to us clinically. Very important things happen early in development and which are of great importance subsequently. One of them, for example, is at the stage where the epiplast exists and some cells have already shifted away from the early pluripotent stage and are moving and specifying themselves as the different cells of the body. One thing that has happened in female embryos is that one of the X chromosomes is inactivated. The inactivation process takes place very rapidly and with a whole set of molecules involved in it, but we know very little about it because it happens so early normally. It is, however, likely to be of great importance in different areas of medicine, for example in understanding breast cancer, where there are clear data suggesting that the X chromosome becomes reactivated with dreadful consequences for that cell and, of course, for the individual affected. I am making the point that understanding these very early events is of clear general interest. Now I am going to discuss how we know that, using mouse
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embryonic stem cells, we can make dopamine neurones. Doing a very simple series of manipulations over the course of about three weeks in culture, we can generate different populations of cells from a starting group of embryonic stem cells. These manipulations result in highly enriched populations of cells. Although the body contains hundreds of different kinds of cells, if these experiments are done at different stages, you essentially get one or two cell types. This is because the cells have some kind of self-organising property. They are alive and if you get the conditions right, they grow and expand and take over the system. So by the fifth stage, we have a set of cells which seem the same as if you had simply taken out a piece of the brain and put the cells into culture. This is a highly efficient system and the cells are alive and that is why it is so interesting. We dont know how all these molecules interact. What were interested in is how they interact. They grow and, if you treat them right, they make dopamine neurones. They seem to do this by closely mimicking what normally happens in development. You can then take such cells and put them into animal models of Parkinsons disease and do various kinds of tests look at the electrical properties of individual neurones,
or at the way the animals use their limbs and move. We have shown that these grafted cells really have the functions that you would expect of normal dopamine neurones. We have also used PET to measure the dopaminergic functions of the animals. Using a radiolabel you can see that the projections of the dopamine neurones in the striatum are intense, but we can blow them away with our drug. We can then see them replaced by a smaller, but quite clearly present group of dopamine projections derived from our graft. There is no question that these grafted cells have dopamine functions, measurable by electrophysiology, by behavioural tests, by direct inspection and by reviewing the responses of the cells that are listening to the dopamine. So, are we going to go around sticking cells of this type into patients? Its possible that we might do that and it seems more likely that we might do it in the case of diabetes, where the cells we are interested in form very small, localised structures pancreatic islets which secrete a protein that goes all over the body. But in the case of something like the nervous system, where there is a whole circuitry involved, I am sure that clinical grafting will occur. But, would it not be much simpler to know enough about these cells so that
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we could stop the whole process in the first place? Or slow it down significantly? Would that not be a more plausible goal? I am now going to discuss three different kinds of data to help you think about this. One is about making dopamine neurones from a stem-cell source in the first place; the second is to explore the relationship between human genetics and our understanding of the developmental biology and function of dopamine neurones; and, finally, Ill go back to the issue of where they come from. I will talk about the first two at some length because I think you will find it interesting and I am trying to give you a sense of where, in our group, we think where we want to go with this kind of technology. Can we make dopamine neurones from human embryonic stem cells? We take human embryonic stem cells, grow and differentiate them in much the same way as we do with mouse embryonic stem cells. You can listen to the electrical activity of the resultant neurones, about 40% of which are expressing the enzymes required to make the transmitter, dopamine. After a month in these conditions, all the neurones are firing trains of action potentials and some are hooked up to each other synaptically. They are talking to each other as neurones should. These might be consid-
ered as young adult neurones, clearly functional, able to stand on their own two feet so to speak. So the answer would appear to be yes. There are lots of questions you might ask about optimising the system, how would you show that these are exactly the same type of dopamine neurones and so on, but the most important thing to remember is that these are human cells and that this is a hugely efficient process. Meaning that, as it takes place, all the neurones are behaving in the same way. So it could be relatively easy to understand control mechanisms for the acquisition of function in these cells. Alongside all the other things we are doing, there is information coming from the Human Genome Project. If you recall my earlier reference to the Southern Blot paper of 1975, when I named several genes as being identified quite clearly in modulating the progression of Parkinsons disease. Now there is another gene, Etya20. This came to our attention because the growth factor is selectively expressed in the dopamine neurones in adult rats, so we searched the online databases and found one at Duke University in North Carolina, which suggested that there was a change in the region of the genome close to Etya20 in human patients with Parkinsons disease.
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We wondered whether Etya20 is affected by this mutation and so contacted the people in Duke and asked them to look a bit closer at Etya20 among the 10-15 genes in this region. After initial reluctance, they agreed and we were fortunate. It did seem, statistically, as if Etya20 carries this change. However, whether we are talking about Parkinsons, Alzheimers, cancer or diabetes, we need some understanding of the underlying biology in addition to statistical arguments, to be sure that the gene is specifically affecting dopamine neurones. So one of my colleagues started growing dopamine neurones to clarify how Etya20 influences their behaviour. It transpired that Etya20 is a survival factor for a specific subset of dopamine neurones in the substantia nigra. The dopamine neurones appear in the ventral tegmental area, project down in the bottom of the brain and up to the frontal cortex and their function is to control mood. They are disrupted in schizophrenia and mood disorders, for example, but the more lateral cells are selectively sensitive to the injuries that cause Parkinsons disease. They are selectively responsive to Etya20 because they carry a growth factor receptor which, when activated, causes these cells to survive and, importantly, to make more dopamine. This is
exactly what we want for Parkinsons patients something that helps them remain more active and also protects them. We are deeply involved in this kind of analysis. The dopamine that is made in this system is packaged and secreted when the cell is firing, releasing more dopamine. Those of you interested in neuroscience, and who think that I am absolutely serious about quoting David Hume at the beginning of this lecture, will understand that this is actually very interesting. Its not just that were thinking about keeping dopamine neurones alive, but as we do that, we are getting deep insights into how the cell works and what kinds of mechanisms it uses to function. So now I move to my third and final point where do dopamine neurones come from? It turns out that dopamine neurones come from a very unusual place, from the most ventral regions of the brain. We have mapped out different domains in the ventral mid-brain and it is clear that these dopamine neurones come from a site that does not generate neurones in any other region of the brain. Further, this site produces a growth factor, a morphogen, which controls the morphology or differentiation of adjacent cells. The morphogen is sonic hedgehog.
I have already mentioned sonic hedgehog and it is in a diffuse cloud in the ventral region of the brain. All the cells in this region express a transcription factor called LMX1B and all the LMX1Bpositive cells all express another transcription factor, FOXA2. These cells have a very unusual function in other regions of the brain. In the hind-brain, sonic hedgehog-positive cells generate progeny which just exist in a line in the middle of the brain; but in the mid-brain they form a cloud of cells around the ventral mid-line. All of these cells have once expressed sonic hedgehog and all of them express tyrosine hydroxylase, the enzyme that is the marker for, and responsible for generating dopamine. Thus, it is clear that the tyrosine hydroxylasepositive dopamine neurones come from the floorplate the name given to this special region. In my introduction, I talked about the idea that the nervous system comes from an equivalence group, a group of cells which are initially equivalent, but which respond to a growth factor or a signal from another source. This is what is going on here and these floorplate cells are induced in this region by sonic hedgehog, which is first produced in the notochord. This is interesting because it shows us that the origins of the dopamine system are in a very unusual class of cells which are
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FOXA2-positive. FOXA2 function is required for the differentiation of the floorplates and it continues to be expressed in adult dopamine neurones. Now I want to return to the genes which we know are influencing human Parkinsons disease, but if you knock them out in a mouse, theres not much wrong with the dopamine neurones. This is because these genes dont actually cause Parkinsons disease, they influence Parkinsons disease as is the case for many of the genes of great clinical interest. There is currently a lot of hoo-ha in the field of Parkinsons genetics, but why? People go to an enormous amount of trouble to knock out these genes. But they have only got a gene, they dont know what the gene is doing and, in particular, they dont know why, as you age, Parkinsons disease occurs and why dopamine neurones, in particular, seem to be so sensitive. If you knock out both copies of the FOXA2 gene it is lethal, very early and you know this because critical structures for organising the embryo are missing. But if you knock out only one copy of the gene, initially everything seems to be perfectly normal, but then very interesting things happen. As soon as the animal starts to walk, it does something that, if you were just nave about
it, you would say is a bit like Parkinsons disease. When you put the front feet of a mouse in red ink and the back feet in black ink and let the mouse walk on a sheet of paper, you see that the mouse strides across the paper, but in the animals only lacking one copy of the FOXA2 gene, they move in a sort of hopping, shuffling way characteristically seen in Parkinsons patients. So it is clear there is something wrong with these animals early on. But they have normal numbers of dopamine neurones and are not completely messed up. As they age, however, they begin to show some very odd behavioural features. In one case, the animal had a very stiff foot, with a tail that was completely stiff and held to the side and because the intercostal muscles were absolutely rigid, the animal could not move its muscles correctly. This is another feature found in Parkinsons disease and other diseases that affect the nigra striatal system. Finally, and most importantly, there is an asymmetric loss of dopamine neurones in these animals. So it now seems that we have an animal model, not necessarily of Parkinsons disease, but one which will teach us why dopamine neurones are so sensitive to these diseases. We can take these other genetic tools and start mapping
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them on to this problem. I just want to mention a group of studies of Parkinsons patient which found a polymorphism right next to the FOXA2 gene. It seems, therefore, that some people carry a mutation which affects FOXA2 function; it is not just something that happens in mice. So let me close by doing two things. First, I want to remind you about the different issues that I have discussed and to say that one of the great pleasures in science is that you work with a range of people who come from countries all over the world and move around the world in search of the ah ha feeling that motivates scientists the sort of intellectual motivation, which is so important in scientific progress. Then I want to come back to the general issue why is stem-cell biology important? It is important because we understand exactly how different genes act in these pathways. We know the FOXA2 gene is directly in the pathway, which is activated by Notch and DJ1. Another gene involved in Parkinsons disease is thought to interact with a negative regulator of AKT and, as I mentioned, FGF looks as if it is interacting with the pathway in another way. What is emerging from our studies is a coherent understand-
ing of the disease because we can identify specific cell types and focus our attention on them, in the cascade of cell types that are generated during development. Also, this idea is an extension of one that was very important in the origins of molecular biology and captured by the phrase attributed to Jacques Monod, a very famous French molecular biologist, namely, What is true for E. coli is true for the elephant. Now of course, the opposite of this is not true. Whats true for elephant is not necessarily true for E. coli. I mean, if you want to understand how large mammals walk across the plains of East Africa and you restrict yourself to studying E. coli, we might be here for a very long time. But if you want to understand the behaviour of mammals at the cellular level, then it would be very useful if you could isolate all the different cell types of a mammal and look at their properties in the same intensely-focused way that molecular biologists were able to do by using a simple organism like E. coli. I think that that captures in my view of the promise of stem-cell biology. This is that it is not magic, but when used in combination with other advances in contemporary medicine, it may lead us if we are patient enough and imaginative enough and positive enough to very interesting new therapies.
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Once again, thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to come. VOTE OF THANKS by Professor Nick Hastie FRS FRSE, Director, MRC Human Genetics Unit, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh. I really do want to thank you for a very inspiring talk, which was very clear and a great deal of circumspection in an area which has got so much hype that was tremendous. What particularly impressed me is that you put up a slide of quotes of David Hume, but you could quote Adam Smith without having slides. Either you are really smart and ready for that question, or youre just a polymath as we expect of Edinburgh scientists who trained here and then went away. I suppose there are many messages from your talk, all music to my ears and to many of us here. The first is that stem-cell biology is fascinating if done right. We really do need to understand the mechanisms which control stemcell renewal and what makes them differentiate in many ways and to understand where they come from in the first place. Unless you know that, and what regulates them, youre not really going to do anything intelligent with them in terms of therapeutic protocols. The second thing is that in some contexts, like the pancreas, it might be appropriate to put cells
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back and thats what most of the public thinks we are talking about but in others its going to be far more likely that you would use the biological knowledge to either prevent the thing happening in the first place or to stimulate those with factors that you understand from the biology. The third thing that I love, is that youre introducing human genetics into the equation. I would say that, because we do human genetics, but what I liked at the end relates to what people in human genetics have known for some time now, that you can even study the rare in human genetics and learn about this common pathway. Its the same arguments for outstanding Alzheimers and many other diseases and youre talking about the common pathways. If youre wrong, often we can find out by studying the rare or the biology youre talking about and then come up with intelligent ways of treating it. As you say, it might be 15 to 20 years. So we need you out there, people like you, telling the public about it. In Edinburgh, theyve bought the same arguments, to have strong developmental biology alongside stem cell work. We could go on forever and ask you more questions, but its great to see somebody trained in Edinburgh come back as a Caledonian Prizewinner. I think
youre the second, I think Ian Mattaj was the first. Its a testament to the wonderful golden era that we have had in Edinburgh science and I hope that we will be seeing some others of the young
ones coming back in 20 years, or even a shorter timeframe, to be the third. On behalf of all of us, I want to thank you for your great lecture and Ive got lots of questions for you over dinner and drinks.
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The Robert Cormack Bequest Lecture Athena Coustenis Paris-Meudon Observatory 12 June 2006 TITAN AND THE CASSINI-HUYGENS MISSION The Cassini-Huygens mission has initiated its long exploration of the Saturnian system in July 2004, after a 7,5 year trek through our solar system. Since the Saturn Orbit Insertion, we have witnessed the great success of the Huygens mission, the probe descent through Titans atmosphere, on January 14, 2005. One of the main targets of the CassiniHuygens mission was Titan. The combined orbiter and probe data have been a precious tool in the description of Titans atmosphere and surface returning wonderful new data whose analysis have revealed an amazing new world, 10 time further from our Sun and yet so close to our own planet. Indeed, Titan is currently the only exobiological system that we can study in reference to conditions which may have prevailed on the primitive Earth. Introduction Titan, Saturns largest satellite, has attracted the interest of the scientific community ever since its discovery by C. Huygens in 1655, and in particular since the realization in the early 20th century that it has an extended atmosphere. This atmosphere is composed essentially of molecular nitrogen
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(1.5 bar), like the Earth, and is the host of an active organic chemistry due to the presence of methane. CH4 and N2 combine to produce a large variety of hydrocarbons and nitriles. Some of the latter (such as HCN, called prebiotic) are considered to be the precursors of life on our ow n planet. An exterior source brings traces of oxygen in Titan, in the form of H2O, CO and CO2. The temperature on Titan is very low (varies from 70 to180 K in the atmosphere) due to the distance to the Sun (10 AU). At the surface, the temperature reaches 94 K thanks to a greenhouse effect, as on our planet. Titan was mainly explored in the 80s by the Voyager 1 mission which during one flyby returned its atmospheric composition and other characteristics. However, such things as the nature of the surface or the aerosol distribution, or the structure in the troposphere remained unknown. The Cassini-Huygens mission to the Saturnian system was launched in 1997 and arrived in the vicinity of the Saturnian system in 2004. The instruments aboard the mission have since
then been returning wonderful new information on the satellite during each flyby. 44 of them are expected until the end of the mission in 2008. In what follows I discuss some of this information that has been revealed to us by the Cassini-Huygens mission and how our perception of Titan physics has evolved over the past year or so. The Cassini-Huygens Mission Cassini-Huygens is a very ambitious mission, an extremely successful collaboration between ESA and NASA (with contribution from 17 countries), composed of an orbiter and a probe (Huygens). Although the missions objectives span the entire Saturnian system, for Cassini (as for Voyager before it) Titan is a privileged target and the mission is designed to address our principal questions about the satellite. The spacecraft is equipped with 18 science instruments (12 on the orbiter and 6 carried by the probe), gathering both remote sensing and in situ data. It communicates through one high-gain and two low-gain antennas. Power is provided through three Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (or RTGs). The 5,650-kilogram (6-ton) Cassini-Huygens spacecraft was launched successfully on the 15th of October 1997 from the
Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral at 4 :43 a.m. EDT. Because of its massive weight, Cassini could not be sent directly to Saturn but used the gravity assist technique to gain the energy required by looping twice around the Sun. This allowed it to perform flybys by Venus (April 26, 1998 and June 24, 1999), Earth (August 18, 1999) and Jupiter (December 30, 2000). Cassini-Huygens reached Saturn in July 2004 and performed a flawless Saturn Orbit Insertion (SOI), becoming trapped forever in orbit like one of Saturns moons. The Cassini instruments have since then returned a great amount of data concerning the Saturnian system. During its fouryear nominal mission, the Cassini Orbiter will make about 40 flybys of Titan, some as close as 1000 km (Voyager 1 flew by at 4400 km) from the surface and perform direct measurements with the visible, infrared, and radar instruments. Additionally, the mission saw the deployment of the European-built Huygens probe. After release from the Cassini orbiter, on December 25, 2004, this 300 kg probe plunged into Titans atmosphere on January 14, 2005 at 11:04 UTC and descended through it by means of several parachute breaks which slowed the probe from
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super sonic speeds of 6 km/s during entry and down to 5 m/s at impact. The five batteries onboard the probe lasted much longer than expected, allowing Huygens to collect descent data for 2hrs and 27 mns and surface data for 1hr and 12 mns. During its descent, Huygens camera returned more than 750 images, while the Probes other five instruments sampled Titans atmosphere to help determine its composition and structure. The telemetry data from Huygens was stored onboard Cassinis Solid State recorders (SSRs) at a rate of 8 kilobits per second, while the spacecraft was at an altitude of 60,000 km from Titan. Although some data from Huygens was lost during its transmission to Cassini through a stream called Channel A , in the end all of the measurements were recovered because Titans weak signal was captured by Earth-based radio telescopes ! As well as imaging the atmosphere and surface, the probe took samples of the haze and atmosphere. These in-situ measurements complement the remote-sensing measurements made from the orbiter. The latter carries a host of instruments designed to perform in-situ (onsite) studies of elements of Saturn, its atmosphere, moons, rings and magnetosphere. The instruments study the temperatures in various
locations, the plasma levels, the neutral and charged particles, the surface composition, the atmospheres and rings, the solar wind, and even the dust grains in the Saturn system. Other instruments perform spectral mapping for high-quality images of the ringed planet, its moons and rings. Among them is a multimode radar, which completely penetrates the hazy atmosphere of Titan. This Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR) imaging system operates as a radiometer (to measure surface temperature or emissivity), a scatterometer and altimeter (to measure the reflectivity and topography along the orbiter groundtrack) and as a synthetic aperture imager. This latter mode, nearest closest approach, images Titans surface at 0.5 to 2 km resolution (i.e. several times poorer resolution than Magellan) over about 1% of Titans surface for each flyby devoted to radar measurements. Thus perhaps 20% of Titans surface will be mapped in long thin strips -during the mission. The imager on the orbiter carries filters tuned to the windows (e.g. 940 nm) in between the methane bands, and so like the HST should be able to measure surface contrasts. Additionally, polarizers are carried which should be able to remove most of the light scattered by the haze at near 90 phase angle, so these measure-
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ments too will study the surface. The exact resolution achievable will depend on the scene contrast and the haze optical depth at the time of the mission, as well as the image motion compensation that can be achieved, but is likely to be better than 100 m. Other filters are able to probe different altitudes in the atmosphere. The Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) instrument spans other spectral windows between 0.6 and 5 microns. This will allow spectral identification of surface materials with high (~500m resolution) as well as resolved composition measurements. Looking at Titans night-side, the instrument may be able to spot lightning, or thermal emission from active cryovolcanism. The Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) instrument allows the temperature to be profiled at different locations in the atmosphere, as well as spatially-resolved composition measurements. CIRS operates in three different focal planes to cover the whole infrared range from 10 to 1500 cm-1, with spectral resolutions varying from 0.5 to 15 cm-1. These data are invaluable for verifying and refining models of chemistry, photochemistry and atmospheric circulation. The interaction of Titan with the Saturnian magnetosphere is being
studied by the Magnetospheric Imaging Instrument (MIMI), the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) and the Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA). The latter instrument searches also for radio emissions from lightning on Titan, although a similar search by Voyager failed to indicate any such emission. The Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) measures the mass, velocity and composition of particles in Titans vicinity. These data will be valuable in understanding the origin of oxygen compounds in Titans reducing atmosphere, believed to be due to photochemical reactions involving meteoric water. The radio system on the orbiter is used to study Titan in two ways first by tracking the spacecraft from Earth, to determine Titans gravity field. This in turn constrains its internal structure (e.g. the size of a rock core, and perhaps the rigidity of the crust), and second by multiple radio occultations. These will measure a temperature profile, and indicate the extent of Titans ionosphere. Direct measurements of the composition of Titans atmosphere versus altitude were made above the Huygens landing site by the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) on the probe -as Titans atmosphere has so many components, separation in two dimensions (by chromatog-
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raphy as well as mass spectroscopy) is required. The GCMS also analyzed the pyrolysis products from the Aerosol Collector and Pyrolyser (ACP), which sucked haze particles into the probe and trapped them in a filter which was subsequently baked in an oven to break down the haze macromolecules into smaller fragments that can be studied in the GCMS. The GCMS also had a heated inlet, so that the volatile component of the surface material at the landing site can be determined. The atmospheric composition at high altitude was also sampled directly, during the closest flybys by the orbiter -the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer analyzes atomic and molecular composition at ~1000 km altitude. These, and spacecraft dynamics measurements, allow direct comparison with the density profile measured by the entry deceleration of the Huygens probe. The entry deceleration was measured by the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument (HASI) which is the only probe instrument to operate prior to parachute deployment on the probe: the deceleration is proportional to density, and from the density profile and hydrostatic equilibrium, a temperature profile of the upper atmosphere was derived. The temperature, and pressure were measured directly from 170km down as the probe
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descended by parachute. HASI also includes a Plasma Wave Analyzer (PWA) which measured the electrical properties of the atmosphere (important in determining haze charging and coagulation physics), searched for thunder and lightning, and the dielectric properties of the surface material. The probe also carried a radar altimeter, which estimated radar reflectivity and surface topography. The radar altimeter, part of the probe system itself, passed its signal to the PWA for science data processing. The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) is an optical instrument that makes measurements at solar wavelengths from the Probe to look at the scattering properties of the aerosols and to find out at which height levels most of the energy from the Sun is deposited in the atmosphere. DISR also operates in the nearinfrared range up to 1.6 micron. It also took pictures of the surface on the way down and allowed for the construction of large panoramas and 3-D images. The DISR was capable of retrieving the data with a resolution orders of magnitude better than has been available from the orbit, albeit of a much smaller region of Titans surface. Observations in the methane bands determined the methane mole fraction. The surface material was directly investigated by the Surface
Science Package (SSP). This is a suite of sensors on the probe destined to measure in the case of a liquid surface (which was not found at the Huygens landing site) refractive index, density, thermal and other properties, allowing a coarse identification. An acoustic sounder measured the speed of sound in the atmosphere during descent (constraining temperature and relative molecular mass with high altitude resolution) and placed bounds on the depth of any liquid reservoir. Prior to impact, the sounder also estimated the surface roughness at the landing site. Having landed on a solid surface, SSPs accelerometer and penetrometer measured the mechanical properties (e.g. particle size, stickiness) of the surface material. Tilt sensors measured the probes attitude during descent. The Doppler Wind Experiment (DWE) expected data on the Titan wind field were finally recovered by measuring the probe signal on Earth by radiotelescopes. The Cassini-Huygens mission has already provided a wealth of data. The analysis is in the first stages and the Cassini orbiter promises to unveil yet more of Titans secrets in the years to come. The Atmosphere of Titan One of the most interesting aspects of Titan is the presence of
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this thick nitrogen atmosphere and the cloud deck surrounding the satellite. Thermal Structure Titans temperature profile was measured in situ by the CassiniHuygens HASI instrument at the probes landing site (15 S, 192 W) from 1400 km down to the surface, where 93.65 0.25 K were measured for a surface pressure of 1467 1 hPa. As Voyager did before, HASI found Titans atmosphere to exhibit the features that characterize the Earths thermal structure: an exosphere, a mesosphere, a stratosphere and a troposphere, with two major temperature inversions at 40 and 250 km, corresponding to the tropopause and stratopause, with temperatures of 70.43 K (min) and 186 K (max) respectively. Another inversion region, less contrasted than the previous ones and than what was inferred from Voyager 1 data, and corresponding to the mesopause can be found at 490 km (for 152 K). Prior to these measurements, Flasar et al. (2005) working with the CIRS data provided information on the lower and upper stratosphere from roughly 70 to 400 km in altitude, indicating the presence of a stratopause around 310 km of altitude for a maximum temperature of 186 K.
The HASI data taken on January, 14, 2005 yield more precise and new information on the upper part of the Titan atmosphere, the thermosphere, where several temperature fluctuations are observed due to dynamical (gravity and tidal) phenomena. Indeed, gravity waves signatures of 10-20 K in amplitude were recorded above 500 km around an average temperature of 170 K. These temperatures are higher than predicted by the models. The absence of a marked mesosphere and the wave signatures observed in the upper regions indicate a strong regime of gravity waves as compared with radiative processes. HASI furthermore reported a lower ionospheric layer between 140 km and 40 km, with electrical conductivity peaking near 60 km. A tentative detection of lightning is under investigation (Fulchignoni et al., 2005). In the lower atmosphere, below about 200 km, all current measurements on Titan agree with the Voyager 1 profile described in section. Analytical radiative transfer microphysical models (as those developed initially by C. McKay and updated by P. Rannou and co-workers to include fractal particles) show that the temperature inversion observed at the tropopause (70 K at 40 km) is the result of strong stratospheric absorption of solar UV and penetration to near the surface of
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longer wavelength solar visible radiation. The temperature lapse rate measured by Huygens/HASI shows a cut-off from the dry adiabatic lapse rate. This means that convective instabilities may occur in Titans lower atmosphere. The surface temperature as determined by HASI (12K warmer than the effective temperature of 82K) is maintained by a greenhouse warming (mostly due to methane and nitrogen) of 22K, offset by cooling by the haze. The models also place constraints on the properties of the haze, the surface albedo and the presence of clouds. Chemical composition Curiously, the bulk composition of Titan was more difficult to determine than the abundances of the trace constituents. Cassini finally allowed firm determinations for the major components, with a methane mole fraction of 1.41 ? 10-2 in the stratosphere, increasing below the tropopause and reaching 4.9 ? 10-2 near the surface. These Huygens GCMS measurements (Niemann et al., 2005) are in good agreement with the stratospheric CH4 value inferred by CIRS on the Cassini orbiter (1.6 0.5 ? 10-2) and the surface estimate given by the Huygens DISR spectra (also 5%). The GCMS also saw a rapid increase of the methane signal after landing suggests that liquid methane exists on the surface,
together with other trace organic species, including cyanogen, benzene, ethane and carbon dioxide. The only noble gas detected to date is argon, found in the form of primordial 36Ar (2.8 ? 10-7) and its radiogenic isotope 40Ar (4.32 ? 10-5) by GCMS which also determined isotopic ratios such as 12C/13C 14 N/15 N (82.31, terrestrial-like), (measured in N2, 1835, that is 1.5 times less than on Earth) and D/H (measured in HD, 2.3 0.5 ? 10-4, found then to be enhanced). The low abundance of primordial noble gases on Titan implies that nitrogen was originally captured as NH3 rather than N2. Subsequent photolysis may have created the N2 atmosphere we see today. Ground-based observations of the 32 monodeuterated methane band at 1.6 m confirm the value of ~1.5x10-4 found from Voyager data analyses of the 6 CH3D band at 8.6 m and support the evidence for a deuterium enrichment in Titans atmosphere with respect to the protosolar value and that of the giant planets (D/H ~ 2-3.4x10-5). However, the enrichment factor is not known with enough precision to allow a firm determination of its origin. Several hypotheses have been suggested. A primitive nebula model was proposed in which two distinct deuterium reservoirs coexisted before the formation of
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the solar system: the main one in gaseous hydrogen (HD) and the second smaller one in deuterated isotopes of CNO compounds (such as methane, ammonia, and water) trapped in ices or clathrates or adsorbed on grains. Or, Titans atmosphere could result from volatile degassing of grains originating from the second reservoir and having accreted to form the satellite. The fractionation mechanisms acting during or after the formation of the satellite could have contributed to the deuterium enrichment observed on Titan. Several processes have been suggested, including exchanges of deuterium between methane gas and cloud particles or the putative ethane-methane ocean, or even the icy crust underneath. An additional possibility could involve isotopic exchange catalyzed in the presence of metallic grains in the Saturnian nebula. The infrared spectra taken by the Cassini CIRS instrument in the 400-1500 cm-1 range at resolutions of 0.5 or 2.5 cm-1 depending on the objective, confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons such as methane, acetylene, ethylene, ethane, diacetylene, methylacetylene, propane and monodeuterated methane. Also, the signatures of nitriles, such as cyanoacetylene, cyanogen and dicyanoacetylene (the latter is observed as ice in
emission at 478 cm-1 and has no equivalent gaseous band), as well as CO2 were reported in CIRS spectra (Flasar et al., 2005). These species were first discovered in a special Voyager IRIS observational sequence, consisting of ~ 30 spectra, recorded at grazing incidence over Titans north polar region in 1980. This data yielded vertical distributions for most of the hydrocarbons and nitriles. The vertical distributions generally increase with altitude, confirming the prediction of photochemical models that these species form in the upper atmosphere and then diffuse downwards in the stratosphere. Below the condensation level of each gas, the distributions are assumed to decrease following the respective vapor saturation law. Ground-based high-resolution heterodyne millimeter observations of Titan led by French and American teams offered the opportunity to determine vertical profiles and partial mapping in some cases of HCN, CO, HC3N, and CH3CN which showed that the nitrile abundances increase with altitude, in agreement with predictions by photochemical models which place the production zone above 300 km in the mesosphere. Subsidence causes the abundance of these species to decrease in the lower atmosphere. CH3CN and CO were not ob149
served on Titan with Voyager or ISO. In 1997 the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) made new detections of Titan atmospheric constituents. ISO was put into orbit around the Earth in November 1995 and lasted for 28 months. It carried a 60-cm diameter He-cooled telescope and operated in the 2-200 micron spectral region through 4 instruments: 2 spectrometers, a photometer and a camera. Titan spectra, acquired by Coustenis and colleagues at high-resolution (about 10 times higher than Voyager/IRIS) acquired on January 10 and December 27, 1997, were disk-averages. Those recorded by the Short Wavelength Spectrometer in the grating mode cover the range from roughly 2 to 50 micron and show emission signatures of all of the expected minor constituents in Titans stratosphere (hydrocarbons, nitriles and CO2), albeit with a higher resolution allowing us to resolve the bands and distinguish the various contributions. As a consequence, a better determination of the abundances and vertical distributions of these components is achieved on a diskaverage scale. The ISO/SWS spectra also provided the first detection of water vapor in Titans atmosphere from 2 emission lines around 40 micron (the associated mole fraction derived at 400 km
of altitude is about 10-8), as well as the first hint at the presence of benzene (C6H6) at 674 cm-1 for a mole fraction on the order of a few 10-10 (Coustenis et al., 1998; 2003). Since then, the benzene detection has been confirmed by Cassini (Flasar et al., 2005). The water vapor abundance although seemingly small, implies a water influx on Titan significantly superior to what might be expected based on local and interplanetary sources alone (rather in favor of Saturn). With the detection of water vapor the source for the atmospheric carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide observed in Titan was at last found. Water quickly dissociates into OH which combines with methane photolysis products (such as CH2, CH3, etc..) and produces CO and CO2. The source for water on Titan can be found in the rings of Saturn, the meteorites or comets. The Cassini/ CIRS FP1 data have not so far allowed a confirmation of the water vapor detection, but they are compatible with the H2O profile derived by ISO. Finally, the 3-micron region (only partly attainable from Earth due to the terrestrial H2O interference but containing another methane window near 2.75 micron) was observed with ISO, providing new information on Titans lower atmosphere and surface content.
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Carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) are the only two oxygen compounds found in Titans atmosphere to date. Their abundances are coupled and related to the presence of traces of water vapor in Titans atmosphere. With this independent source provided in the form of hydroxyl radicals (OH, from an external water influx contained in chondritic or icy meteorites, consequently photodissociated to produce OH radicals in the high atmosphere), CO can then be formed from reactions of OH and CH2 or CH3. Carbon monoxide then moves downwards and is destroyed near 500 km by action of OH with subsequent formation of carbon dioxide. On the other hand, through photolysis, various reactions and mainly condensation, CO2 can be removed to restore CO. The photochemical lifetime of carbon monoxide is very long (comparable to the age of Titan), and as a consequence, it is expected to be uniformly mixed with the background N2 atmosphere. Carbon dioxide was identified in the Voyager 1/IRIS spectra from the emission feature around 667 cm-1, at an average mole fraction in Titans stratosphere of about 15 ppb, representative of the 8 mbar level and assuming a constant mixing ratio above the condensation level.
Carbon monoxide (CO) was first detected in the near-infrared from ground-based observations around 6350 cm-1 and a constant mixing ratio of 5x10-5 was derived in the troposphere with a factor of 3 uncertainty (therefore in accordance with the Voyager value). Microwave measurements confirmed this value and it seemed that CO was, as expected, uniformly mixed throughout the whole Titan atmosphere. Observations using heterodyne techniques suggest however that the carbon monoxide mixing ratio is more than an order of magnitude lower than previous estimates. When compared to the tropospheric value, this abundance suggests that CO is depleted in the stratosphere. We are therefore faced with an enigma regarding the carbon monoxide abundance on Titan. On the one hand, if CO is indeed much less abundant in the stratosphere than in the troposphere, some mechanism -other than the classical photochemical concepts -must be found to produce a satisfactory explanation. It has been suggested that aerosols might alter the vertical distribution of carbon monoxide by adsorbing CO molecules and transporting them in the troposphere in sufficient quantities so as to generate the enrichment observed. This hypothesis requires massive condensation of methane
and therefore, if all the observations are correct, there may be implication for large amounts of methane ice in the Titanian atmosphere. On the other hand, either or both sets of observations may be incorrect. Haze and clouds on Titan Starting from the upper atmosphere, the Cassini ISS camera showed a faint thin haze layer that encircles the denser stratospheric haze and could be the equivalent of the detached haze layer observed by Voyager 25 years ago, except for the difference in altitudes : the thin current haze layer is indeed located 150-200 km higher than the one seen by Voyager. Current models are still unable to render the complexity of seasonal phenomena or circulation patterns on Titan which could be responsible for such an upward shift. Cassini images also show a multilayer structure in the North polar hood region and at lower latitudes in some cases (Porco et al., 2005). These features could be due to gravity waves that have been detected on Titan at lower altitudes. Some of these layers may be related to the two global inversion layers observed in stellar occultations of Titan above 400 km in altitude. The nature of the haze aerosols measured by Huygens/DISR during the descent through Titans lower
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atmosphere came as a surprise to scientists recalling the results from Pioneer and Voyager, as well as predictions by cloud physics models with sedimentation and coagulation. The new observations estimate the monomer radius to be 0.05 mm, in good agreement with previous values. However, contrary to previous assumptions, the DISR data show that the haze optical depth varies from about 2 at 935nm to only about 4.5 at 531 nm, and the number of monomers in a haze particle is therefore probably several hundred (instead of 45). A value of 256 for N gives a projected area equal to that of a sphere of radius 0.65 mm, about twice as large as previously assumed. With N = 512, the equivalent sphere with the same projected area has a radius of 0.9 mm, nearly three times the size previously used. In any case, it seems that the size of the aggregate particles is several times as large as in some of the older models (Tomasko et al., 2005). In addition, measurements by the DISR violet photometer will extend the optical measurements of the haze to wavelengths as short as the band from 350 to 480 nm, also helping to constrain the size of the haze particles. The number density of the haze particles does not increase with depth nearly as dramatically as predicted by the older cloud physics models. In
fact, the number density increases by only a factor of a few over the altitude range from 150 km to the surface. This implies that vertical mixing is much less than had been assumed in the older models where the particles were distributed approximately as the gas is with altitude. In any event, the clear space at low altitudes was suggested earlier, was not observed. The methane mole fraction of 1.6% measured in the stratosphere by the CIRS and the GCMS is consistent with the DISR spectral measurements. At very low altitudes (20 m) DISR measured 5 1% for the methane mole fraction (Tomasko et al., 2005). Cassini-Huygens has provided new information on the role of methane and the methane cycle in Titans atmosphere. The relative humidity of methane (about 50%) at the surface found by DISR and the evaporation witnessed by the GCMS show that there has been and will probably again exist fluid flows on the surface, implying precipitation of methane through the atmosphere. Although some argument took place for a considerable time as to whether Titans lower atmosphere could support convection or not and as to whether methane was supersaturated or not, there is clear evidence today that clouds
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exist in Titans troposphere, although in general they tend to appear higher than expected. Methane clouds in Titans troposphere were first suspected from variability in the methane spectrum observed from the ground by Griffith et al. (2003). Direct imaging of clouds on Titan has been achieved from Earth-based observatories since the turning of the century (e. g. Roe et al., 2002; Hirtzig et al., 2006). Most of the currently-detected clouds are located in Titans southern hemisphere, as expected given the season on Titan (summer in the South) which means that solar heating is concentrated there as well as rising motions. Other than the large, bright South Pole system observed for the past 5 years or so, discrete clouds detected at mid-latitudes are infrequent, small and short-lived (Cassini/VIMS observations tend to indicate that they rise quickly to the upper troposphere and dissipate through rain within an hour). Keck and Gemini data by Roe and colleagues indicate that they tend to cluster near 350 W and 40 S. They may be related to some surface-atmosphere exchange (such as geysering or cryovolcanism) because they dont seem to be easily explained by a shift in global circulation. A dozen or so of large-scale zonal streaks have also been observed by Cassini preferentially at low
southern latitudes and mostly between 50200 W. The large south polar system has been visible consistently essentially in the near-infrared (at 2.12 micron for instance) since 1999, while no previous indication of it was aver reported. It was extremely bright in 2001-2002 and recent Cassini images have shown that it is disappearing (indeed it was visible only during the few first Titan flybys and not afterwards). Its shape is irregular and changing with time, recently resembling more a cluster of smaller-scale clouds than a large compact field. Should it prove that this systems life was indeed on the order of 56 years (fairly close to a Titan season), stringent constraints can be retrieved on seasonal and circulation patterns on Titan. Note that DISR reported no definite detection of clouds during its descent through Titans atmosphere. However, the data are compatible with a thin haze layer at around 21 km of altitude which could be due to methane condensation. The Surface of Titan Perhaps the most intriguing part of the Titan science will be to determine the nature of Titans surface. This feature of Titans was investigated in situ by the Huygens probe on January 14, 2005. The surface from the orbiter
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As mentioned previously, Titans surface has been known to be covered with bright regions separated by darker material from ground-based and HST observations (Coustenis et al., 2005). These variations are more readily attributed to the presence on the surface of constituents with different albedos rather than topography, although contribution from the latter is also expected. The reason is that the Cassini camera (Porco et al., 2005) observing at 0.94 micron cannot see shadows and also Titans icy bulk does not plead for high topographic structures on the surface (mountains should not exceed 3 km or so). The ISS and VIMS cameras confirmed these results and showed that the borders of these regions were linear but not smooth and that dramatic changes in surface albedo could be noted in the maps produced by these measurements. The best resolution achieved by ISS was of a few kilometers on Titans surface. The large bright area around the equator first observed by the HST and the adaptive optics in 1994 was resolved and finely observed by Cassini instruments. It is centered at 10 S and 100 W and officially named Xanadu Regio. The mid-latitude regions around the equator on Titan were found to be rather uniformly bright, while the Southern pole is
relatively dark. What exactly is causing the albedo variations is still uncertain. A plausible candidate for the darker regions could be accumulations of hydrocarbons (in liquid or solid form), precipitating down from the atmosphere. For the brighter regions the task of interpreting the data is more difficult. It has been hypothesized that they could be associated with some topography and more exposed dirty ice content and this tends to be in agreement with findings by the Huygens/DISR instrument whose stereoscopic imaging revealed that the brighter terrain was also more elevated than the darker, smother and lower-ice regions. The exact ice which can satisfy the constraints imposed by all the observations is not easy to determine, hydrocarbon ice has been invoked on the basis of Xanadu appearing bright at all the near-infrared wavelengths observed to date (Coustenis et al., 2005). Titan may well exhibit cryovolcanic activity, in view of various recent reports (Sotin et al., 2005) from Cassini/ISS. A bright circular structure (about 30 km in diameter) found in the VIMS hyperspectral images is interpreted as a cryovolcanic dome in an area dominated by extension. The VIMS team hypothesized that is the dry channels observed on Titan are related to upwelling hot ice and contaminated by
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hydrocarbons that vaporize as they get close to the surface (to account for the methane gas in the atmosphere), mechanisms similar to those operating for silicate volcanism on Earth (using tidal heating as an energy source) may lead to flows of non-H2O ices on Titans surface. Following such eruptions, methane rain could produce the dendritic dark structures seen by CassiniHuygens. If these structures are indeed channels, they could have dried out due to the short timescale for methane dissociation in the atmosphere. Studying volcanism on Titan (if Cassini definitely yields evidence for it) is important, not only to understand the thermal history of Titan (which since it differs in its incorporation of volatiles from the Galilean satellites, must surely have evolved differently) but also how volatiles in particular, methane -were delivered to the surface. Titans present environment is very placid -tidal currents are weak, rainfall -if it occurs -is soft, the diurnal temperature contrasts small (and therefore winds are gentle). The solubility of ice in hydrocarbons is smaller than that of most rocks in water. Thus, except where the surface is more susceptible to erosion, due to organic deposits or perhaps water-ammonia ice, Titans topography should not be significantly modified by erosion.
The Cassini instruments have found no obvious evidence for a heavy craterization on the bright or the dark areas of Titan so far. A few features interpreted as impact craters have been announced to date: Cassinis Radar and VIMS saw a 440-km large in diameter impact crater on Titan during two separate flybys in early 2005. The coloring of the feature indicates that its terrain is rough, with different material for the crater floor and the ejecta and tilted towards the radar during the observations. The multi-ringed impact basin was named Circus Maximus by the science team. A smaller crater of about 40 km was also observed, exhibiting a parabolic-shaped ejecta blanket. Nevertheless, craters identified by the RADAR, VIMS or the ISS are rare. This may mean that the surface of Titan is young (less than a billion years) or highly eroded/ modified. Other features observed by the Cassini orbiter include tiger scratches or cat scratches, a set of linear dark features visible across a large part of the RADAR swath to the west of the large crater. Their similarity to dunes as observed on Earth has led some scientists to hypothesize that they could be due to fine-grained material on a stringer, perhaps connected to fluid flows across the surface. The surface from the probe
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On January 14, 2005 the Huygens probe manufactured by ESA landed at 10.3 S and 192.3 W on Titan, providing the ground truth for the orbital measurements in terms of composition, structure and geomorphology. The probe flew over an icy surface, floated down and drifted eastwards for about 160 km. Several of the instruments on board contributed to our knowledge of Titans surface conditions: DISR, SSP, HASI, GCMS. The HASI instrument measured surface temperature and pressure at the landing site to be: 93.65 0.25 K for 1.467 1 atmospheres (Fulchignoni et al., 2005). The fact that the surface is solid but unconsolidated was verified by all the data. The first part of the probe to touch the surface was the SSP penetrometer whose data are now interpreted as indicative of the probe first hitting one of the icy pebbles littering the landing area before sinking into the softer darker ground material. The SSP detected the ground from 88 km in altitude by acoustic sounding, revealing a relatively smooth, but not flat surface for which our best current hypothesis is gravel wet sand, wet clay, or lightly packed snow. With a landing speed of about 5 m/s the front of the probe followed and penetrated the surface, then slid slightly before settling to allow the DISR camera to take several
pictures of a Mars-like landscape, complete with a dark riverbed and brighter pebbles. No evidence for liquid was found, but the surface is expected to be very humid since methane evaporation (a 40% increase of the abundance) was measured by the GCMS after landing. Huygens landed on an organic-rich surface, with trace organic species such as cyanogens and ethane detected on the ground. In spite of some misadventures (loss of the sun sensor measurements, of about half the images from Channel B and the probes erratic motion), the DISR imager and spectrometer gathered a precious set of data both in spectroscopy and imaging. Starting from the first surface image at 49 km, down to the unprecedented-quality snapshots of the Huygens landing site, and through the lamp-on data recorded below 700 km in altitude, this instrument played a decisive part in untangling the enigma of Titans surface and lower atmosphere. Panoramic mosaics constructed from a set of images taken at different altitudes show brighter regions separated by lanes or lineaments of darker material, interpreted as channels, which come in short stubby features or more complex ones with many branches This latter dendritic network can be caused by rainfall creating drainage
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channels, implying a liquid source somewhere or at some times on Titans surface. The former stubby channels are wider and rectilinear. They often start or end in dark circular areas suggesting dried lakes or pits. No obvious crater features were observed. Stereoscopic analysis was performed on the DISR images indicating that the bright area cut with the dendritic systems is 50200 km higher than the large darker plane to the South (Tomasko et al, 2005). If the latter feature is a dried lakebed, it seems too large by Earth standards to have been created by the creeks and channels seen on the images and could be due to larger rivers or a catastrophic event in the past. The dark channels could be due to liquid methane irrigating the bright elevated terrains before being carried through the channels to the region offshore in southeasterly flows. This migration towards the lower regions leads to water (?) ice being exposed along the upstream faces of the ridges. The slopes are generally on the order of 30. Some of the bright linear streaks seen on the images could be due to icy flows from the interior of Titan emerging through fissures. The images taken after the probe had landed on Titans surface show a dark riverbed strewn with brighter round rocks. 15-cm in diameter at most, more of these
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stones could possibly be hydrocarbons-coated water ice pebbles (Tomasko et al., 2005). The spectra acquired during the descent gave information on the atmospheric properties, but also on the surface properties. Indeed, it was shown from spectral reflectance data of the region seen from the probe that the differences in albedo were related to differences in topography which in turn can be connected to the spectral behavior of the ground constituents. Thus, the higher brighter regions were also found to be redder than the lowland lakebeds. The regions near the mouths of the rivers are also redder than the lake regions. The spectra taken by DISR are compatible with the presence of water ice on Titans surface (Tomasko et al., 2005), something that had already been suggested from ground-based observations. The most intriguing feature found in the spectra was however the featureless quasi-linear unidentified blue slope observed between 830 and 1,420 nm. No combination of any ice and organic material from laboratory measurements has been adequate in reproducing this characteristic. The jury is still out on the constituent(s) that create(s) this signature. Although many questions still remain about the sequence of flooding and the formation of all
the complex structures observed by DISR, this data tends to clear the picture we have of Titan today and at the same time enhance the impression that by studying Saturns satellite were looking at an environment resembling the Earth more closely than any other place in our Solar System. No biotic signatures were found on Titan. One of the elements in the negative response (at least so far as the present or past life is concerned) was found by the GCMS in the 13C/14C isotopic ratio which showed that no active biota exist on Titan and that the methane on Titan is of nonbiologic source. The reality pictured by the CassiniHuygens instruments went beyond anything that has been speculated about Titans surface. The diversity of the terrain includes impact craters, dark plains with some brighter flows, mysterious linear black features possibly related to winds, sand dunes, snow dunes and a host of possible actors: solids, winds, liquids, ices, volcanism, etc Titan has proven to be a much more complex world than originally
thought and much tougher to unveil. Acknowledgements The author is part of the CIRS Team (PI M. Flasar), the HASI Team (PI: M. Fulchignoni) and the DISR Team (PI: M. Tomasko). References 1 2 3 4 A.. Coustenis etal., Icarus 177,89-105, (2006). A.. Coustenis etal., submitted for publication, (2006). F. M.. Flasar etal., Science 308, 975-978 (2005). M.. Fulchignoni etal., Nature 438, 785-791 (2005).
5. Griffith etal., Science 300, 628630 (2003). 6 7 8 9 M.. Hirtzig etal., submitted for publication (2006). H.. Niemann etal., Nature 438, 785-791 (2005). C. Porco et al. Nature 434, 159-168. H. Roe et al. Icarus 157, 254.
10 C. Sotin etal., Nature 435, 786-789 (2005). 11 M.. Tomasko etal., Nature 438, 785-791 (2005).
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The 36th Bruce-Preller Prize Lecture Professor Jason M Reese Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Strathclyde 4 September 2006 EXTREME FLUID DYNAMICS AND THE SEARCH FOR A NEW ENGINEERING SCIENCE What do avalanches, traffic, nanotechnology and the aerodynamics of space shuttles have in common? While we could see each of these as involving flows of snow or cars or air these are not flows in the way we think of, say, water flowing down a river. So what makes these different to ordinary flows, and is the difference important? In this lecture I will mainly concentrate on flows of extreme speed or at extremely small scale hence my title Extreme Fluid Dynamics. For example, when a space shuttle re-enters the Earths atmosphere, its extreme speed generates temperatures high enough to ionise the air around it. The shroud of hot electrically-charged gases causes the well-known communications blackout that shuttles suffer in the upper atmosphere. So the engineers designing new space vehicles and future high-speed aeroplanes need a good understanding of aerodynamics in the upper reaches of our atmosphere. At the other end of the scale, nanotechnology promises to transform all our lives in the coming century. It affords the engineer an opportunity to design new devices that manipulate fluids at the smallest scales and in the smallest systems. These emerging technologies have, however, exposed a weakness in our ability to predict how fluids flow in extreme circumstances. Some surprising and curious effects occur in these types of flows that do not happen conventionally. I included in my title the phrase The Search for a New Engineering Science because engineers who are imagining and developing these technologies need a new design methodology that embodies the unusual physics of these kinds of flows. I thought of adding a further heading: Back to the Future; although that movie title is perhaps a caption too far, the new engineering science needed for technologies emerging in the 21st century is, in fact, deeply rooted in the 19th century.
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The radiometer A radiometer, also called a solar engine is about 10cm high, and you still sometimes see them in shop windows where they are placed as attention-grabbers. It doesnt look much, but at the end of the 19th century it caught the attention of some of the worlds greatest physicists. The radiometer was invented in 1873 by William Crookes, who later became President of the Royal Society of London. It is a glass bulb containing a partial vacuum or low-density gas. In the bulb, four vanes are suspended on a pin. The vanes are each silvered on one side and darkened on the other. The whole spindle turns very smartly in strong light, and the reason for this perplexed physicists at the end of the 19th century. When it was first exhibited by Crookes, the radiometer caused much excitement because it was taken as evidence that light had momentum. It seemed to most physicists at the time that the vanes were turning in a beam of light like a windmill turns in the wind. This explanation is still sometimes taught in schools and colleges but it is wrong! The silver side of a vane reflects the light more than the dark side, which absorbs light. The change in momentum of the light is therefore greater on the silver
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than on the dark side. Newtons Second Law tells us that the force acting on each side of the vane is proportional to the changes in momentum. So if the rotation is caused by the momentum of light then the spindle should be turning with the dark sides leading. But, in fact, the silver sides lead the turning. In any case, scientists calculated that light could not exert enough pressure to turn the vanes so quickly. Following that, all sorts of other more or less plausible explanations were proffered. Some people even said that the movement of the radiometer had a supernatural cause. This explanation may have appealed to Crookes himself, who was intensely interested, as many prominent 19th century figures were, in spiritualism. But the real explanation is, of course, physical: it just turned out to be very subtle and interesting physics. It took the intuitive genius of James Clerk Maxwell, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and one of the greatest theoretical physicists of all time, to work out what was going on. This year, 2006, marks the 175th anniversary of Maxwells birth. Most people associate Maxwell with his groundbreaking work on electromagnetism, but it is his research on molecules and their interactions (called the kinetic
theory of gases) that underpins the subject of this lecture and which is coming back into such prominence for 21st century technologies. If the radiometer bulb is filled with air at atmospheric pressure, the spindle does not move. Likewise if the bulb is totally evacuated. So the explanation for the movement must have something to do with the density of the air. Light falling on the radiometer warms up the black, radiationabsorbing sides of the vanes more than the silvered sides. Around the edges of the vanes there is therefore a thermal gradient caused by the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides. By considering the gas as molecules bouncing off a surface, Maxwell (working, admittedly, with an idea of another scientist, Osborne Reynolds) discovered that a thermal gradient causes a rarefied, or low-density, gas to slip over a surface from the cold region to the hot region. This process is called thermal transpiration or thermal creep. Through Newtons Third Law the momentum of the slipping gas causes the vanes to start turning in the opposite direction. This means that the cold or silvered sides lead the actual rotation which is what is observed.
Thermal creep is just one of the curious effects that is important in rarefied flows. It is a type of physics that literally comes out of thin air. Maxwell used physical arguments to understand why this effect arises, and to quantify it. The mathematics is not overly complex and can be found in any textbook on the kinetic theory of gases. I will return to this later when I describe new microscopic air pumps which have no moving parts. Maxwell was summoned to Buckingham Palace to explain to Queen Victoria how the radiometer works. It seems she was mildly amused by the explanation of how movement could be generated apparently out of nothing. But, as Maxwell observed, perhaps ironically, the Queen did not make much ado about nothing as she had much heavy work cut out for her all the rest of the day. The motion of the radiometer indicates that flows in and around devices that operate in lowdensity air behave differently to what we would expect. You can immediately see the implications for an aerospace engineer designing next-generation aircraft or space-vehicles that fly high up in the atmosphere where the air is very thin. But the radiometer also points us in the direction of other developing technologies too. The key issue here is one of scale.
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Rarefied gas dynamics Fluid dynamics is the branch of classical physics that deals with flowing material; that is, liquids and gases in motion. Mathematical descriptions of how fluids exchange heat and momentum internally were developed in the early 19th century in order to understand the behaviour of fluid flows that were central to the burgeoning technologies of the industrial revolution such as ships, pumps, engines etc. These mathematical descriptions are the famous Navier-Stokes equations. They are still excellent for predicting the behaviour of most fluid flows, including those that are important in more recent technologies (such as aeroplanes and heart valves). However, these equations are predicated on the assumption that the bulk, or macroscopic flow of a fluid does not depend greatly on the microscopic physics of its constituent molecules, particles or grains. For example, a fundamental physical difference between liquids and gases is that liquid molecules are constantly in contact with one another, but gas molecules are on average separated. However, in most cases encountered by engineers, a liquid flow has patterns and behaviour broadly similar to that of a gas flow. So this microscopic physical difference is not normally
reflected in a difference in the macroscopic flow behaviour. In fluid dynamics, this is called the continuum-equilibrium assumption. In practice, it means that in order to predict how a fluid flow behaves, we assume that the constituent molecules or particles of the flow exchange energy and momentum almost instantaneously with each other. In a simple gas, molecules need to collide some three or four times in order to equilibrate their energy and momentum with neighbouring molecules. At normal temperatures and pressures, the average distance molecules travel between successive collisions, which is called the mean free path, is around 1/10th of a micrometre (where a micrometre is a millionth of a metre). If an aerospace engineer wants to calculate the lift or drag of an aeroplane, for example the new Airbus A380, he or she will be interested in features of the airflow around the plane at a scale of centimetres or metres. So the scale difference between the bulk behaviour of the airflow around the Airbus and the molecular behaviour of the air is a factor of a million or more. When calculating the aerodynamic behaviour of everyday air-vehicles, engineers can therefore effectively ignore microscopic molecular collision effects. The conventional
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continuum-equilibrium description is quite acceptable. However, we have seen that rarefied, or low-density, gas flows behave differently to these everyday flows. The radiometer works best when the air pressure inside the bulb is 1/100,000th of atmospheric pressure. Then the air is so rarefied that the molecular mean free path is about a centimetre. The size of the vanes is perhaps a centimetre or two, so in a radiometer the macro- and microscopic physical effects are happening on very similar length scales. In this case the continuumequilibrium assumption of fluid dynamics no longer holds and interesting new fluid motion occurs, which causes the vanes to move due to temperature differences. If the radiometer bulb is instead filled with air at atmospheric pressure the density of the air is higher; the mean free path drops to a 1/10th of a micrometre, scale separation becomes large, continuum-equilibrium returns and we do not get any unusual physics. But we also see scale effects in engineering systems that are very small. For example, if a gas at atmospheric pressure is flowing down a channel 1m wide, the scale separation between macroscopic
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and microscopic flow physics is a factor of a million or more (just as in the aeroplane case, above). Therefore if we want to predict the behaviour of the flow we can legitimately ignore any molecular effects and use the conventional Navier-Stokes equations. The gas can be thought of as an infinitelydivisible continuum, with flow properties defined at every point in the system. However, a microscale channel is a million times smaller than the first. Now the mean free path the distance molecules travel between collisions, which is greater than the average distance between molecules is comparable to the width of the channel itself. So this is very far from being a continuum-equilibrium flow. The Knudsen number A non-equilibrium flow is one in which bulk properties, like flow speed or density, change over a distance similar to that which gas molecules travel on average between collisions. An important indicator of nonequilibrium is the Knudsen number, named after the early 20th century Danish physicist Martin Hans Christian Knudsen. This non-dimensional number is the ratio of the gas molecular mean free path to a characteristic macroscopic length-scale of the fluid system:
If the Knudsen number is less than about 0.001, then the micro/ macro scale separation is large and, as we have seen, conventional fluid dynamics is appropriate. However, the fluid dynamics starts to change when the Knudsen number rises, either due to the low density of the gas (which makes the molecular mean free path larger) or when the lengthscale of the system is small. Micro- or nanoscale devices are usually intended to operate at standard atmospheric pressures, in which case the mean free path of air molecules is 0.1 micrometres. For devices with a typical size of 1 micrometre, the Knudsen number is therefore 0.1. The characteristic length of a high-speed air vehicle, such as the Space Shuttle, could be the radius of curvature of its nose cone or wing say, 10 cm. But the air flowing over the Space Shuttle when it is manoeuvring at an altitude of 100 km is so thin that the molecular mean free path is about 1 cm. Again, we can see that the Knudsen number is therefore about 0.1. So despite these two flow situations being very different from each other, they are linked through having the same Knudsen number. Engineers building high-altitude aircraft or micro- and nanoscale machines should not just make suitably scaled versions of current
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designs. If they do, they will miss out on some vital physics that changes the way their contraption works: a gas turbine that fits in the palm of your hand will work differently from the gas turbines that propel planes, even if all the lengths and continuum flow properties are properly scaleddown. Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA have been having difficulties developing a gas turbine power generator the size of a cigarette lighter. Their ultimate aim is to use this as a power source far more compact and efficient than batteries or fuel cells, but at the moment technical difficulties in the multiscale fluid dynamics and heat transfer have stalled their research programme. So this is the extreme fluid dynamics of the title of my lecture. I will return to the devices and applications in which this fluid dynamics is important, but first I would like to describe some of the new engineering science that we are developing at the University of Strathclyde to understand these flows. Non-equilibrium fluid dynamics There are a number of different techniques that engineers can use to simulate and predict flow behaviour over the range of Knudsen number. At the very lowest Knudsen numbers, which as we have seen
is the realm of continuumequilibrium fluids, the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations are effective models. All engineering undergraduates learn about these at university. At slightly higher Knudsen numbers, the Navier-Stokes equations are still quite good, as long as you allow for the gas to slip at solid bounding surfaces. Conversely, at very high Knudsen number, the gas molecules spend most of their time freely moving between a few, brief collisions. This situation is ideal for computer simulations which track each individual molecule or groups of molecules. But for less-rarefied flows the number of molecules that need to be tracked in threedimensional space would occupy the most powerful computers available for decades. So what do we do if the flow is so non-equilibrium that even the Navier-Stokes equations with slip are ineffective, but the gas is so dense that the largest computers are not powerful enough to track the individual molecules? This is called the transitioncontinuum regime, and it is one of the uncanny coincidences of engineering that, with a Knudsen number of 0.1, our space shuttles and micro- or nano-devices lie right in the middle of it.
Extended hydrodynamics In my research group we are investigating an approach which is called extended hydrodynamics. One of Maxwells brilliant contemporaries, an Austrian physicist called Ludwig Boltzmann, devised an equation that remains the basis of all molecular gas descriptions today. Boltzmanns equation describes how the function, f (which is the distribution of gas molecules at a particular place in the flow, x, with a particular velocity, v) evolves in time, t: The left hand side of the equation represents the drift motion of the molecules, without collisions, under the influence of a gravitational or other force, g. The right hand side of the equation is the collision function which represents the scattering of molecules due to intermolecular collisions. If we could solve this equation for f we would know the number and velocity of gas molecules at any point in a flow. Together with the mass of the molecules, we can then easily derive useful flow properties. The problem is that the Boltzmann equation cannot be exactly solved for anything but the simplest flows. So at Strathclyde University we are working towards a good engineering solution that gives us acceptable accuracy without the need to compute
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expensive and time-consuming molecular simulations. Our model is approximate, and still under development after all, this is a new engineering science but it offers interesting possibilities for the future. Essentially, we are trying to construct a fluid dynamic model somewhat like the Navier-Stokes model, only more applicable to flows with a high Knudsen number. To do this, we develop approximate solutions for the distribution function f in Boltzmanns equation as a series in Knudsen number around a local equilibrium. The more terms we take in this series the further away from continuum-equilibrium we get. The mathematical details of the technique are abstruse, but the first term in the series yields the Euler equations which are a very simplified model of fluid interactions. The next term gives the Navier-Stokes relations which is encouraging because this is what we would expect for a flow with only small departures from continuum-equilibrium. However, the third term yields what are called the Burnett equations. These are higherorder in Knudsen number and can be thought of as revised or extended versions of the NavierStokes equations which embody more of the physics of non166
equilibrium flows. This is why models of this type are often called extended hydrodynamics. We could take further terms in this series to get equations even more appropriate for nonequilibrium flows. But the mathematical difficulties mount and the resulting equations are extremely cumbersome. One advantage of extended hydrodynamics is that we can keep our efficient computer codes for solving the Navier-Stokes equations and just adapt them to take the more complex Burnett equations. Another advantage is that extended hydrodynamics reverts to the Navier-Stokes equations whenever the flow, for whatever reason, becomes continuum-equilibrium again. But it does have some major drawbacks at the moment, which are the subject of intense research work in different countries around the world. First of all, the details of the approximate solution technique for the distribution function can be interpreted in several ways. This leads to a number of different forms of extended hydrodynamic equations, and noone can quite agree on which is correct. Second, while the Navier-Stokes relations are linear, first order and easy to write down, the Burnett equations are intimidatingly
complex. They involve nonlinear and second-order terms, as well as a number of new coefficients which are difficult to determine. Finally, further flow conditions need to be imposed at solid surfaces and while we can make some guesses, no-one has yet come up with a good general theory as to what these should be. Simple non-equilibrium applications and solutions Researchers are still working towards a general approach to using extended hydrodynamics, but we have made substantial progress in solving specific flow problems. I will therefore show here some of our results that demonstrate the potential of extended hydrodynamics for aerosciences and microscopic engineering. In order to design a safe and effective space shuttle, aerospace engineers need to model the flow around the vehicle numerically. The Space Shuttle re-enters the atmosphere from orbit at about 25 times the speed of sound or Mach 25. It drives a strong bow shock wave ahead of it, which compresses the air passing through it and brings it to very high temperatures. The hot gas blows over the vehicle, and some of its heat is transferred by convection to the shuttle, which must be insulated from these high temperatures by heat tiles.
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The Navier-Stokes equations can be used to perform numerical calculations of the flow around the shuttle, and they do produce a flow pattern very similar to experiments on scale models. But is it right in the fine, and allimportant, detail? Engineers generally think of shock waves as discontinuous jumps in the density, pressure and temperature of a flow. But real shocks have a certain thickness. So a simple question we can ask is: do the Navier-Stokes equations predict this shock density thickness correctly? This is a particularly good test for new fluid dynamics models because there is a good amount of experimental data from the early days of the space programme. Also, if we want to try out extended hydrodynamics, we do not run into the problem I mentioned above in defining new flow conditions at surfaces. The bow shock is established in a flow, not at a surface, so we only need to know the freestream flow conditions. We first tried using the NavierStokes equations to calculate the variation in density through a shock of Mach 8 that is, eight times the speed of sound. This is the dashed red line in the figure. We can see that compared to experimental data the blue circles the Navier-Stokes
equations predict a shock which is too thin. However, if we use the Burnett equations instead we get a shock prediction that is pretty much in line with the experimental data except there is a little divergence in the upstream region of the shock. Problems with Navier-Stokes predictions are seen even better when calculating the inverse of the shock density thickness for a range of shocks up to Mach 11. Over most of this Mach number range the Navier-Stokes model predicts shocks which are wrong by up to 100% when compared with experiment. For a simple case like this, aerospace engineers need their calculations to be correct to within a couple of percent, so clearly the NavierStokes equations are inadequate. The Burnett extended hydrodynamic equations achieve much better predictions of the inverse density thickness. While there is still some inaccuracy, mainly at low Mach numbers, these results show clearly that there is an opportunity here for an extended hydrodynamic model. Predicting these high-speed nonequilibrium flows is important. In the case of the space shuttle, nonequilibrium real gas effects meant that the aerodynamic centre of the Space Shuttle Columbia was not at the expected point on the
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vehicle. This gave the astronauts on Columbias maiden flight in 1981 some anxious moments during reentry when there was concern about losing control of the vehicle. Non-equilibrium flows in microscopic devices might not generally have this level of safety implications, but they are certainly important in industrial design. The world record for the smallest computer hard disk drive is currently held by the Toshiba company. Its ultra-compact disk is just over 2 cm wide, and can hold up to four Gigabytes of data. The urge towards miniaturisation of these devices means that more and more data has to be squeezed into a smaller disk space. Therefore the data-density of the disk increases and reader heads are being designed that are ever closer to the disk surface to resolve the fine data structure. Floating the reader head over the disk surface is an example of a slider air bearing. Toshibas engineers need to understand the aerodynamics of this flow to ensure that the reader arm is able to maintain a constant separation and does not crash into the rotating disk underneath. For reader heads that are only a micrometre, or even less, above the rotating disk the physics of non-equilibrium microscopic flows becomes important.
However, a problem in investigating flows in these small geometries is the lack of experimental data. It is extremely difficult to resolve gas velocities in such small spaces. So we have to rely instead on a molecular dynamics simulation called DSMC, which is a computational model of the movement and interactions of millions of representative gas molecules. While it is acceptable as an experimental substitute, it is not a practical design tool in any but the simplest cases because it requires exorbitant computational resources. The flow between two surfaces, one of which is moving (the disk) and the other stationary (the reader head) is called Couette flow. Here are three figures for Couette flow where the separation is 3, 0.4 and 0.1 micrometres. The gas pressure variations are plotted across half the separation height for clarity, but the variation is symmetric across the full separation distance. The DSMC simulations blue circles show that we should expect pressure variations of between 10 and 20%. We see that the Navier-Stokes equations predict no pressure variation at all, but our Burnett equations do an excellent job of predicting the amount and shape of the pressure variation.
It is important to get these pressures right, because these simulations are showing us that the pressure between the reader head and the disk surface is higher in the middle than at the edges. Therefore the head and surface are pushing away from each other, and the reader arm needs to be designed to resist this movement. I have shown that new fluid dynamic models can successfully capture the details and unusual physics of non-equilibrium flows at least in simple cases. However, there is certainly much work that still needs to be done on making extended hydrodynamic solutions as robust and general as their continuum-equilibrium cousins. In the final part of my lecture, I would like to look to the future and outline a few technological and other opportunities where non-equilibrium is either an important feature of the flow or offers us a new capability or understanding. Hypersonic aircraft Concordes cruise speed was around Mach 2, but new aircraft are on the drawing board that will travel at Mach 8 or higher. These high speeds require new types of jet engines. A scramjet depends on compression of air by the forward speed of the aircraft. Air entering
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the intake of a supersonic aircraft is compressed and heats up. Fuel, usually liquid hydrogen, is then injected and combustion accelerates the exhaust gases to an even higher velocity, pushing the aircraft forward. The scramjet is mechanically simple, and has no moving parts, but it only starts operating at about Mach 5, so the aircraft has to be propelled to those speeds by ordinary jets or rockets. Because the flow is supersonic through the whole engine, getting the fuel to burn has been likened to trying to light a match in a hurricane. The first successful test of a scramjet was by researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia. Their HyShot project uses scramjets designed by the British company QinetiQ, as well as an Australian design. The engines are launched on the nose of a sounding rocket on a high ballistic trajectory, reaching altitudes in excess of 300 km. Then the rocket is rotated to face the ground, and the combustion unit ignited for up to 10 seconds while falling at around Mach 7.6. The first successful launch was in July 2002, and there have been four further flights since. In its most recent flight in June this year HyShot reached Mach 8. NASA had its own scramjet programme, but this has been suspended due to budget cutbacks. There were two success170
ful flights of the X-43A. The last, in November 2004, holds the world speed record for a jetpowered aircraft of Mach 10. The X-43A was about the size of a Nissan Micra car, but unmanned, launched from under the wings of a B-52 bomber, and propelled by a rocket booster to the speeds at which its scramjet started operating. It flew at an altitude of about 30 km. Both vehicles operate in rarefied air, and the aerodynamics of the engines incorporate shocks and high-speed flows. This is therefore an intensely non-equilibrium flow problem which is part of the reason why it is far from straightforward to get scramjets to work consistently and for prolonged periods. But eventually scramjets could revolutionise air travel. Design speeds of Mach 17 are viable, meaning that a passenger aircraft would be able to fly from London to Sydney in under two hours. Not enough time to watch an in-flight movie! Micro/Nanotechnology The fabrication of microscopic structures and devices is now almost routine. The mass-fabrication processes used for computer chips are now being used to manufacture micro-electromechanical systems usually abbreviated to MEMS. While they sometimes appear to be a
solution in search of a problem, a range of applications have been proposed for MEMS. These include filters for environmental and biological monitoring, industrial and process flow controllers, and the gas microturbines I mentioned above. An idea we are exploring in my research group exploits the fact that different gases passing down a long micro-pipe have different amounts of slip. Therefore, if the pipe is long enough the components of the gas will separate out. For example, if we pass a puff of air down a long smooth micropipe the gas that comes out first will mainly be nitrogen, while the oxygen emerges later. This is the basis for imagining a sniffer or airsampler that works due to the physics of non-equilibrium microflows. One of the most interesting devices proposed and several have now been patented is the transpiration pump or Knudsen pump. This is a miniature vacuum pump without any moving parts. It works because pumping devices can now be made with pipes and channels so narrow that the flow is non-equilibrium even at atmospheric pressures. Then the same thermal transpiration effect that propels the radiometer can be exploited. A prototype microscale pump developed in the USA is 2cm wide
about the same size as Toshibas disk drive. It includes two silicon chips that serve as hotside and cold-side thermal guards. A silicon dioxide aerogel membrane between them provides a network of nano-sized capillaries. The role of the thermal guards is to heat and cool the gas molecules on opposite sides of the aerogel membrane. The increase in temperature along the capillaries causes a pressure rise along the capillaries because of thermal transpiration effects. A difference in pressure between the hotter and colder sides builds up. Pressure ratios of about two can be easily obtained across a single Knudsen pump, but this is expected to rise in the future as the design and performance of these devices is optimised. In any case, a number of pumps can be connected in series to make, in principle, quite large pressure differences. I would like now to return to two flow situations I mentioned right at the beginning of this lecture, in which non-equilibrium fluid dynamics has barely started to make an impact but will, I think, produce useful insight in the future. Kinetic theory is a powerful tool for understanding gas flows. This is why I have concentrated on rarefied gases. But there are other examples of multi-scale flow
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processes; any flow system which has a coarse, particulate structure can, in principle, be ascribed a Knudsen number. When this is high enough, standard continuum-equilibrium models of the system are likely to be inaccurate. Granular flows Understanding how avalanches flow is obviously critical to saving life, limb and property in mountainous regions. It is curious, though, that the current model that civil and environmental engineers use for avalanches is taken from that for water waves. I hope you will be able to see by now why this could be a flawed methodology. Avalanches are from the family of granular flows which are ubiquitous in both nature and industry. In nature they include the formation and drift of sand dunes, and soil liquefaction during earthquakes. Industrial applications include mixing, drying and transporting granular materials such as seeds, pellets and pills. Granular fluids are composed of a large number of macroscopic elements (the grains) that, when fluidised with air, undergo collisions very much like the molecules in a gas. When the time scale of grains colliding with each other is similar to the inverse of the local flow gradient, the Knudsen number is high and nonequilibrium features arise.
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It is easier, however, to assess whether a granular flow is nonequilibrium or not than to model it. Unlike gas flows, simulations are complicated by the inelastic collisions between grains. Also the grains are not all the same size, and the coupling of the flow of the solid grains to the gaseous air in between them is complex. This snapshot of an experiment (on the left) shows grains falling over a solid cone. The background colouring indicates the average density of grains over a long time. If you compare this granular flow with the density photograph on the right which is of supersonic flow of Nitrogen gas over a cone you can see very similar flow features. This kind of simple granular flow can be modelled reasonably well using variants of molecular dynamics that allow for inelastic particles. But if we assumed this was a continuum-equilibrium flow and performed a fluid dynamic simulation of it, the results would not quite match up with the experimental or granular dynamics simulation. They would also likely be wrong in the detail. With granular materials, I am now moving away from the extreme flows of my lecture title. So I would like to outline how nonequilibrium fluid dynamics may help us understand more general problems.
In principle, dynamical systems that have a granular aspect can also have a Knudsen number assigned to them, and they may sometimes display non-equilibrium flow behaviour. The interactions between people as they move around cities and even buildings have some parallels in the flow of grains interacting with each other. It will not be surprising, then, if we see the features of granular flows in the highways of the nation. Traffic Although it is an everyday experience, road traffic is difficult to model and understand. This is because of the very complex interactions between the particles which in this case are cars or trucks. These interactions depend on the psychology of individual drivers, the driving conditions and many other factors. Dirk Helbing at the Technical University of Dresden in Germany, is developing models of traffic flows as a fluid. Free traffic with cars separated by the specified stopping distances in the Highway Code corresponds to a high Knudsen number flow. Congested traffic, on the other hand, would have a much lower Knudsen number and the movement of one vehicle or particle strongly affects the overall dynamics. Again, this is a typical non-equilibrium flow condition.
We saw that shock waves were a feature of both hypersonic and granular flows. They appear in traffic too. Drivers will all have experienced these shocks as the traffic occasionally stopping for no apparent reason. They arise when, for example, in congested traffic one vehicle slows down a little, perhaps to allow another car in off a slip road. The car behind responds accordingly although there is a short delay due to the drivers reflexes and decisionmaking. Since all the cars behind the first change their speed in the same way, this shock wave propagates at a constant speed of around 15 km/hr in a direction opposite to the driving direction. In Helbings model of urban road traffic, road networks are composed of nodes road intersections, or t-junctions connected by pipes that are the road sections. A change of road properties, like the number of lanes or new speed limits, is represented by connecting two or more pipe sections. The major advantage of developing fluid dynamic models of traffic is the same as that for extended hydrodynamics models of nonequilibrium gas flows. In terms of numerical efficiency, it is far easier to model traffic in a large road network as a flow in a system of pipes than to simulate each vehicle individually.
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Helbings model is able to predict the areas of, and transitions between, free and congested traffic very efficiently. It is helping police in Germany to know where and when to introduce temporary speed limits in response to early signs of congestion. Conclusions We have come a long way from the quiet spinning of a radiometer spindle in a near-vacuum. The radiometer gave scientists their first inkling that the physics of non-equilibrium or rarefied flows is different to that of everyday flows. Through the Knudsen number, I have shown that high-altitude, high-speed aerodynamics has much in common with flows in small engineering systems. And that led me finally to identify non-equilibrium behaviour in granular and traffic flows too. In fact, non-equilibrium flows occur widely in nature as well as technologies. Supernovas are non-equilibrium astrophysical flows: the exploding star blasts out material in every direction, and shock waves feature very prominently in the expanding cloud of gases. In my description of non-equilibrium flows I concentrated on the flow of gases because they are, at the moment, the best understood. But non-equilibrium liquid flows are a virtually untouched area for
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fluid dynamicists and engineers, which makes them ripe for investigation in the future. Theoretical physics has a way of becoming practical engineering after a couple of decades, or even fewer. But it was not until the rocket programmes of the 1940s and 50s that the physics Maxwell developed to understand the radiometer in the 1870s started to become important for engineers. Increasingly now the designs of a range of new technologies need to account for this molecularity, or granularity, of fluids. In fact, this presents engineers with strange new opportunities, like tiny pumps that have no moving parts, or designs for aircraft and engines to fly at almost unimaginable speeds. We are just at the start of a new engineering science that represents an unexpected triumph for 19th century physics in 21st century engineering. The development of exciting future technologies and processes depends crucially on engineers becoming used to unusual physics! Acknowledgements I would like to finish by thanking my colleagues at the University of Strathclyde for their support, and the research students of my group for their enthusiasm, hard work and insight on our quest to understand non-equilibrium flows.
Select bibliography Elizabeth Garber, Stephen G Brush and CWF Everitt (eds.) Maxwell on Heat and Statistical Mechanics: On Avoiding all Personal Enquiries of Molecules, Associated University Presses, USA (1995) Philip Ball Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another, Arrow Books, London, UK (2005) Jason M Reese, Michael A Gallis and Duncan A Lockerby New directions in fluid dynamics: nonequilibrium aerodynamic and microsystem flows, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London (Part A, Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences), vol. 361, pp2967-2988 (2003)
Duncan A Lockerby, Jason M Reese, David R Emerson and Robert W Barber Velcoity boundary condition at solid walls in rarefied gas calculations, Physical Review E, vol. 70, article number 017303 (2004) Mohamed Gad-el-Hak The Fluid Mechanics of Microdevices the Freeman Scholar Lecture Journal of Fluids Engineering (Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers), vol. 121, pp5-33 (1999)
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Dr Lynn Margulis Distinguished University Professor, Department of Geosciences. University of Massachusetts-Amherst 8 November 2005 Composite Individuality: A Gaian View The individual No substitute exists for direct study of living beings in nature. Many of todays microbes, all of which live in soils, sulphur springs, microbial mats, arthropod, mammal intestines or other microbial communities provide modern analogues of evolutionary processes. Their behavioral, metabolic and genetic interactions inform us as guides to the reconstruction of past events. Our (Michael Dolan, John Hall and I) interests in extant bacteria and protoctists, especially their interactions as clues to the origins of nucleated cells (eukaryotes) focus on anoxic environments. Our own observations, aided by the generosity of students and other associates (e.g., Celeste Asikainen, Michael Chapman, Ramon Folch, David Grimaldi, Ricardo Guerrero, James MacAllister, Margaret McFall-Ngai, H.J. Morowitz, Lorraine Olendzenski, Hannah Melnitsky, Bruce Scofield, Dennis Searcy, Elizabeth Stephens, Jorge Wagensberg, Andrew Wier, Jessica Whiteside and especially Dorion Sagan among others) of microbial mat and termite hindgut communities lead us to a plausible evolutionary sequence for the transition from bacteria (prokaryotes) to the appearance of the first eukaryotes. The nucleus, we postulate, evolved after the first merger of sulfidogenic archaebacterium and eubacterium merged to form the symbiotic ancestor of amitochondriates protists. Archaeprotista is the name given to the formal taxon, a phylum of Protoctista. The ancestors of these eukaryotes, by our hypothesis, never acquired mitochondria (Margulis, et al., Karyomastigont Model of the Origin of Eukaryotes, Paleobiology, 2005). Included in this group are pelomyxid giant amoebae, hundreds of parabasalids and other obscure eukaryotes that dwell in oxygen depleted environments (Margulis and Schwartz, Five Kingdoms, W.H. Freeman, 2nd edition,1998). Descendants of these swimming archaeprotists today thrive in organic-rich anoxic habitats where they are amenable to study. We infer that eukaryosis, the origin of nucleated cells, must have occurred by the middle Proterozoic Eon (i.e., prior to the deposition in sediments of certain well-preserved microfossils such as Vandalsphaeridium (Vidal,
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1998) and the spiny spheres of the Doushantou cherts of China (Knoll, 2003). We (James MacAllister, Michael Dolan and I) have made a short video called Eukaryosis that shows modern examples of each step in the evolution of the process as represented by motile microbes today. The composite, polygenomic nature of animal, fungal and plant cells, well established, by many data, indicate that mitochondria, intracellular sites of oxygen uptake, evolved by integration of O2-respiring alpha-proteobacteria into archaebacteria. The archaebacteria that contributed most of the protein synthetic cytoplasm, we suspect, were anaerobic or microoxic sulfidogens. As Thermoplasma acidophilum does today, they used elemental sulphur as a terminal electron acceptor. The Gaia hypothesis The Gaia hypothesis was invented by James Lovelock over thirty years ago to explain the tendency of the Earths lower atmosphere to maintain its temperature, oxygen concentration, and alkalinity within rather narrow limits for million of years. The self-maintaining properties of cells, organisms, communities, and ecosystems are observable not only in the atmosphere but also in the surface sediments (soil, rocks) of planet Earth. Although the Gaian
regulatory system was originally focused on the gestalt networking of members of more than 30 million extant species, the surmise arises that its operations extend to the inclusion beyond watery life forms to their extended structures (Turner, 1999) including our machines. Although not in of themselves alive, huge termite mounds of Namibia and machines (as well as viruses, foraminiferan shells and beehives) do reproduce and evolve. We manufacture machines, of course, yet increasingly they become embedded in our systems of reproduction. Similar relationships have arisen before. Many flowering plants, for example, require animals to pollinate and disperse them-although they, like us and our machines, are physically separate. The more we consider the role of communications and technological infrastructure in our survival at current huge numbers, the more apparent it becomes that we humans are no longer simply a mammal but more, as the 19th century painter and evolutionist Samuel Butler put it, a machinate life form. Knowledge of the Gaia hypothesis and its implications has expanded. In an attempt to unite scientific research at all levels towards an understanding of our living planet, a new discipline, in essence, a Gaian program of research has emerged. Now
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acceptable to many academics and even grant-giving organisations this research program is usually called Earth System Sciences (ESS). The planetary worldview has been in part inspired by Lovelocks groundbreaking Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (Oxford University Press. 1979) as well as his newer biography, Homage to Gaia (W.W. Norton, 2000). An independent atmospheric chemist and biological theorist, Lovelock, aided by chemical oceanographer M. Whitfield of the Marine Biological Association (Plymouth, UK), have generated a small library. Notable among the book-length works are Ages of Gaia, 1988, (W.W. Norton, NY) and Gaia in Action, (Floris Books, Edinburgh). Much of the new scientific literature on Gaia can be found in a wonderful compendium called Scientists Debate Gaia: A New Century. Other useful works include: From Gaia to Selfish Genes, Gaias Body (all published by MIT Press, Cambridge MA, USA) and a translation of V.I.Vernadskys 1925 classic The Biosphere (Springer-Verlag, 1998). The original Gaia hypothesis has been restated and extended: the composition of the reactive gases, the oxidation state, the acidity and the temperature of the lower atmosphere and surface sediments of the planet Earth are dynamically regulated by the activities of differentially reproducing interrelated organisms.
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The organisms in nature are always organised into communities: members of different species in communication with each other that live at the same time in the same place. Gaia concepts, consistent with those of Darwinian evolution, recognise that evolution only occurs in an environmental context. Machines and human technology, extensions of the human body, thus increasingly form a part of a global interliving system. The environment must fit the organisms as much as the organisms fit the environment, as Ian McHarg (1926-1996 author of Design with Nature and many other works) insisted. Indeed, in that book McHarg cited Soviet experiments with closed ecosystems that showed that the more kinds of living components a system included, the more effective it was at recycling waste. Bacteria alone can recycle, for example, but if fungi are added the system functions more rapidly and efficiently; and the addition of plants and animals further hones an ecosystems ability to purify and recycle. Because the larger components (e.g., plants and animals) were later to evolve, it stands to reason that humanfostered technology - a most recent form of living organisation to evolve - may be, at some date in the future, integrated into still more adept ecosystems. The Gaian point with
regard to machines is that, just because they are new, doesnt mean that they are not natural. Whatever the make-up of an ecosystem, energy, carbon and water must creatively fit the growth of its organisms and populations for it to persist as a whole and going concern. Although fully consistent with Darwins vision we deplore the lack of nuance, failure to consult Nature and rampant numerology so intrinsic to NeoDarwinism. We respond by reversion to the richer 19thC Darwin-Butler formulations in much of our work (e.g., Big Trouble in Biology; Physiological Autopoiesis vs. Mechanistic NeoDarwinism, p.265-282 in Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis and Evolution, Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan, Springer-Verlag, NY1997). Gaias humans A whole Gaia style of thought is emerging in which perception is seen as a participatory phenomenon. Scientists and others (e.g., the Bioneers of San Raphael California and the East Coast of North America Bioneers, www.BioneersbytheBay, and the Earthwatchers) who participate in the Whole Earth approach insist that humans become more aware that we are a factor in the sum of all organisms of the biosphere. Nonetheless, entrenched Judeo-Christian beliefs
are still widely held by the rampant energy-consuming peoples of Western Europe, North America and lately East Asia. The monotheistic concept that identifies the paternal family control with nationhood was an inculcating meme that began with modern written history (Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype, W.H. Freeman). Those partaking of this meme or its variations (e.g., Nazism) often feel no responsibility for actions that were vindicated by a father-like power. This corporate or super-organismic lack of accountability occurred despite the fact that at certain junctures in history (e.g. during the Reformation) the same monotheistic deity was invoked by opposed warring factions! As Stephen Jay Gould suggested in his George Sarton Memorial Lecture, perhaps it is the division of our brain into two hemispheres that makes us have such a pervasive, and ultimately insupportable, tendency toward dichotomisation. Even cosmopolitan thinkers who reject tribalism do not necessarily extend their view to a condemnation of anthropocentrism. Most still believe that we humans are the highest of all the animal species. Even more people think that we are not animals at all. Just as the Bible regards Jews as the chosen people the idea that people are superior to all other life forms is often taken as self-
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evident. Such traditional human ideas contrast with a Gaian perception of people inextricably, subordinately and dependently linked to the supportive Earths biota in a 20km watery ring at the planets surface. Despite our selffocus, humans objectively constitute a mere fractional, dispensable entity within the immensely complex system of biosphere-embedded plant, animal and microbial life. This Gaian system was here before we, courtesy of evolution, arrived and it will be here after we (and our increasingly unrecognisable descendants) extinguish. The Gaian thought style represents in part a return to older ways of seeing and relating to nature. At the same time, its incorporation of modern science makes it more forward-thinking and accurate than many traditional views of humanity in nature. Like life itself, these old and new thought styles are not dichotomous, but arise from the same organically interconnected biosphere. Yet the prevailing thought styles have an undeniable advantage of momentum. All the weight of Western history and much reproductive success - so far! - attach to political groups that subscribe to the idea of mans domination of nature. The Gaian thought style, however, extends horizontally to other organisms and vertically beyond human
history. In it, human beings and technology are intrinsic to activities of the biosphere. The biosphere, the place where life resides extends ~20 km high at the Earths surface, some 8km to the tops of mountains and 12km to the oceans abyss. The biosphere encompasses uncounted numbers of life forms, including many not documented by science. These all simultaneously indulge in various mostly unsupportably rapid rates of growth, necessarily matched by equally immense death rates; the masses of life forms trading materials and energy are experts in photosynthetic and chemosynthetic food production, and the intricacies of food sharing. For any one organism, independence from the biosphere, as Russian scientist Vladimer I. Vernadsky (1862-1945) noted, is precisely equivalent to death. Real life, therefore, more than our everyday abstractions care to reveal to us, is a matter of integrated wholes. Humanity, the lone cowboy roughing it out against the cosmic backdrop of divine space, is an obsolete, deplorable mythic image. What we humans reject as spoiled food, is healthy growth from the viewpoint of the dense populations of bacteria, yeast and other fungi that colonise our bread and meat. Though waste to us, the dung of cattle is both food and shelter to the dancing Pilobolus
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mold and to dung beetle larvae. Uneaten cheesy crusts stuffed down a kitchen sink garbage disposal are not wasted; as source of nourishment for vast populations of bacteria, ciliates, mastigotes, germinating fungal spores, and other life forms they are simply ignored or systematically murdered by counter-scrubbing humans (Garden of Microbial Delights, Sagan and Margulis, Kendall-Hunt, 1993). These processes are not foreign; indeed an electric garbage disposal is but one of Gaias many more recent forms of torture-murder energyusing and waste recycling devices. Consortial complexity The consortial quality of the individual contradicts any independent-lone-cowboy notion. What appears to be a single wood-eating termite consists, upon microscopic observation, of many millions of bacteria and protist microbes, only a few kinds of which actually digest the cellulose of wood. The termite intestine by itself is devoid of ability to digest wood. Gaia is a consortial entity comparable to a single wood-ingesting termite, but of course she is far more complex. Consortia, associations, partnerships, symbioses, and competitive interactions between organisms extend to the global scale. Living and nonliving matter, self and environment are inextricably interconnected. Because a
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Gaian view increases public awareness of our absolute dependence upon non-human life, it is extremely valuable in the challenge to unexamined, and ultimately selfishly self-destructive ideologies such as: nature is pristine and should be preserved, or nature is a bunch of resources to be plundered. Deeply conjoined to other organisms that no amount of political will alter this survivalfriendly fact, we are barely conscious of our activities in a Gaian context. Wars, for example, accelerate at specific times and places inevitable natural selection as it preferentially destroys young male of the recently evolved primate Homo sapiens, prior to the optimum reproductive period. Medical treatment tends to preserve many members of this same Homo sapiens population who, without it, would fail to reproduce. Responses of the press and the reading public to Gaian processes have been biased, arbitrary and crisis oriented. The distorted hot topics include an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, water pollution, acid rain, and the ozone hole. By waiting to respond until the social crises are upon us, we risk violent positive feedback, increased natural catastrophes and cultural disintegration. Lovelock, for example, suggests that increased storms can be
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expected in the wake of anthropogenic activities. Of course, and not to be too dichotomous, increased Gaian consciousness may have an opposite, ameliorating effect. Ironically money is thrown at environmental problems in isolated attempts to buy easy solutions. Yet Gaia her self has not been seen as an entity worthy of scientific study. Research to detail biospheric regulatory phenomena has not been directly funded. Because Gaia research fails to fit neatly into single academic fields or budget categories (i.e., meteorology, biology, geochemistry, wildlife management) geobiological research at a planetary level remains understaffed and underfunded (Gaia and Biota, Hinkle and Margulis in Scientists on Gaia, MIT Press.). An argument is made that Gaian science, like evolution, is neither a subfield of biology nor of ecology. Study of evolution includes Gaia as the historical changes of the environment replete with its interactive life forms over four billion years. Evolution, including Gaia as evolution of the Earths surface environment is far broader than the competence of any current evolutionary biologist, indeed, any single academic discipline. Many specialities, minimally: geology and its subfields such as paleontology, geochemistry and geomicrobiology; atmospheric chemistry;
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botany, physiology and systems engineering, to name only a few that are needed for evolution science in a Gaian context. As the scientific investigation of the system which supports us and any other civilization we are lucky enough to leave behind, the unfunded Gaian studies are more vital and relevant than many other so-called priorities, ought to be widely encouraged. If my country is not on speaking terms with its slave-holding, empire-building history, it can hardly recognise the existence of the global Earthwide natural history from which it emerged. Therefore, with regard to evolution research in a Gaia context, the USA can not even reach a state that recognises its own ignorance. Whether classroom Gaian study as part of evolution science is even possible in our Christian and other monotheistic countries remains to be seen. But we laud the Royal Society of Edinburgh (as well as The Expert Taxonomy Institute at the University of Amsterdam, the Marion Institute of Marion Massachusetts, and Craig Holdrege and his Nature Institute, Ghent New York). Most impressive for holistic approaches that include artistic sensibilities are the relevant activities of the Spanish: Luis Rico of the Media Lab Madrid, Professor Jorge Wagensberg and the Barcelona Museum of Science, as well as the
science museums of Madrid and La Corunya, Dr. Ramon Folch and the Enciclopedia Catalana who published in four languages the gorgeous 11-volume Biosfera. Publishers such as Island Press, Chelsea Greene, Lindesfarne and
MIT Press all deserve encomium for their baby steps in the right direction. As is said about the University of Chicago: a Gaia view of the Earth as a planet may not be adequate but, so far, it is the best we have!
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Professor Sue Black, OBE, FRSE Head of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology, University of Dundee 13 December 2005 Forensic Anthropology - the Bare Bones Science
Forensic anthropology is the science that applies reliable and tested methodologies to establish the identity of the deceased. Where the role of the pathologist is primarily to tell you HOW somebody died, the forensic anthropologist will tell you WHO they were. Within the last ten years the global profile of forensic anthropology has altered dramatically, following the demand for practitioners to assist in overseas work including mass disasters, mass graves, human rights abuses and war crimes. Such expertise was
invaluable in identifying victims of the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami & Hurricane Katrina. However the science has also become increasingly important in assisting UK police forces and investigative authorities with ongoing cases and cold case reviews. Professor Black talked about the relevance of the science of forensic anthropology to judicial investigations both within the UK and overseas and illustrated her presentation with examples of cases where the discipline has played a major role in the investigation of crime.
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Sir Alfred Cuschieri FRSE, Director, Institute of Medical Science and Technology, Universities of Dundee and St Andrews 19 December 2005 Edinburgh Lecture Inside Surgery from Without: Therapeutic Interventions from Images The lecture covered the nature of laparoscopic (minimal access surgery), its development and future projection in clinical practice. The seminal feature concerning this surgical approach is that the surgeon operates from 2-D images of the operative field relayed on a monitor (indirect perception) as distinct from traditional open surgery where the operator executes the operation by normal direct stereoscopic vision (direct perception). Thus minimal access surgery imposes extra cerebral processing (referred to as cerebral mapping by Wade) on the operator during the visual perception process and for this reason, the risk of misinterpretation of the internal anatomy (displayed on the monitor) by the surgeon is higher and accounts for the majority of iatrogenic (surgeoninduced) injuries during this type of surgery. Research on visual display technologies to address this problem has indicated that restoration of the alignment of motor with the visual axes of the surgeon (such that the operator can see his hands during the
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manipulations) facilitates this type of surgery. The technology for this entails the projection of the image obtained by the endocamera onto a special sterile screen on top of the patient so that the surgeon looks down on the image. Such an image projection system has been developed at the University of Dundee and is undergoing evaluation. Ultimately this or similar systems will replace the use of CRT or LCD monitors for minimal access surgery. The advent of laparoscopic minimal access surgery (keyhole surgery) in the early 1980s has transformed surgical practice by virtue of its undoubted benefits: less traumatic insult to the patient, reduced postoperative pain, earlier return of bowel function, shorter hospital stay and accelerated recovery to full activity and work in addition to improved cosmetic result (tiny scars) and diminished propensity for internal adhesion formation compared to traditional open surgery. There is no surgical specialty that has not been influenced to a significant extent as a result of this development, including transplant
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surgery. Thus live related kidney donation is much better (reduced warm ischaemia time to the graft) and kinder to the donor when performed with the laparoscopic approach. In general surgery, a significant number of common operations including those for certain cancers are nowadays performed with this surgical approach with significant benefits to patient outcome, certainly in the short term. Minimal access surgery is intrinsically dependent on the supporting technologies and its future progress and that of allied interventions such as interventional radiology and interventional flexible Endoscopy is inexorably linked to progress in medical technologies. These can be categorised as facilitative (improve the efficiency of performance and reduce the difficulty of execution), additive (bring technical sophistication and accuracy to surgical manipulations), enabling (make possible certain procedure which would be impossible without them open new therapeutic options) and disruptive. Christensen coined the terms disruptive technologies in his book The Innovators Dilemma (Harvard University Press) to refer to novel technologies that eventually replace existing ones. Although initially when first introduced their performance is far short of their ultimate poten-
tial, eventually they transform practice and societal needs. Examples of disruptive technologies include the internal combustion engine and lap top computers. To a large extent, minimal access surgery can be considered a pertinent example and, to a certain extent, robotically assisted surgery, which is now emerging can also be regarded as disruptive. There is no question concerning the benefits and valid use of robots in medical practice. These systems enable complex highprecision treatment where no margin of errors is acceptable, i.e., enable high precision surgical work in anatomically difficult areas (Da Vinci Robot Intuitive Surgical). In certain situations, they can reduce hazards to medical staff by diminishing exposure to radiation. Some may provide an effective two-way communication between doctors and patients through clinical ward rounding (RP7 robot, InTouch Health). There is certainly great interest in research and development on robotic aids for the disabled, and undoubtedly, microand nano-robots will in the future play a significant role in screening for gastrointestinal cancer and may well replace flexible endoscopy for this purpose today.
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The Da Vinci robot is an example of a master/ slave manipulator, the principle of which has been known for a long time as it has been used extensively by the nuclear industry. It involves a kinematic coupling between the hand of the operator and the functional tip of the instrument which ensures that this moves in exactly the same direction and to the same extent as the surgeons hand. This kinematic link can be implemented electronically in a wireless fashion (by sensors and actuators) as in the Da Vinci robot or mechanically, by a system of push bars and pulleys. In the Da Vinci system a computer is interfaced between the operating console (from which the surgeon operates at a distance from the patient) and the robotic arms placed at the operating table which replace the surgeons hands and hold/ manipulate the instruments. Thus more accurately, this type of intervention is better termed computer-assisted surgery especially as the systems software reduces tremor and augments the precision of movements of the instrument tip by computer-driven motion scaling. The current generation of these surgical master slave manipulators carries, however, certain disadvantages: increased capital and recurrent expenditure (interventions cost more), extra time in setting up and sterile draping of the components of the device before the
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operation can start (averages 20 minutes), intrusion of the space in the operating theatre restricting activities of staff (especially the anaesthetist) and the risk of mechanical failure for various reasons including loss of battery power. It is more than likely; however, than these problems will be resolved in the second generation of these systems and equally the costs will reduce with more widespread use. The radio-surgery gamma knife provides another example of the benefit of robot-based technology in medical care because it enables the administration of high dose radiation with surgical precision to a very specific area of abnormal (tumour) tissue while affecting an extremely small volume of surrounding normal tissues. This is achieved by delivery of gamma radiation beams from 201 separate cobalt60 sources. The individual beams do not harm healthy tissues, but with focal precise superimposition exactly and only on the targeted tumour, the concentration of all the 201 beams generates sufficient energy to ablate the tumour or abnormal tissue. Such required precision is beyond human capability and thus can only be achieved by a programmed robot. Radiosurgery is undertaken in a dedicated specialised operating room equipped with real time imaging and its dedicated robot
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which delivers the beams in accordance with a schedule based on preoperative and continuously procured images of the patients lesion and surrounding tissues during the treatment. There is little doubt that progress in medical technology and the future health care are linked inseparably, and the major advances will be technologically dependent whether these relate to imaging or to intervention. In itself, novel medical technology will always be neutral: neither
good nor bad its use or misuse by practitioners is what determines outcome. Novel technologies always increase healthcare costs in the short term, and when disruptive, will lead to increased expectations and demands thus adding to the escalation of health costs. Finally technology has a generally unrecognised benefit that of integration of medical disciplines towards the concept of multidisciplinary disease-related treatment groups.
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Professor Carol Padden Department of Communication, University of California 15 February 2006 Sign Language Teaching in the Age of Cochlear Implants In association with Heriot-Watt University In Europe and America, sign languages have been passed down through generations of deaf people and evidence indicates that these sign languages date from the 17th or 18th centuries. More specifically, British Sign Language (BSL) can be traced back to the first school for deaf children established in 1750. American Sign Language (ASL) is linked to the first school for deaf children which was founded in 1817; however, there are records providing evidence for the existence of sign language in colonial America. Indeed, Spanish Sign Language existed in the Deaf Communities of the 17th century. The precise number of sign language users around the world, or even in individual countries, is currently unknown. In the United States and Canada there are an estimated 200,000-300,000 users of ASL as their primary language. In the United Kingdom, there are around 23,000 signers. Across Europe, every country has at least one sign language, but many have several: for example, in Switzerland both French Swiss Sign Language and German Swiss Sign Language are used. However, it is
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not known how many sign languages are used in Africa, the Middle East, Asia or South America. In fact, the number of sign languages which exist worldwide is unknown. It is estimated there may be around 6000 spoken languages in the world; there may be a comparable number of sign languages. Then there are the Creoles and dialects We have established that sign languages are older than we realise, that they have an uncounted number of users and that they are found in every inhabited continent of the world. However, research has really just begun. A number of institutions pursue academic study into sign language. Some American universities have sign language research programmes and a few British institutions have research programmes focusing on BSL: in Scotland, at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, whilst those in England include University College London, the University of Bristol and the University of Central Lancashire.
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There are many reasons for studying sign languages. First of all, to understand human language particularly valuable is that sign languages reveal human language in a different form. Studying sign languages furthers our knowledge of language acquisition and helps us understand language society and language use. Moreover, studying sign languages gives us insight into language evolution: how human language began, how human language evolves over time and how languages change across generations of users. It is virtually inconceivable that any truly new spoken language could emerge nowadays, but there are cases of new sign languages emerging around the world. Deaf people may appear in a small area and over time if they are not exposed to an already existing sign language - they develop a new sign language. Examples of such new sign languages can be found in Nicaragua, Surinam and Thailand, to name but a few, and sometimes as in Providencia, Columbia - the language is also used by the surrounding hearing members of the community. In some cases, reports of a sign language remain uninvestigated: as is the case in north-east India. However, research has been conducted into the case of a new sign language in Israel. This sign language is used by a closed
community of Bedouins which has a high incidence of deafness. There are 3000 people living in the community, which includes 150 deaf people. Sign language has now been used by three successive generations and is used by both the deaf and hearing members of the community. These new sign languages give us a rare opportunity to watch a language in its early moments of development. We can see which language structures develop early on and those which take more time to develop. Sign languages therefore make it possible to study questions regarding language evolution. Students are interested in studies of the mind and how humans learn and develop. They want to learn more about human languages generally and about human language in a different modality. Students also want to learn how languages of the world are alike and how they differ. Currently, ASL is one of the two fastest growing languages taught in American colleges and universities the other language is Arabic. ASL is also becoming one of the most widely taught languages in high schools after Spanish, French and Japanese. It may seem that the explosion of interest in sign languages is in contradiction with the explosion of medical attention to deafness.
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However, ultimately, science needs the voices and ideas of all its many disciplines as well as of all the people it aims to help. Sign language teaching in the 21st century is not only about teaching
communication, it is about expanding our knowledge of the world and the people who live in it and also about expanding our knowledge of the human mind and its creative capabilities.
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Professor Mark Shucksmith School of Architecture, University of Newcastle upon Tyne 17 February 2006 Social Justice in Rural Areas ECRR / Peter Wilson Lecture 2006 Social justice is a contestable concept with different views of what is fair, implying the allocation of resources and opportunities according to merit, contribution, needs or status, for example. Marx argued that ideas as well as resources are controlled by each societys elites, and in the context of rural areas we must thus pay attention to powerful groups control of ideas such as rurality and sustainability, as well as material inequality. In general, resources are allocated through market, bureaucratic, associative and reciprocal systems, each with its own logic, and the lecture explored how inequalities and injustices arise in rural areas through the operation of these processes, linking broad historical forces to individual biographies and experiences. While the incidence of poverty is highest in some urban neighbourhoods, one in three of rural Britains population has experienced poverty in recent years, and sparsely populated areas have high levels of poverty. Partly this is because of persistent low pay in agriculture, tourism and other sectors, partly because of econom193
ic restructuring, and partly because of lower take-up of welfare entitlements, especially by older households. Social class and gender are still major dimensions of inequality. Longitudinal analysis is particularly effective in revealing these dynamic processes. An example of social injustice is the inequality of access to rural housing. There is much less council or housing association stock in rural areas so that access to housing is largely determined by ability to buy a house, with poorer emergent households having to delay household formation or leave the area, so putting a strain on families and social support networks. One reason for the unaffordability of rural housing lies in the capture of ideas of rurality and sustainability by the prosperous middle-classes who construct rural areas as places where houses should not be built, and present rural communities as inherently unsustainable in terms of carbon emissions, without attention to social and economic aspects of sustainable communities. They are particularly effective, through what Pierre Bourdieu calls sym-
bolic violence, at obscuring the power relations involved and who gains and who loses from such policies. Yet the concept of sustainability gained currency originally in relation to considerations of equity, both between and within the generations, and it is a paradox that this concept is now used to promote social injustice in rural areas. Finally, the lecture considered the inclusiveness of recent developments in the governance of rural areas, including partnership working and community empow-
erment. It was suggested that this often amounts to tokenism, with less powerful groups and individuals still often excluded from decisions about the future of their communities. Time-limited, areabased approaches, in particular, tend to reinforce the positions of the already powerful; and greater complexity and hidden accountability makes it harder for people to have a say in decisions which affect their lives. Developing more inclusive and just approaches to rural development offer a challenge to policy-makers and researchers alike.
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Dr Adrian Linacre University of Strathclyde 6 March 2006 DNA Profiling: Its Use in Famous Cases
Dr Linacre described what DNA profiling is and how it can be used. He explained the impact DNA profiling has had on forensic science and that it is probably the most powerful technique used in human identification. The human genome is thought to be greater than three billion units long, yet we all share at least 99.5% of our DNA. Within any family group, more DNA is shared by chance. He talked about siblings sharing on average half their DNA and therefore looking similar and sharing some of the same characteristics; and explained how children inherit half their DNA from each parent and that some physical traits are passed on through the generations. Generally speaking, the longer two species have been separated, the more divergent their DNA and humans chimpanzees share 95% of their DNA. Within the human genome there are odd repetitive regions of DNA. The number of repeats varies from human to human and it is these differences (polymorphisms) that are used in DNA profiling. The
first case was in 1985, but since then there has been a large increase in the sensitivity and robustness of the test. The scope for DNA testing includes criminal (police investigations), civil (paternities), mass disasters (WTC, Tsumani, Kosovo) historical and wildlife (nonhuman) and the sources of biological evidence used includes blood, semen, saliva, urine, hair, teeth, bone and tissue. Dr Linacre then explained the background to the biological organisation of the Human genome and how DNA evidence is used to link a person to a scene or an object. He described how the National DNA Database has revolutionised the investigative process in the UK. it is routine for thousands of matches to be reported every week where a DNA profile from a stain is found to match a suspect. If there is no suspect then either there is a large scale screen, or familial searching is performed. Familiar searching is very new but offers real possibilities. Finally, Dr Linacre described historical cases such as that of
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Anna Anderson who claimed to be the Royal Princess Anastasia and how using DNA evidence it was confirmed that she was not related to the Russian Royal Family. This was determined from the identification of their skeletal
remains - which is possible because some DNA can be preserved in bones and teeth. He also discussed how Y chromosome markers can be used in historical and current cases.
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Professor Wendy Hall CBE FREng Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton 6 March 2006 Towards the Semantic Web: the Return of the Link
Long before the Web existed, hypertext visionaries foresaw a richly inter-linked global information network. The most often cited is Vannevar Bush, who wrote his seminal paper As We May Think in 1945. In this paper he foresaw the problems of information overload, and the need for scientists/knowledge workers to use machines to store and share information. He also discussed the possibility of machines being able to associate pieces of information in the same way that the human mind moves from one idea to another using association of thoughts .. in accordance with some intricate web of trails carried by the cells of the brain. Note the use of the term web. Ted Nelson coined the term hypertext in the 1960s and hypertext researchers worked arduously to create systems that would realise the vision of an inter-connected world of documents. My own research at Southampton, which was very much inspired by both Bush and Nelson, was based around a system we called Microcosm, in which we treated links as entities and stored them in databases in
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order to enable their re-use across different sets of documents and to enable links to be customised for different people. But it was the creation of the World Wide Web by Tim Berners-Lee in the early 1990s that provided the infrastructure to enable these ideas to become reality. The reasons for the success of the Web are now well-documented. It worked over the internet, was based on easily accessible open standards and protocols and it didnt demand perfection - links in the Web are allowed to fail. Hypertext researchers had previously argued this would be a barrier to people using a hypertext system. It turned out that this was what enabled the Web to take off it allowed for human weaknesses in organising information whilst being good enough to enable access to any information available on the internet. It is easy to create navigational or structural links that help the user find their way around the site, but the Web is strangely devoid of associative links that represent a semantic relationship between items of information because it is hard to create and maintain such links.
Search engines fill this gap. When we see an item on the Web that we want more information about but which has no link associated with it, we send a query to a search engine such as Google to help us find the information we want. Actually a query is an unresolved link, and the search engine will generally suggest multiple (sometimes many thousands) of potential endpoints to that link, leaving it to us to decide which is the one we want in the context in which we are searching.. Whereas the current Web comprises a web of documents, the vision of the Semantic Web is a
web of information derived from data by the application of a semantic theory that tells the system how to interpret the data. Ontologies are used to provide the semantic theory and, in the future, agents will be employed to enable machine-based interpretation of the data and application integration. The semantic or associative links emerge as the triples created by relating two data items via an ontology. The development of the Semantic Web thus promises to take us much closer to achieving the original vision of a richly inter-linked information network, and enabling the Web to realise its full potential.
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Richard Manning Environmental Reporter 10 April 2006 Prairie Prospect. A Bold Act of Restoration in the Heart of North America Environmental Choices Lecture First and foremost, this is the story of a real, audacious project that is the most important act of wildlife conservation in our time. Beyond this, though, the project lies so close to the center of the American experience that it will necessarily accomplish much more. It will ultimately set the pattern for the restoration of the American spirit and its economys relationship with the natural world. The bare facts of the project are enough to merit our attention. Fully realised, it would create a grassland preserve larger than Yellowstone National Park, about a fifth of the land area of Scotland, a total of 3.6 million acres. It would quickly become the home of free-roaming bison, wolves and grizzly bears and would fill a gaping hole in the worlds efforts toward conservation by correcting our bias against grasslands. Worldwide, about 10 percent of the land in all other biomes enjoys some sort of protected status, yet only about one percent of temperate grasslands are protected. This is not at all unrealistic. In fact, the project has been so carefully conceived that it would be difficult to imagine it wouldnt happen. It rests on a stretch of land that almost seems headed toward its own restoration. The project simply capitalises on this momentum. The genius behind the project was in finding this place. The idea for this preserve was born in the late 1990s with satellite-based mapping of all North American grasslands, the area between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, north into Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada and south to Texas. Scientists catalogued such attributes as land use, ownership and vegetation. Two independent mapping projects separately pinpointed one outstanding target of opportunity, a sweep of north central Montana along the Missouri River. The core of this area, the bulls eye, is an existing wildlife refuge, the 1.1 million acre Charles M. Russell, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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This is a landscape where a number of stars align. Firstly, the target area is slightly more arid than the rest of the plains, so will not tolerate the plough. It has been heavily overgrazed, but still is largely vegetated with native grasses, shrubs and forbs. Secondly, because it is so arid, much of it was never homesteaded or otherwise claimed, so remains in federal ownership.
Thirdly, ranching itself is fast becoming marginal economically, especially in this slightly more arid place. This means the remaining ranchers are broke and ready to sell cheaply. An NGO based in Montana has begun raising money and has already acquired several ranches, well on its way toward the ultimate goal. The first wild bison returned to the landscape in 2005.
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Professor Peter Raven Director, Missouri Botanical Garden and George Engelmann Professor of Botany, Washington University in St. Louis 5 June 2006 Biodiversity, Poverty and Sustainability for the 21st century Environmental Choices Lecture With the explosive growth of the human population from 2.5 billion people in 1950 to over 6.5 billion today, and the concomitant rise in consumption rates, which is proceeding rapidly in developing countries as well as the traditional industrialised ones, we have continued to use traditional technologies, many of which are highly destructive to the environment. As a result, natural habitats are being destroyed rapidly all over the world; invasive alien species are contributing to the endangerment of species and populations everywhere; hunting and gathering of particular animals and plants for food or medicinal purposes; and climate change are all contributing to rapidly rising rates of extinction globally. In comparison with a historical rate of extinction of about one species per million per year, we now estimate that thousands of an estimated ten million or more species of eukaryotic organisms (all organisms other than bacterial and viruses) are disappearing each year, and that the rate is still rising rapidly. To know how many species will survive the 21st
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Century, we must make many predictions that are somewhat uncertain, especially concerning the rate of clearing and disturbance of tropical moist forest. For birds, we have recently estimated that a quarter of the total species could become extinct during this century, but that human actions may save half of them. For other organisms, most of which have more restricted ranges than birds, the loss of a quarter of all species would seem to be a minimum estimate, and the actual loss could be much higher. For vascular plants, we already have about 100,000 species, perhaps a third of the total, in cultivation, so more could potentially survive. Conserving natural areas, bringing selected species into cultivation, to zoos, or into stock culture centres, blocking the spread of alien invasive species, and curbing global warming are all important steps that we can take to insure the survival of as many species as possible, and our individual actions are of the utmost importance. In general, the survival of species will be possible only insofar as we are able and willing to construct a
sustainable world. Wackernagel and his associates (globalfootprint.org) estimate that we are now using about 120% of the worlds sustainable productivity on a continuing basis, and that the rate is rising. A world in which at least two billion people are living in extreme poverty and nearly 900 million are literally starving is not a world in which a large number of species can survive. Consequently, saving species becomes only one of the
favorable outcomes of building a socially just world in which we do not consume more than is being produced on an ongoing basis and it will not be possible, or only possible to a limited extent, otherwise. Our overconsumption of the environment arises from individual choices and wishes, and can be limited only by our making different choices and projecting different desires for ourselves and our families than many of us in the industrialized world do now.
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Dr Mike Bentley Department of Geography, University of Durham 21 June 2006 Antarctic Ice Sheets and Climate Change Discover Antarctica Lecture Supported by the British Antarctic Survey The potential for partial or complete collapse of the Antarctic Ice Sheets has exercised scientists and policy-makers for several decades. The concern is because the ice sheets hold enough water to raise global sea level by over 60 metres. This talk explained the theory behind ice sheet collapse, and discussed the latest results from studies aimed at understanding the stability of these ice sheets. Current studies include satellite remote sensing, work from aircraft, and ground-based measurements. The East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which holds the vast majority of the water, is a relatively stable feature and seems unlikely to shrink significantly this century. Indeed, the dominant behaviour is the reverse of intuitive expectation: the East Antarctic ice sheet is actually expanding slightly as the warming of the atmosphere enables the air to carry more moisture, leading to greater snowfall on the ice sheet. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, although smaller, has more complicated behaviour. Parts of the ice sheet have been thinning slowly ever since the end of the ice age and so their behaviour is
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dominated by events more than 10,000 years ago. Other parts, especially in the Antarctic Peninsula and the Amundsen Sea embayment are showing rapid change in recent decades with collapsing ice shelves, retreating glaciers, and speed up of several major glaciers flowing into the sea. In such areas the ice sheet is thinning rapidly. Finally, there are a smaller number of glaciers that have slowed down and thickened. The net effect (or mass balance) of these different, and sometimes opposing effects, is that the ice sheet is currently growing overall, thereby offsetting some of the global sea level rise from other sources. Depending on the rate of thinning and velocity increase in the Amundsen Sea embayment and Antarctic Peninsula, this will eventually shift to a net contribution to global sea level rise. Latest results suggest that complete collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is rather unlikely, but partial collapse is possible and some scientists believe it may even be underway. If correct, this will cause a sea level rise of > 1m in the coming decades and centuries.
Jacek Saryusz-Wolski Vice-President, European Parliament 26 June 2006 Solidarity in the Enlarged European Union
Let me start by telling how happy I am to be in Scotland again. This is a perfect place for a Pole to speak about solidarity. Throughout their history the Scottish people have proved that they treat that word very seriously. First, they have accepted our soldiers during and after the Second World War with open hands. Now you have opened your doors to the new immigration, I must admit that I am a little envious. You, along with the Irish and the English and Swedish, have proved to be more skilful at attracting our young and talented than my country is able at this moment. Even our football players seem to play better ball for Scottish teams than they do for the Polish national team. Let me now address the issue in my presentation. Solidarity constitutes one of the principal values of European integration. It has two equally important dimensions - internal and external. The internal dimension, the more obvious one, is concerned with solidarity within the EU itself - assisting the poorer member regions and states in minimising the development gap, helping each other in times of distress - energy supply shortages,
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terrorist threat etc. Internal solidarity also means allowing the newcomers to reap the benefits of internal market, which is largely responsible for the wealth of the western part of the continent. The external dimension of solidarity is less clear. The European Union, however, should practice what it preaches - demonstrate solidarity in relations with its neighbours and the outside world. Its external policy should be aimed at supporting the transition efforts, assisting in state building measures, giving concrete aid to civil society, democracy and human rights. Only then the Union can realise its ambitions and transform itself into a normative soft power. Internal solidarity Cohesion Internal solidarity is of course about minimising the development gap within the European Union itself. It is about striving for the most cohesive Union that we can get. Solidarity in this very sense constituted one of the founding principles of European integration. Unfortunately, it seems that it cannot be taken for granted anymore. Some politi-
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cians, among them the possible future British Prime-Minister Gordon Brown, advocate partial renationalising of cohesion policy. According to such plans, the Union would take upon itself only the assistance to the poorest new member states, the underdeveloped regions in the old Union would be aided by member states themselves. Such initiatives, although at first they might seem to be reasonable, would result in transforming cohesion policy into charity policy. We have to be aware, however, that whereas, even it times of distress, one does not forego ones values, one might forego charity. I am of the opinion that if we are serious about cohesion we, as the European Union, must assist the regions in need, be it in the old or in the new member states. Fortunately that problem will soon cease to concern Scotland, as the Highlands are now being populated by the brightest, hard-working and entrepreneurial graduates of Polish universities. My experience in the European Parliament has taught me that cohesion was not considered any longer to be an undisputable priority. It was only through successful lobbying of the group created due to our initiative friends of cohesion - that the Parliament recognised that cohesion has to be defended and preserved. The parliamentarians
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from the new member states, reasserted themselves and took an active part in setting of the EPs priorities, despite the very technical nature of the dossier, thus saving cohesion as an EUs priority. EU Budget tailored to the needs of reality I have defended the thesis that you cannot have more Europe for less money ad nauseam. We have to provide the means to address our needs. The EU has more and more priorities whereas the budget in relative terms is getting smaller. We need therefore to be more far-sighted in budgetary policy. The European Parliament has always defended the principle that the EUs priorities have to be complemented by budgetary means. Therefore I and my colleagues have always defendedmore ambitious budgetary thresholds. At the same time, however, we have always tried to be realistic. For the first time in history, during the negotiations over the seven-year financial perspective, the EP proposed budgetary ceilings lower than those proposed by the European Commission, being aware of the budgetary constraints within the member states. Throughout the negotiations over the current Financial Perspective it was the European Parliament, not the European Commission, which defended a true European interest
(a budget better tailored to the needs of reality) much more vehemently. We have succeeded to a limited degree. The EP was able to match the EUs political priorities with financial needs in a very modest, yet important degree, largely through an increase (of EUR 4 billion) for concrete policies such as youth exchanges, social policy, neighbourhood policy, energy TENs. Thanks to our intervention, programmes such as Erasmus or Galileo will have a chance to be supported. We need to seriously reconsider our budgetary policy. The policy review foreseen for the year 2008 will provide a perfect opportunity to do it. The Union has to be courageous in providing the means necessary for realising our ambitions. We have to move beyond the mentality of an accountant. Otherwise we will lack credibility as a Union. Completing the Single Market For me internal solidarity has always meant allowing the newcomers to reap the benefits of internal market. In its latest communication from May 2006, the European Commission clearly states its priorities - peace, prosperity and solidarity in a new context of globalisation; but also, and I would say even foremost, delivery of an open and fully functioning single market.
I fully agree that it is high time we took stock of economic integration, and in particular the single market. We do need better integration of energy markets. We do need better integration of financial markets. We do need to remove obstacles to the free movement of labour. As the Commission rightly points out, these are issues which have direct bearing on the EU citizens daily life; on energy prices, on roaming charges for mobile phone users, on banking charges. We also have to do our utmost in order to boost the integration and convergence of European economies. We need to pursue the Lisbon agenda; promote the completion and smooth functioning of Economic and Monetary Union and complete the Single Market. We should be very practical, therefore I welcome the idea of a fundamental review of the single market, conducted in order to look at what more needs to be done and how. We hope that the announced preparation of a report on the functioning of the single market in the 21st century will be prepared with the close cooperation of the European Parliament. If we want to successfully face the challenges which are before us; if we want to use the potential of the recent enlargement to the maximum, we have no choice; we
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have to defend the orthodoxy of single market! We have to remove the remaining barriers to a single market, in order to allow the European citizens and entrepreneurs to enjoy the full benefits of the EU. Solidarity the external dimension It is clearly not enough to demonstrate solidarity internally. If the European Union seriously strives at being perceived as a coherent actor for whom values such as solidarity do not remain just rhetoric, it has to adapt its external policies accordingly. Enlargement First and foremost, the European Union has to honour its commitments. Besides all of our internal problems and apprehensions of our citizens, we cannot afford to forego the enlargement strategy. If we want to project stability, influence our neighbourhood, be perceived as a pole of attraction and remain true to the values that we preach, we cannot close our eyes to aspirations of our partners outside the Union. It is clear that the European Union cannot enlarge indefinitely. It is also clear that the Union has to be ready and able to integrate, not absorb, new members. I prefer the term integration capacity absorption carries negative, technocratic connotations I would rather talk about integration capacity.
Before we contemplate opening our doors to others, besides Bulgaria, Romania and further down the road Croatia, we have to face our own internal challenges; prepare our institutions, reform our policies, and start delivering the concrete results that our citizens expect of us. Above all we have to demonstrate our willingness to finance our own aspirations. Behaving like an ostrich, which, in times of distress, hides his head in the sand, is not a way forward! We should not use formal excuses, such as nonratification of the constitutional treaty, to mask our lack of courage and stop the enlargement process. EU as a Global Actor Secondly, we have to remain active outside of the European continent. The EU is the biggest donor of aid to the developing countries. We have to continue doing that. However, channelling aid is clearly not enough. We have to embark on the path of reforming the Common Agricultural Policy in such a way as to allow the poorest countries of the world to use the competitive advantage that they have. Im not an advocate of scrapping CAP we need it if we want to salvage the diversity of our agriculture and take care of our exceptional landscape. I do think, however, that we run a risk of the EU being perceived as hypocritical. On the one hand, we
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preach non-discrimination to the Americans and picture ourselves as committed to minimising the development gap; on the other hand we practise protectionism. We also have to be more active in conflict resolution. Havent we always said that peacekeeping and post-conflict management constitute our true speciality? It is high time we proved it. Lets demonstrate that we can do things although differently than Americans do, but effectively. Lets engage at the sources of potential conflicts, just as we are doing in Iran. Lets be present in those areas of the world in which we can make a difference, just as in Banda Aceh or The Congo. Neigbourhood Policy Last but not least we have to develop a robust neighbourhood policy. I have decided to talk about it at the end as it constitutes my greatest concern. The EU will have to reinforce its Neighbourhood Policy, otherwise it will not have any efficient means at its disposal with which it could counter-react the potential destabilisation of its neighbourhood and put our security in jeopardy. The European Neighbourhood policy is a key tool of Common Foreign and Security Policy and must be able to adapt to the changing world around us. It must be the first of many instruments leading towards a pro-active and truly common European foreign policy. If we cannot work constructively
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with our direct neighbours, how effective will we be in dealing with other countries? The EU policy towards a given neighbouring country should be linked to that particular countrys ambition, convergence of values and its readiness to co-operate with the Union. We need, however, to set clearer benchmarks. Since our approach has to be more selective and differentiated, the benchmarking ought to be more country-specific. We also need a clearer incentive structure attached to clearer and well-ordered priorities. If we want to be effective we have to start thinking out of the box. The most urgent need is to support the democratisation efforts in countries which are in the throes of dictatorships. In that particular sphere the European Parliament has just recently proved its potential as a successful policy initiator. I am thinking about the negotiations concerning the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument, ENPI. The amendments that the EP has submitted would change and improve the instrument. If adopted, they would allow for strengthening of civil society institutions over the heads of dictatorial regimes, which hitherto was impossible, rendering all the efforts to help NGOs in countries such as Belarus, futile. Moreover, in exceptional cases, co-financing will not be required; or it could be
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provided by the EU member states instead of beneficiaries, thereby circumventing the need to deal with administrations of nondemocratic states. Making Neighbourhood Policy more relevant for creating a ring of friends is synonymous not only with the strengthening of existing EU policies but also the development of new activities in response to external challenges. Energy security is a good case in point. It constitutes one of the domains which clearly need action on the EU level. We were recently made aware of the fact that the problem of energy security does not concern solely the area of industry or economics. Energy has been used as a weapon and hence should be considered in the context of foreign and security policy of the EU. The Union should undertake concrete steps aimed at diversification of energy sources and supply. All the possible avenues aimed at enhancing the European Unions energy self-sufficiency should be explored. Energy security should constitute one of the cornerstones of the Neighbourhood Policy. Reality calls for courage - close cooperation in the energy field. The possibility of sharing the energy reserves constitutes one of the most effective and indispensable confidence-building measures both within the European Union,
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and between the Union and its neighbourhood. If we are serious about the EU being a transformative, postWestphalian power, which gains influence through encouraging the internal transformation of societies rather than through physical or military coercion, we have to be serious about our neighbourhood policy. We should not do anything to undermine it. We should not jump the gun and take premature decisions concerning the borders of Europe. The ENP should not be an antichamber of the EU, but we should leave the doors open and hence demonstrate our solidarity. Conclusions The European Union was always based on the principle of solidarity. Solidarity, both in an economic and political sense, both internally and externally, allowed the tackling of divisions, creating a sense of community and strengthening the internal equilibrium. If we do not want to forsake the very soul of European integration we do have to protect and cherish the founding principles. If we want to remain true to ourselves, we have to strengthen this very basic dimension of integration. Otherwise we will dilute our aspirations into a simple free-trade area. I am sure that, despite the spirit shared by many British tabloids, most of us would not want such a scenario to materialise.
Professor Adrienne Scullion, University of Glasgow, with students of the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies, University of Glasgow and of the School of Drama, Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama 25 August 2006 Picture it if yous will: the Ambitions of Scottish Political Theatre Political theatre is theatre that is marked by a need to engage with politics and to influence opinion. This presentation demonstrated that, in Scotland, there is a clear tradition of theatre providing an arena for political analysis and debate. The lecture, which was illustrated by extracts from key plays, described three important aspects of Scottish political theatre satire, socialism and feminism and made a comment on post-Devolution politics and theatre. Satire that challenges corruption in the high places of society is a feature of Scottish drama across the centuries with Sir David Lindsays Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis (1540, 1552, 1554), the most innovative and celebrated theatrical text of the Scottish Reformation, a celebrated point of departure. Irreverently satirical in its day, the plays politics and its late-Medieval theatrical form meant that it fell quickly out of ideological and theatrical fashion. Arguably, the hard and urgent politics of Lindsays political satire are lost to a modern audience for whom politics, political process, political debate and political culture have changed fundamen210
tally. But, if The Three Estates has struggled to demonstrate contemporary relevance, satire remains a repeated and a familiar trope for example in: Joe Corries And so to War (1936), Robert McLellans The Flouers o Edinburgh (1948), Hector MacMillans The Sash (1973), and Iain Heggies scabrous King of Scotland (2000). The 1920s and 1930s saw a huge increase in the amount of theatre being made in Scotland, in particular at community level and with political purpose. One of the most significant theatre groups of the time was the Glasgow Workers Theatre Group with a repertoire that included: the first British production of Clifford Odetss Waiting for Lefty (1937); anti-fascist masques and pageants in respect of the Spanish Civil War; mass declamations; living newspapers; and agit-prop pieces such as Harry Trotts UAB Scotland (1940). In line with the companys declared goal to reflect the lives of the workers UAB Scotland (the acronym stands for the Unemployed Assistance Board) is about the social and economic deprivation of the Scottish working people. Like all good political theatre, it demands the active
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involvement of the audience; much of the text is presented in direct address questioning and challenging the audience. UAB Scotland was GWTGs last production before it joined with four other leading left-wing amateur companies in Glasgow to form one of the most significant of the Scottish political theatre companies, Glasgow Unity. Glasgow Unity commissioned and produced important new plays by local writers that explicitly concerned the lived experience of ordinary people. Unitys splendid catalogue of new writing includes James Barkes Major Operation, Ena Lamont Stewarts Starched Aprons (1945) and Men Should Weep (1947), and Robert McLeishs The Gorbals Story (1946). Several of these plays were revived in the 1970s by 7:84 Theatre Company, along with Unity, one of the most important makers of political theatre in Scotland. The presentation introduced 7:84 Theatre Company (Scotland) by way of Tom Buchans The Great Northern Welly Boot Show (1971), a bold and brash if somewhat neglected example of modern agit-prop theatre that mixes music, humour and politics, much like John McGraths most famous play for 7:84 The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil (1973). The Cheviot was a production that changed and revitalised political theatre within
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Scotland it changed where theatre went and what it was about. The Cheviot proclaimed itself as a peoples history and claimed authenticity through its archive research and use of primary sources. But, of course, the history on stage was a mediated one, a history shaped for political purpose and impact. The Cheviot was a provocative, counter history that celebrated the experience and the culture of ordinary people and, in so doing, challenged the idea of historical objectivity in favour of something much more politicised and active. The Cheviot was the paradigm of popular political theatre in the 1970s. It shaped subsequent work by 7:84 and Wildcat in the 1970s and 1980s but the success of The Cheviot was never equalled. Another key driver of modern Scottish drama is feminism and a recognition that women have been marginalised in the representations and the institutions of Scottish theatre. For most of the Edwardian era, and well into the 1920s, JM Barrie was the most important and successful playwright in Britain. But, from that popular high, Barrie fell into seemingly hopeless neglect. Recently however, Barries work has become the subject of renewed interest. Nowhere is this new scrutiny more obvious than in the changing attitudes toward his 1908 play about politics and
politicians, What Every Woman Knows. Barrie gives his heroine Maggie great insight into the role of women within her domestic Scottish society and again later in the public sphere of London. Barrie was writing at a time when there were important and influential women working as actors and directors and producers in British theatre, but relatively few women playwrights were seeing their work professionally or regularly produced. Even today and of course with some very notable exceptions women are disproportionately under-represented in leadership roles in the Scottish theatre industry. Despite, or because of, that there is a strong raft of modern plays that place women at their centre and that advocate a politics of feminism. For example, Sue Glovers 1991 play Bondagers recollects the lives of the peasant women who worked as cheap agricultural labourers in the border farms of the nineteenth century. Like all good history plays, Liz Lochheads Mary Queen of Scots Got her Head Chopped Off (1987) uses the past to make clear and political comment on the present: Mary Queen of Scots has a job of work to do in the politics of the 1980s not least in its dramatisation of oppositions, the us and them tension of Scotland not being England that seems to underpin so much of the theatre culture of that time. Some have
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argued that this oppositional dynamic played a crucial role in that decades reframing of Scottish national identity and it has also been seen as a factor crucial in the final push towards devolution, where the job of political theatre shifts again. How Scotlands playwrights have responded to the challenge of imagining a new world and of bringing it into being is a key question in an assessment of contemporary Scottish theatre culture. The politics and the identities of post-Devolution have been sought for and explored in a wide variety of political dramas: the vicious satire of Heggies King of Scotland; the allusive metaphor of Nicola McCartneys Home (2000); the subtle allegories of David Greigs Pyrenees (2005); the black humour of Henry Adams The People Next Door (2003) and, the heightened realism of Davey Andersons Snuff (2005) Scottish playwrights have always had a role in the political process, in holding authority to account, in advance issues of rights, of giving voice, of exploring issues of collective and personal politics, of inspiring collective action, of being an advocate for change. Despite the perceived crisis of political apathy and disengagement, despite the high-profile diminution of 7:84, Scottish theatre still believes in politics and, indeed, still believes in and engages with the political process.
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Professor Michael Lightner President, Institute of Electronic & Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 31 August 2006 Cognitive Assistive Technology: An Emerging Discipline
On 31 August 2006, Professor Michael Lightner presented a keynote address at the RSE on Cognitive Assistive Technology. Professor Lightner is the 2006 President of the IEEE, which is headquartered in New York. The IEEE is the worlds largest organisation of professional engineers, with some 374,000 members in over 150 countries. In addition to being President of the IEEE, Professor Lightner is Professor and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering, at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and the Co-Director of the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for the Advancement of Cognitive Technologies. In a wide-ranging lecture, Professor Lightner gave an in-depth presentation on the issues facing individuals with cognitive disabilities and covered the range of tools available to provide assistance. He presented a world perspective on current research on the subject, and identified the unusual challenges and rewards that accrue from the research. He gave a background to cognitive difficulties as represented by a substantial limitation in the
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capacity to think, or conceptualise, plan, remember, interpret subtle social cues or manipulate numbers and symbols. Such difficulties inevitably lead to stigma and discrimination, social isolation and emotional problems, difficulty in communicating, poverty and unemployment, and a growing digital divide. Assistive technology devices are used to maintain or improve the functional capabilities of individuals, and associated services assist individuals with disabilities in the selection, acquisition or use of devices. According to the demographics in 2003, 21.3 million people in the US have cognitive disabilities, with 22% suffering from mental retardation; 27% from traumatic brain injuries; 27% have mental illness; 4% are stroke victims; and 20% struggle with Alzheimers disease /dementia. On a world-wide basis, in 64 of the Developed nations some 124 million suffer cognitive disabilities, and close to 425 million in 111 developing nations. A study by the World Bank in 2000 identified that the total annual value of GDP lost recently due to disability is in the region of $1 trillion in high income coun-
tries, and about $0.5 trillion in the rest of the world. There have been major Disability Rights Initiatives - the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), the Australian Disability Discrimination Act (1993), and the UK Disability Discrimination Act (1995). Against this backdrop, there are critical factors influencing the demand for and the provision of support services. These include ageing caregivers, increased longevity and workforce poverty. A study in 2002 identified that over 60% of caregivers in the US were over 40 years of age; the longevity of people with mental retardation had increased from 59.1 years in the 1970s to 66.2 years in 1993 and is currently on par with the their caregivers. The workforce poverty is reflected in the fact that whereas all workers in the US receive compensation at the rate of $15.63 per hour, this compares with $8.68 for community workers in support of the people with mental retardardation (US Bureau of Statistics, 2003). Against the backdrop of such forthright statistics, Professor Lightner made a compelling case for the need for innovative solutions and the development of new tools and systems for Assistive Technologies. He then presented the results of novel research on Personal Support Technologies, Assisted Care System Technologies, Virtual
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Technologies and Brain Interface Technologies. The Personal Support Technologies offer assistance with activities of daily living, such as handling money/finances, healthcare, and nutritional support, through task prompting that include auditory and visual cues and stimuli. An (electronic) Visual Assistant has been developed that provides powerful task-prompting support by including digital pictures and custom-recorded audio messages to deliver step-by-step support. Professor Lightner gave a highly effective demonstration of a Visual Assistant developed at the University of Colorado, Boulder that assisted with fairly complex tasks, based on a PDA and a computer screen, and of a Pocket Coach that gave audio prompts, with a simple-to-use interface. Professor Lightner further discussed Assisted Cognition Systems that are proactive problem-solving aids that help an individual with performing day-today tasks, by sensing an individuals location and environment, relying on a range of sensors, such as GPS, motion detectors, and other computing infrastructure; learning to interpret patterns of everyday behaviour, recognising signs of distress, disorientation or confusion, using techniques from machine learning; offering help to patients through verbal interventions; and, if required, alerting
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caregivers in the case of danger. He then illustrated a system developed at the University of Washington, called Web-trek that offers an easy-to-use Web browser that interfaces with a home computer, and a wearable system developed at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, called Virtual Voices, both specially devised for individuals with cognitive disabilities. He highlighted Assisted Care system Technologies that work within assisted care environments, encompass Smart Home technologies, include transportation support, and empower the entire support network, not just the individual. These technologies become increasingly important when set in the context of the change in support systems from residential care in State institutions to settings that include between one and six patients. This trend has led to the development of highly sophisticated systems, under the banner of Digital Home technologies for Aging in Place by organisations such as Intel, using advanced communication systems, smart sensors, software infrastructure, and comprehensive actuators. These systems provide technologies that support personal health and wellness activities, support informal family and friends care networks, and telemedicine environments for remote diagnosis and virtual physician visits. He gave an
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instance of the work of Professor Sumi Helal at the University of Florida that is devoted to the development of technologies in the Smart Home. An architecture for supporting smart technologies in assisted living settings by researchers at the University of Colorado was also mentioned. Here a Three-Tier Smart Support Approach is being taken, where the first Tier provides Resident Centred support systems that offer Personal Technologies for self directed living; the Second Tier System represents Direct care support systems, where technologies track residents needs and prompt care-givers to provide appropriate support; and the Third Tier is based on a Knowledge Management system with the objective of evaluating direct care support, improvement of policies and procedures, and the training of direct care staff. While recognising the efficacy of Smart Homes, Professor Lightner raised the issue of dependency on the accuracy of sensors, the observation systems and even the power systems providing support to individuals. The Lecture was followed by a lively question and answer session, where questions ranged from the aspects of specific technology or sensor design, network management, to more philosophical considerations of the dependency on virtual support and remote monitoring.
Magnus Magnusson Hon KBE FRSE 20 September 2006 The Vikings and Scotland: The Northern World and its Significance for Scotland Part of the RSE/Norwegian Academy Vikings and Scotland Conference In a conference that aimed to assess the impact and influence of the Vikings on Scotland, it was fitting that the symposium should be opened by a scholar who had devoted a large part of his life to the topic. In his informative and entertaining lecture Dr Magnusson outlined the swathe of scholarly approaches and methodologies utilised in the pursuit of understanding the Viking period throughout the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, and the different interpretations that emerged from them. In this opening lecture, and the discussion that followed, it was fitting that many of the issues raised would provide the foundations for the whole conference. Were the Vikings saints or sinners? Heroes or villains? Settlers or invaders? Raiders or traders? Pillagers or poets? Dr Magnusson believed that we were getting nearer to answering some of these questions, mainly through the work of scholars who would be presenting over the following days. Ending his lecture he admitted that he found great solace in remembering that in a time when Ghengis Khan was trying to subjugate the western world by the sword, Snorri Sturluson in his lonely study in the south of Iceland was trying to subjugate the northern world by the power of the word. This allusion epitomised the power of the academic conference, and the studies that followed. The full conference report (ISBN 978 0 902198 20 3) is available on the RSE Website, and a summary appears in this publication, on page 242.
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CONFERENCES, WORKSHOPS, SYMPOSIA, SEMINARS AND DISCUSSION FORUMS

Conference Creation of Wealth 16 November 2005 Supported by Bank of Scotland For the last ten years, the rate of growth in the Scottish economy has continued to fall below the rate for the UK as a whole. Manufactured exports are down and the number of new business start-ups remains amongst the lowest of the UK regions. What can be done to remedy the situation and create a vibrant and successful Scottish economy? Conference Chairman, Gavin McCrone, RSE General Secretary, welcomed delegates by noting the way in which the work of The Royal Society of Edinburgh has always sought to pursue work on social sciences and public policy alongside scientific enquiry. There were positive signs in the Scottish economy: output per head was on a par with the average of the 15 states in the pre-2004 EU and was well above that of the enlarged EU; the service sector, now 70% of the Scottish economy, was very buoyant; employment levels were very high; and for the first time in many years there was a net immigration to Scotland. But in the last ten years economic growth had fallen behind that of the UK as a whole - in 1996 Scottish GDP per head was 100% of the UK average, but this had now fallen to 96%. The main cause for concern was manufacturing, which had grown well until 2000, but had fallen by 13% since then, largely due to the
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downturn in the electronics sector. This had wider implications for the Scottish economy as a whole, given the export orientation of the sector, and Scottish exports had fallen by 20% in recent years. Competition from the new EU Member States for foreign investment would be intense. It was therefore important to seek to achieve more from internal efforts. The Scottish business birth rate had been among the lowest of the UK regions, but the climate was changing and there were remarkable success stories. The key was to focus on skills development and having the right environment and infrastructure to support the development of entrepreneurship. The programme for the day comprised Wendy Alexander MSP. The Role of Government (in Wealth Creation) Dennis Stevenson CBE, Chairman, HBOS plc. Scotlands Finance Sector
Jim McColl OBE, Chairman and Chief Executive, Clyde Blowers. Industry Rt Hon Brian Wilson. Energy Sir Alan Langlands FRSE, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, University of Dundee. Education Douglas Anderson, Founder and Vice-Chairman, Optos Plc. Industry Professor Jane Bower FRSE, Chair in Enterprise Management, University of Dundee. Education The Innovation Support System Dr John Brown, Chairman, BIA Scotland. Biotechnology Conclusions Although manufacturing has declined in recent years, there are nevertheless real success stories which give grounds for optimism. The challenge now is to reproduce similar success stories across the economy. We need more globalised companies such as Clyde Blowers and for people to seize the real opportunities that lie in new industries such as Bio industry. Education policy should be refined to place more emphasis on basic skills, vocational training and subjects such as maths, sciences and modern languages. The business environment for the financial sector is strong and
Scottish cities are proving attractive places to live and work in world terms, although more could be done to improve the infrastructure and the skills base. But the implications of possible takeovers of Scottish-based companies should be considered. Current energy policy, or the lack of one, is absurd. There is a need for a proper debate on the future of key energy sources such as coal and nuclear. The Optos story shows that persistence is necessary to win through. The Health Service should take more interest in new products and techniques. Universities are already playing an important role in economic development and a joined-up approach could achieve more by retaining and attracting back more graduates in specialist disciplines, and leading to more innovation. There are too many complicated Government initiatives and it is time for a return to a simpler and more consistent approach. We need to move from being a risk-averse society to one which actively encourages risk taking. A change in public attitudes to entrepreneurship should be pursued, and the overall approach of the public sector to encouraging entrepreneurship revised.
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Conference Nanomedicines of the Future 18 November 2005 Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The meeting represented a singular opportunity that enabled leading experts, researchers and commentators from Scotland and the Czech Republic to come together to: discuss and learn about recent advances in this rapidly changing area; establish international ties; and explore avenues for future exchange and collaboration. Both The Royal Society of Edinburgh and The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic saw the meeting as a welcome occasion for the development of long-term ties and an important vehicle for generating collaborative initiatives. Distinguished speakers from Scotland and the Czech Republic addressed strategically important topics and explored emerging areas of mutual scientific and technical interest. The meeting offered an exceptional platform to discuss current developments and to chart future directions. Specific themes covered included advances in self-assembly and nanomedicine fabrication, nanomedicines and the cell and nanomedicines for cancer. A full report is available on the RSE website.
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Natural Disasters Discussion Forum Earth, Wind, Fire & Water: Tsumani Supported by Heriot-Watt University Thursday 1 December 2005
Tsunami was the first of four meetings in the Societys Natural Disaster Series Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. Three related presentations were delivered by Dr Chris Browitt, Fellow of the Society; Diane Johnson, Programme Director, Mercy Corps; and Julia Horton, Feature Writer, the Edinburgh Evening News. Chris Browitt explained the seismic origins of tsunami. A subsea earthquake in the deep ocean causes vertical displacement of the Earths crust and lifts the overlying water column. The movement can be relatively small but the large plan area lifted means the volume of water displaced is considerable. The resulting tsunami is a long, low amplitude wave that moves out rapidly (in excess of 500 Km/h) in all directions from the earthquakes epicentre. When the wave reaches the shore, its energy becomes concentrated. As this high energy, high amplitude wave breaks, it causes catastrophic damage: killing people, destroying buildings, grounding boats and scouring vegetation from the land. Chris went on to explain
that the generation of the Indian Ocean tsunami that occurred on Boxing Day 2004 was the result of an earthquake that registered force 9 on the Richter Scale with an epicentre just of the coast of Indonesia. Diane Johnston discussed the role of Mercy Corps in providing aid following the 2004 tsunami. In early 2005, Diane was based in Banda Aceh in Sumatra, Indonesia, one of the worst affected areas. Shortly after her arrival, it became apparent that people didnt need more stuff but, money to help rebuild their lives. This prompted Mercy Corps to implement the Cash for Work Programme, where those participating were paid $3/day to undertake clean up tasks, including removing debris and burying bodies. Paying out cash in this way represented a major departure from the type of support normally provided by aid agencies. At the peak of activity Mercy Corps was spending $1 million/ month on the Cash for Work Programme. A natural development of this approach was the follow on Early Return Pro-
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums gramme, where displaced people were paid to leave the refugee camps and return to their home area and start the clean up and rebuilding process in these locations. Once people began to return to their home areas it was necessary to change the emphasis of the aid programme through introduction of the Livelihoods Programme, the Social Revitalisation Programme and the Financial Access Programme. The Livelihoods Programme included a boat moving project, where stranded fishing boats were returned to the sea. The Social Revitalisation Programme funded the reconstruction of social infrastructure: mosques, schools, cultural activities, sporting activities and local midwives; whereas the Financial Access Programme involved Mercy Corps acting as the financial guarantor for bank loans of around $200,000 to re-establish larger industries. Julia Horton travelled to Banda Aceh with Edinburgh Evening News photographer Kate Gillan shortly after the tsunami to support the papers appeal to raise 0.5 million to support Mercy Corps aid effort. Julia recounted the reason that the disaster had had such a major impact on the British public. Firstly, the scale of the devastation meant that news coverage was more akin to a Hollywood movie
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than real life: 280,000 people killed and 2,000,000 made homeless in 13 countries. Secondly, Christmas time is a quiet news period so the event received extensive coverage by the UK media. Finally, the fact that popular holiday destinations were affected meant that most people could identify with the event, either by having visited the resorts themselves or through knowing people who had holidayed in the resorts. As a consequence an unprecedented 265 million was raised in public donations to the tsunami relief fund by the end of February 2005. Reporting from the disaster area brought its own challenges. When on the ground, the scale of the disaster was impossible to take in, only from the air could one begin to get a sense of the area of land and number of people involved. Language translation was particularly difficult as many people spoke a local Indonesian dialect. Interviewing often required two interpreters to translate from English to Indonesian to the local dialect and back. The level of intrusive media coverage was also a concern, although most locals welcomed this, recognising it as the cost of securing outside assistance to deal with the aftermath of the disaster. During her visit Julia witnessed the positive impact of Mercy Corps cash for work programmes,
providing not just financial assistance but also raising self esteem and providing emotional support. Highlights included the sight of scores of fishermen laughing and singing as they manhandled large fishing boats back to the sea. Julia will return to Banda Aceh on the anniversary of the tsunami to report on how the recovery is progressing. Discussion A lively debate followed the presentations, including discussion on: the probability of the occurrence of natural disasters, difficulties in co-ordinating relief work when multiple NGOs and military organisations are involved, the need for clear and effective communication with the public, and making aid provision conditional on the implementation of sustainable solutions.
The most active discussion surrounded the need to develop a tsunami warning system for the Indian Ocean. The 2004 event was picked up by the Pacific Ocean Tsunami Warning System located on Hawaii; however, the combination of the short time between the earthquake occurring and the tsunami reaching shore (15 minutes in the case of Sumatra), and the lack of a suitable warning infrastructure meant little could be done in most regions. Warnings reached Kenya and Somalia whose distance from the epicentre provided around 7 hours advanced notice of the waves arrival. In Kenya, an existing communication system, used to alert the population to coastal storm surges, was activated and the loss of life was limited to one person. Conversely, in neighbouring Somalia where no such communication system exists 300 lives were lost. The meeting concluded that tsunami warning systems are now practical and effective and should be constructed in all tsunamiprone areas.
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Discussion Forum - Science Meets Religion Professor Simon Conway Morris FRS Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology, Cambridge University Professor Wentzel van Huysteen James I McCord Professor of Theology and Science, Princeton Theological Seminary, USA Monday 23 January 2006 The history of relations between science and religion is often assumed to be one of conflict. It is not difficult to find recent examples that reinforce this impression. The ruling of Judge Jones that intelligent design theory cannot be taught as science in York County, Pennsylvania has highlighted the considerable opposition to the acceptance of evolutionary science in large stretches of America. Similarly, the current Channel 4 series fronted by Richard Dawkins has shown a range of religious extremists from around the planet whose viewpoints propound the thesis that science is fair and reasonable while religion is obscurantist, antiintellectual and disposed towards violence. Yet, in viewing this, many scientists will balk at the metaphysical assumptions that are attributed to their disciplines, while the vast majority of the adherents of every major world religion disown and condemn those who are selected to represent them. The Science meets Religion Forum at the RSE focused upon human evolution, but not in a manner that was conflicting or adversarial. A large audience gathered to listen to two distinguished academics speaking from their different disciplinary perspectives. It was the conviction of both Professor Wentzel van Huyssteen and Simon Conway Morris that science and religion, while having their own discourses and domains of study, could interact in ways that were mutually instructive. For van Huyssteen, the Edinburgh Gifford Lecturer in 2004, the scientific account of human evolution sheds light on how and why religion emerged as a central component of culture long before the emergence of the worlds major religions. Dating from the upper palaeolithic period, the cave paintings at Lascaux in France suggest that the religious imagination is endemic to human societies that have the capacity for symbolic means of communication. The traditional theological notion that human beings are created in the image of God resonates with this. Yet what we
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mean by the image of God needs to be less abstract than some traditional constructions that have limited this merely to consciousness or the possession of a rational soul. A more embodied and social account of human uniqueness is required to accommodate insights from earlier evolutionary history. Van Huyssteens argument will be further developed in his forthcoming volume Alone in the World: Science and Theology on Human Uniqueness. Conway Morris, who will be the Edinburgh Gifford Lecturer in 2007, gave a summary of the phenomenon of evolutionary convergence, whereby broadly similar solutions (e.g. sabre teeth) to the same problem (tearing meat) arose independently many times. Instances of convergence range from the level of single biomolecules, through metabolic pathways to whole organs, intelligence and social
organisation. Convergence implies that biological evolution was subject to rather tight constraints. Conway Morris drew a number of implications from these observations during his talk and in subsequent discussions. First, the emergence of sentient beings like ourselves is an evolutionary inevitability once the simplest life forms had taken shape. Secondly, wholesale genetic manipulation may be much more dangerous than its proponents and supporters want to admit: convergence implies that it simply is not the case that anything goes when it comes to putting together viable organisms. Finally, since evolution has repeatedly led to the emergence of solutions that reflect the structure of reality (constraints), it is rational to take seriously the emergence of religious beliefs in humans.
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Conference Languages in Scotland : what's the problem? 24th March 2006
The Scottish Executive has invested substantial sums in language teaching in Scottish schools much more, pro rata, than is spent in England. Nevertheless, the numbers of Scottish secondary school students being entered for examination in modern languages at Higher level are falling, and of those presented there are 50% fewer boys than girls. In addition, there is a noticeable decline in the numbers of school students taking more than one foreign language. The RSE found these facts particularly worrying in the context of globalisation in all its forms, and decided to organise a one-day conference. The title of the conference, Languages in Scotland Whats the Problem?, was chosen to stimulate a wide-ranging discussion of two questions: first, is there really a problem in language teaching and learning in Scotland and, second, if so, what is the problem? Specifically, the conference aimed to examine the current challenges and best practice of teaching and learning modern languages in Scotland, and the economic and cultural value of
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languages as a life skill for Scotland and its people. The conference began with an overview of challenges and best practice from representatives of the Scottish Executive, HM Inspectorate of Education, the British Council, the European Commission and the Scottish Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research (Scottish CILT). The second session focused on languages at work, covering the personal experience of Scots who have used foreign languages in their careers and innovative approaches to language teaching using modern technology. The third session looked at what is currently being done in schools in the state and private sectors (including Gaelic medium education) and in institutions of Further and Higher Education. Provisional conclusions One days discussion was sufficient only to scratch the surface of the topic. Indeed, it became clear that we were talking, not about a single problem, but a range of problems, some of which (but not all) are interrelated.
On the positive side the conference showed that Scotland is not, as some would suggest, a monolingual culture. We are not, as a people, irretrievably condemned to linguistic incompetence. Those of our speakers, predominantly Scottish-born, who use other languages successfully, both at work and in their daily life, are not all university graduates, far less modern languages graduates. What they showed was an enthusiasm for languages as an added dimension to their relations with and understanding of other people, as well as a realisation that dealing with other people in their own language is commercially and professionally rewarding and sometimes essential. The notion that we do not need to know other languages because everyone else can speak English impoverishes our young people. The conference also showed how the resources of audio-visual technology now increasingly accessible can be used to stimulate interest in languages and skill in using them. We will not easily forget the video-clip of students in a Scottish school playing Blind Date in Japanese. Languages can become a fun part of the curriculum without surrendering academic value or rigour. Nor is the issue purely one of European languages. The ability
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to communicate in Chinese and other Asian languages is of benefit to the European economy as well as the Scottish economy and in this respect, and many others, Scotland is strengthened by our ethnic minorities. On the negative side the conference showed that we do not seem to value knowledge of other languages as a life skill that is, economically as well as culturally, vital to the success of Scotland and its people. Those who see themselves as Scotlands wealthcreators played almost no part in our debate and have contributed very little to promoting language teaching and learning, Financially or otherwise. Is it creditable that the Partners in Excellence project (see presentation 11) should come to an end for lack of funding because the Executive feels bound to direct funds elsewhere? It is easy to be enthusiastic about the resources of modern technology. But, from the point of view of school-teachers, such resources are useful only to the extent that funds are available to purchase them and, almost more important, that the teachers themselves are given time and opportunity to learn how to use them. And, for good or ill, the skills acquired at school must be capable of being examined and graded. Students subject choices depend on which subjects offer the best
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums chance of getting good grades. Is there a tension between teaching languages as a practical skill and preparing students for examinations whose content depends, at least in part, on what universities expect that students should have learned? Do the literary aspects of language examinations dissuade students who, rightly or wrongly, find them difficult or uncongenial? Perhaps the most important message to come out of the conference is that the problem is not just a technical one concerning the place of languages in the school curriculum and the examination system. For many people, the Further Education Colleges will play a more significant role in promoting language competence as an acquired skill than will the schools or the universities. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the earlier a child becomes accustomed to hearing and speaking more than one language, the more natural it will be for him or her to regard language proficiency as a normal part of life. Equally, lively and energetic language departments in the universities are essential to produce the language teachers of tomorrow. So there is no one problem and no one solution. We need to consider how language teaching and learning can best be integrated in the life-long learning
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process from nursery onwards. This goes well beyond the remit of the Scottish Executive Education Department. It is a strategic challenge for the Scottish population as a whole, especially those who have influence in the public and private sectors. The conference did not have time to consider a number of other questions that suggested themselves to us at the planning stage. For example, how important is an understanding of grammatical structure to a students capacity to absorb other languages? In this respect, it would be interesting to find out whether children from the ethnic minorities, many of whom speak a non-Indo-European language at home and English at school, find it easier than their classmates to assimilate French, German or Spanish. Again, to what extent are Scottish researchers working with colleagues in other countries hampered by lack of language skills? Ideas are exchanged over coffee, lunch and dinner, as well as in meetings or the laboratory. Anyone who is accustomed to working with colleagues in other countries knows from experience how easy it is to be excluded from an interesting conversation when the hosts, without intending to exclude, revert to their own language. We need to remember that, even if English be the universal medium of communica-
tion a notion that was challenged at the conference there is no inherent reason why others should find it easier to speak our language than we do theirs. Properly understood, language skills are an integral part of the so-called knowledge economy. We need to ask more questions and collect more data in order to understand the full range of the problems discussed at the conference. As a first step, the RSE proposes to collect the statistical data that are currently lacking in order to build an accurate picture of language teaching, language learning and language skills generally in Scotland. We welcome information and ideas from all those who are interested.
On behalf of the RSE, we would like to thank all those who were involved in planning and organising the conference and those who took time to prepare papers and to speak at the conference itself. Particular thanks are due to Professor Richard Johnstone, who was involved in all aspects of the event, to the Rapporteurs Hannah Doughty and Catriona Oates who prepared this report, and to the members of staff of the RSE, especially Frances Fowler, Jean Finlayson and Morven Chisholm. RONA MACKIE/ DAVID EDWARD Convener RSE International Committee / Convener RSE European Policy Forum A full report of the conference (ISBN: 0 902198 10 6) can be dowloaded from the RSE website.
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Lloyds TSB Discussion Forum - Ageing Population 26 April 2006
In 1999 the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland decided to fund research into human ageing and entered into a partnership with the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) to identify research proposals that had the potential to improve the quality of life of our ageing population. Since then, the Foundation has invested 2.4 million in projects covering a wide range of activities including the the medical, psychological, sociological and economic consequences of ageing. Awards are made annually for three-year postgraduate studentships, threeyear postdoctoral research fellowships and one-year sabbatical fellowships. This symposium heard details of work carried out by one current and three former recipients of the awards. It demonstrates the important contribution that this partnership between the Lloyds TSB Foundation and the RSE is making in advancing our understanding of the ageing process and its impact on millions of people around the world. The application of information and communication technology to alleviate the effects of dementia. Dr Norman Alm, Support Fellow from April 2000 March 2001. Department of Computing, University of Dundee. Dr Alm and colleagues have been investigating how computerbased technology can help support and improve the lives of people with dementia. That has involved work in four specific areas improving personal safety; memory prompting; aiding communication; and providing entertainment. He said it involved the imaginative application of technology and, crucially, the active involvement of potential users at every stage of the research process. Improving safety injuries caused by falling in the home are a significant problem among older people, particularly those with dementia. They are a major cause of older people losing their independence and having to move into a residential home. It is important, therefore, to try to prevent falls and to move in quickly once they occur. Dr Alms team has developed a ceiling-mounted
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camera and computer software that can track a person around a room and raise an alert should they fall. The software learns to recognise areas where the person may be stationary for long periods (such as sitting in a chair) and other areas where lack of movement is a cause for concern. Memory prompting a system that can prompt people with dementia to carry out basic daily living tasks has the potential to improve their lives. Dr Alm explained the work going on in Dundee to develop such a system that could be delivered through interactive television. He said there are many questions that still need to be addressed to make this technically possible and this work is continuing. Aiding communication dementia destroys short term memory and makes conversation difficult with those affected. However, their long term memory can be relatively well preserved. The Dundee team has developed a system known as CIRCA that can tap into these long term memories and promote positive communication around what happened in the past. It is a large touchscreen system that can be used to view old photographs, listen to music or watch video. Dr Alm said it has proved to be remark230
ably successful in helping both people with dementia and their carers. Providing entertainment work in this area was prompted by a dementia expert who urged the team to help people with dementia have fun. The challenge has been to develop an entertainment system that can be used and enjoyed by people who have no memory. Work on this is still in the early stages but, like CIRCA, it is based on a touch screen format. The team has developed an explorable garden using computer graphics that can be navigated around by using the touch screen. Users can visit the garden pond to see fish swimming around, see the birds in the trees, plant seeds in a greenhouse or do some work in a shed. Dr Alm said funding from the Lloyds TSB Foundation had helped to start much of this work. Discussions are continuing with commercial manufacturers about making some of the products available for sale to public organisations and individuals to ensure the greatest possible benefit. All this work has relied on the contribution of many different professionals including computer scientists, mathematicians, psychologists, software engineers, multi-media designers and even actors who were involved in testing the safety technology.
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums The molecular and genetic basis of ageing and disease related changes in the functional adaptation of bone. Dr Val Mann. Personal Fellow since October 2003. Scottish Mechanotransduction Unit, University of Edinburgh Bone strength diminishes as people age and the risk of fractures increases. One in two women and one in five men over the age of 50 can expect to suffer a fracture. Spinal and hip fractures are the most common. It is a problem that costs the NHS an estimated 1.7 billion a year in the UK and has a serious impact on the quality of life of affected individuals. Half of all hip fracture patients, for example, lose the ability to live independently. Dr Manns work is involved in studying the self repairing properties of normal, healthy bones to see if this can point to ways to prevent bone degeneration in the elderly. She said bone is the ultimate smart engineering system and is ideally adapted for its function, being both light and strong. It responds to stress where it is needed which explains why footballers legs, tennis players arms and gymnasts wrists all have greater concentrations of bone. It is this ability to respond to stress and self repair that is lost as people age and research has shown that is related to a reduction in specific bone cells, called
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oesteocytes. The aim of Dr Manns research is to find ways of maintaining these cells as we age. It involves laboratory experiments on bone donated by patients after orthopaedic operations. Fragments of bone are subjected to stress similar to that induced by exercise to study how new bones cells are formed. This has shown that bone that is not exercised loses oesteocytes at a faster rate than bone that is exercised. That is a clear message of the benefits of regular exercise in maintaining skeletal strength. However, Dr Mann said exercise is not an option for many elderly people due to illness. However, if the signalling process that determines the new formation of bone can be identified it could lead to the development of therapeutic drugs that could have some effect on bone degeneration. Certain genes are known to be involved in this reaction and Dr Mann and colleagues have searched 38,000 genes and been able to narrow it down to 260. This is the first time that genes have been discovered in human bone that are responsive to exercise, she said. They are the ones that may offer a target for new therapies. The award from the RSE/Lloyds TSB Foundation has been important in progressing this work, she added and had provided a springboard to obtain additional
funding for the research. Reducing age-related fracture risk is extremely important and these developments may offer a new way forward in helping to strengthen bone in old age. Predictors of successful ageing: findings from the longitudinal follow-up of the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921 Dr Alan Gow. Postgraduate Student from October 2002 September 2005. Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh Our cognitive powers, such as thinking and memory skills, decline as we age. This is a major contributor to loss of independence in later life. However, there is a huge variation between individuals, with some older people maintaining these cognitive powers well into old age. Dr Gow said this suggest there may be protective factors that promote healthy and successful ageing. These could include genetic and medical influences; educational background; and lifestyle and psychosocial factors. He said lifestyle and psychosocial factors are important as they are potentially modifiable. A recent review has suggested that people who are more active may show reduced decline in later life. Activity In this context can mean any physical, social or intellectual pursuit such as golfing, playing bridge or being a
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member of a reading club. The general conclusion from research studies is that people who are more active show preserved abilities into older age. However, most of these studies have looked at participation in activities at a fixed point in time rather than over the course of their lifetime. It may be that there is a cumulative effect going back as far as an individuals youth. Dr Gow and colleagues have been trying to address some of these issues through the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921. This is a unique group of people who sat a mental ability test in 1932, along with every other 11-year-old in Scotland. Their test score from that time can be compared with today to track levels of decline. Lifestyle factors can also be studied to identify any potential differences between members of the group. In 2000, 550 members of the cohort were recruited, aged 79, and asked to sit the same mental ability test they completed in 1932. This exercise was repeated four years later when they were aged 83. The average test scores at age 79 and 83 showed only a small change but the research team was interested in what may be causing that change. The members of the group were asked about the frequency of participation in 17 different activities and assessed in terms of intellectual engagement, physical activity,
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums walking behaviour and membership of groups or clubs. They were also asked to rate how active they had been at age 20-35, 40-55 and 60-75. The results showed that people who scored well on the mental ability test were a bit more active and more likely to be intellectually engaged. A scoring system was developed to assess factors that may be important in the small decline recorded from ages 79-83 and the only factor that was found to be statistically significant was walking behaviour. The people who walked a lot declined less. Dr Gow accepted that walking may not be the cause of this reduced decline as it may simply indicate that those who walk a lot lead healthier, more active lives. The study is continuing to track members of the 1921 cohort over time and the longer they are followed up, the more certain researchers can be about the factors that may protect people against decline in later years. The importance of social support networks for people with dementia. Dr Heather Wilkinson. Personal Fellow from October 2001 December 2003. Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, University of Edinburgh Dr Wilkinson had been working in the field of dementia for a number of years before being awarded the RSE/Lloyds TSB Fellowship. She described it as a tremendous opportunity that allowed her time to build up a broad picture of the important social issues facing people with dementia. She was able to follow up a group of newly diagnosed individuals and their carers for two years or more to find out what life was like for them after being diagnosed. She said diagnosis is crucial, even though the illness has a lot of stigma surrounding it. Getting a diagnosis is essential to the social well being of the person with dementia, as it allows a real process of engagement to begin to help them deal with it. Despite this, there is a problem both in Scotland and around the world in getting the condition diagnosed. Dr Wilkinsons work has shown the serious impact dementia can have on relationships. Some of the couples in her study had been together for 30-40 years or longer and had a very long established
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way of life. That was destroyed by dementia. She described the period immediately after diagnosis as a time of trauma as couples re-negotiated their roles. This could also be a period of fear, resulting in carers and the person with dementia withdrawing from each other for a time. Risk also had to be re-assessed and, often, people were denied tasks they had carried out for years because these activities were now considered too risky. Giving up driving, for example, could be a big issue for men. She said people with dementia are one of the most excluded groups in society because of the nature of the condition itself and the response of other people. This raises important issues for research, policy and practice. It also poses questions about how best to meet the financial, social, emotional and health issues created by progressive cognitive impairment. The need for answers will become ever more pressing as it is estimated there will be 855,000 people with dementia in the UK by 2020. The financial costs associated with dementia are already high and rising as are the emotional and human costs. Dr Wilkinson said the best people to decide on what is needed are people with dementia themselves. Solutions also need to be set within a framework of families and relationships because that is
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where everything happens. She is now developing a Dementia and Social Relationships research programme to take forward these ideas. In addition to people with dementia, it will focus on people with learning disabilities who are more likely to suffer from dementia-related conditions. Policy and practice responses need to be grounded within a more detailed understanding of the impact of dementia on families and relationships, Dr Wilkinson concluded. Summary Professor John Coggins, VicePresident of the RSE, thanked all four speakers for an illuminating series of presentations. He said the purpose of the symposium was to showcase the wide range of activities that has been funded by the Lloyds TSB Foundation. That diversity shone through and, although the presentations related to very different areas of work, it was possible to see connections across all four. One of the intentions behind the partnership between the RSE and the Lloyds TSB Foundation was to invest in work that may, in the past, have struggled to secure funding. He said he hoped the audience agreed that the partnership has stimulated some of these areas and produced interesting findings along the way. It also remains clear, however, that there are a huge number of unanswered questions and much work remains to be done.
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Caledonian Research Foundation International Conference Beyond the Human Genome: Deciphering Biology and Disease Thursday 27 and Friday 28 April 2006
In his book What Mad Pursuit, Francis Crick says for at least several billion yearsthe double helix has been there, and active, and yet we are the first creatures on Earth to become aware of its existence. Fifty years after becoming aware of its existence, we have determined its sequence, thereby opening a completely new chapter in biomedical research. The goal now is to understand how the DNA sequence programmes the complex functions that are needed for the development of cells, tissues and organisms. During this meeting 17 internationally-renowned scientists spoke about recent progress and future directions in the post-genomic era. Key messages
The way the genome sequence
emerging as important disease mechanisms.

Repeated sequences, often
dismissed as junk DNA, have important consequences for genome stability and gene function.
High throughput screens for
gene and protein function are identifying new cellular pathways and new targets for cancer therapies.
Proteins that appear to have a
general role in the cell may have additional specificfunctions which might be relevant to disease.
Population-based screens are
highly effective in teasing out the genetic factors in complex

DNA sequence comparisons
is modified and packaged has a

Activation of gene expression
between species and populations can give new insights into the way genes evolve.
Model systems such as yeast
involves complex and dynamic interactions between DNA and proteins.

Changes in gene dosage and
and mice have direct relevance to the understanding of human development and disease.
gene expression levels are
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Conference Islam and Democracy Friday 5 May 2006
Professor Yasir Suleiman opened the conference by explaining why the Society had decided to hold it. He noted that Islam is often in the news, and usually for bad reasons. Common Western perceptions of Islam are that it is backward, violent, and not compatible with democracy. Muslims, meanwhile, argue that Islam is deliberately misinterpreted and slandered in the West. Professor Suleiman stated that the conference was not intended to rebut such arguments but to bring together prominent, active speakers to debate this subject, addressing certain fundamental questions:
What is democracy; what forms
Can Islam be separated from
Muslims?
Should we speak of democrati-
sation rather than democracy?

Is Islam compatible with
democracy and does it have to be?

What is the interest of the West
in democracy in the Muslim world?

Are those who call for democra-
cy in the Muslim world willing to live with its consequences? Should Muslims reject democracy simply because Western governments want it? This would be shooting the message, not the messenger. Khalid Abu al-Fadl has problematised the relationship of Islam and democracy: noting that, especially in the matter of law, popular authority is hard to reconcile with divine authority. Professor Suleiman observed that this was a difficult question to answer. But there are practical political (rather than philosophical) reasons for the lack of democracy in Muslim societies. These include the existence of authoritarian, powerful states; these societies
does it take?
Does it mean a particular form
of governance, set of values, system?

Why does democracy matter? Can it be imported into the
Muslim world?
Is Islam an invariant idea? Are there different interpreta-
tions and are some of them more compatible with democracy?

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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums experience of colonisation; and democracys specific historical background in post-Reformation Christian Europe. Despite all of these, it is quite possible for Muslims to see democracy as an ethical good that is worth pursuing regardless of its origins. However, Professor Suleiman noted that many Muslims, despite their interest in democracy, are cynical about attempts by nonMuslim powers to propagate it. He cited as an example of this suspicion a newspaper cartoon depicting Condoleezza Rice as a shifty-looking saleswoman of democracy. A full report of the conference is available on the RSE website (ISBN: 0 902198 94 7)
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Natural Disasters Discussion Forum Earth, Wind, Fire and Water: Tropical Storms Wednesday 31 May 2006
Tropical Storms was the second of four meetings in the Societys Natural Disaster Series Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. Two related presentations were delivered by Professor Brian Lee, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Portsmouth; and, Dr Julian Heming, Tropical Prediction Scientist, Met. Office. Brian Lee explained how the same physical event is given different names in different parts of the world: hurricane is used in the Caribbean, Central and North America, Florida and the North East Pacific; typhoon in Japan, South China Sea, Hong Kong and the Philippians: and cyclone in the South Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and Australia. A number of conditions need to be met to create a tropical storm. The principal energy source is convection of warm air from a sea surface with a temperature in excess of 26C. here must be no inversion in the atmosphere up to 10 km and above this atmospheric conditions must be divergent. As the air rises in the centre of the storm, the
water vapour it contains precipitates forming rain. This change of state, from vapour to liquid, releases latent heat at 540 calories per gram, reinforcing the convection and strengthening the storm. The Coriolis force is critical to the creation of tropical storms. It is zero at the equator and strengthens towards the poles. In the Northern hemisphere it induces an anti-clockwise rotation and in the Southern hemisphere a clockwise one. It is necessary to move at least 10 north or south of the equator to generate a Coriolis force of sufficient magnitude to induce the circulation necessary to create a tropical storm. The radius of the eye of the storm is typically of 20 km with the strongest winds (up to 75 km/h) occurring just outside the eye wall, the lowest central depression recorded is 882 mbar and rainfall intensities of 1750 mm/h are not uncommon. It is possible to describe tropical storms mathematically as large vortices and predict maximum wind speeds from their physical attributes, such as central pressure
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums and eye diameter. However, damage patterns following Hurricane Andrew confirmed what meteorologists had suspected for sometime that embedded within the eye wall are major convectional instabilities. Occasionally, these drop to ground level producing wind speeds far in excess of those predicted by the vortex model. The clusters of maximum damage arising from Andrew are consistent with wind speeds of 70 to 92 m/s far in excess of those characterised by the general wind field. Research is currently underway into these effects, plus the role of flying debris in damage to buildings and other critical urban infrastructure, such as telecommunications, transportation and water pipelines and electricity supplies. The need for this research is emphasised by the following quote from the Director of the USA National Hurricane Centre one in every five people in the USA is at direct risk of hurricane impact and the numbers are growing daily, due to the increasing population of Florida and communities in the Southern USA this has caused the probability of damage to increase, so that if Hurricane Andrew were to reoccur today the cost would be five times as great in real terms. Julian Heming discussed the evidence that climate change is causing an increase in the frequency and intensity of tropical storms. We are currently experiencing a period of particularly high tropical storm activity. In 2004, four hurricanes struck Florida and ten tropical cyclones (not all typhoons) found land fall in Japan. Additionally, last year was a record year in the Atlantic with four category five hurricanes occurring: Emily, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. This has been linked to recent published work in the scientific literature. Firstly, there is now clear evidence that the average sea temperature is rising and that this can be correlated to an increase in the cumulative strength of tropical storms over the same period. Additional evidence shows that recently a higher proportion of tropical storms are reaching category four and five. Interpreting the impact of climate change is complicated, as the occurrence of tropical storms exhibits significant natural variation. In 2005, five tropical storms made land in the USA, whereas, only two made landfall in 1995. However, there were fourteen tropical storms in 1995, eight of which reached Hurricane force. Additionally, hurricane Andrew, a major hurricane strike on the USA occurred in 1992 a relatively quiet year overall. It is important not to allow news coverage of hurricane strikes on the USA skew our perception of increased frequency of tropical
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storms. Increased coastal development is exacerbating this effect, as when hurricanes do strike the damage is now considerably greater than previously. There is also evidence that other climatic phenomena, such as El Nio introduce large scale fluctuations into the system. These are only partially understood at the present time and further research is required. Julian concluded that: 1. Demographic changes in the coastal regions of the USA have significantly influenced our perceptions of increased severity of tropical storms. 2. The Atlantic has been active for the last ten years but there has no significant increase in other parts of the world. 3. Natural variations in activity mask any climate change impact. This is likely to be the case for the foreseeable future.
Discussion concerned: 1. the definition of the hurricane season and whether climate change was causing this to extend; 2. implications for building design in the UK, the tornado that recently occurred in Birmingham suggests that wind loading in building design codes should be revised upward; and, 3. the role that the media play in skewing societys perceptions of climate change phenomena.
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Cormack Bequest Meeting 12 June 2006
The Cormack Bequest Meeting, supported by SUPA and the Cormack Bequest fund, took place on 12 June 2006. The following awards were made Cormack Postgraduate Prize Mr Brian Hamilton. Cormack Undergraduate Prize Ms Katharine G Johnston.
Vacation scholarships were announced as follows. Cormack Vacation Scholarships Ms Sharon Baillie Mr Calum K Brown Mr Duncan H Forgan Ms Jennifer A Noble Mr Colin C Simpson The meeting was followed by an evening lecture, by Athena Coustenis of the Paris-Meudon Observatory, entitled, Titan and the Cassini-Huygens mission (see full report page 141)
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Conference The Vikings and Scotland: Impact and Influence A joint conference with The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Thursday 21-Friday 22 September 2006 The Royal Museum, Lothian Street. At the end of the 8th century AD, longships arrived off the coasts of Britain and Ireland carrying Viking warriors from the North. Historical texts suggest that their primary purpose was to raid and plunder writers document raids on, for example, Lindisfarne in 793, all the islands in Britain (probably the Hebrides) in 794 and both Rathlin Island and the Isle of Skye in 795. This association between Vikings and terror is the canvas on to which many pictures of the Viking period are painted, a perception perpetuated by the modern media. But these Scandinavian peoples had a longer-lasting and far-wider impact on Britain and Ireland. Ambitious for power, looking for land to settle and trade routes to dominate, they took certain areas of Britain and Ireland, drawing these regions into the Viking world, a domain which stretched from Newfoundland to the Middle East and beyond. Certain areas of Britain and Ireland, particularly the Atlantic regions so often regarded as remote and peripheral in todays society were at the centre of this maritime world. The Vikings were warriors
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first and foremost, but also farmers, skilled craftspeople, storytellers, historians and traders. At first pagan, they later succumbed to Christianity. At the beginning of the Viking Age c.800 A.D., Scotland was divided into four ethnic groups (Britons, English, Gaels and Picts) or three major political units (Northumbria, Pictland and Strathclyde), comprising an untold number of kingdoms and lordships. In the ebb and flow of almost five centuries Scandinavian, British, Gaelic and Anglian cultures mingled and clashed. But what was the real impact and influence on these pre-existing societies and what effects did they have on what was to become Scotland? Scholars have been pondering such questions for centuries but many remain unanswered. Almost every aspect has proven contentious: when exactly did it happen, where did it happen, and how many people did it involve? Was there contact between the two regions prior to the 8th century? Did the indigenous and migrant groups integrate or did the
Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums invaders overwhelm and annihilate the natives? What was the impact on the Christian Church? Did the Vikings really play a pivotal role in the creation of Scotland? The Viking story relative to Scotland is not a simple one. The evidence be it historical, linguistic or archaeological is scant and varied. Further, any student of Viking history really has to be aware of all the sources which can contribute to our understanding. Many approaches to some of these fundamental questions have been broad-brush, resulting in generalist statements and conclusions. Recent work suggests that if we are ever to reach a fuller understanding of this critical period in Scotlands history we require far closer analysis of the data. But of one thing there is no doubt. The Vikings are a popular topic, in schools, on television, in tourism; and as a subject for conferences such as the present one for which The Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters brought together the foremost academic scholars and researchers from Scotland, Ireland, England, Norway and Denmark to present their own assessments of the nature of the Viking impact and its consequences on the political, cultural, economic, linguistic and genetic make-up of the country of Scotland which emerged in the post-Viking Age. The scope and theme of the Conference was monumental and encompassed a wide and diverse range of disciplines relative to the topic, including history, place-names, literature, linguistics, and archaeology. This varied, and often problematic, body of evidence has been the foundation for interpretations of Viking Scotland for centuries. But the evidential and interpretative pool is now enhanced by genetics, a key contribution to the field of early population history and one which may play an important role in future consideration of the impact of the Scandinavian invaders on Scotland. The two-day conference was divided into four sections: Raids and Impacts; Settlement, Trade and Maritime Impact; Language and Literary Culture; and Political and Religious Development. Each section comprised four lectures, the speakers asked to speak on specific topics by the conference committee. Historical texts played an important part, particularly the Irish annals and Gaelic literature and nomenclature which have hidden within them evidence for the Scandinavian impact on Celtic areas. The later Latin and Icelandic sources, which comprise further historical evidence for the subject, also played a key role. The place-names which have become imprinted on the land-
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scape of the Northern and Western Isles, the north mainland of Scotland and scattered throughout the Lowlands and Borders, formed another crucial evidential field of Scandinavian influence. Artefacts, runic inscriptions, environmental evidence, graves and settlements uncovered
and studied by archaeologists supplemented the sources. A new player in the Viking discipline genetics also received considerable attention. A full conference report is available on the RSE website (ISBN: 978 0 902198 20 3)
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Conferences, Workshops, Symposia, Seminars and Discussion Forums Natural Disasters Discussion Forum Earth, Wind, Fire and Water: Earthquakes Wednesday 27 September 2006
Earthquakes was the third of four meetings in the Societys Natural Disaster Series Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. Two related presentations were delivered by Professor Robin Spence, Professor of Architecture Engineering, University of Cambridge and Mr Pete Sweetnam, Programmes Director, Mercy Corps. Robin Spence began by explaining the cause of 8th October 2005 Kashmir earthquake in Pakistan. The epicentre lies on the boundary between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates at the Hazara syntax; a location where the plate boundaries change direction. This location is among the most active earthquake regions in the Himalaya. The majority of deaths were due to building failure arising from the shaking of the structure and foundation failure due to ground displacement. Ground movement is a particular problem in the Kashmir area. The steep terrain means that level ground is at a premium for farming, resulting in buildings being constructed on unstable old river terraces on
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steep hill slopes. These sediments are prone to mass movement during earthquakes. A post-event investigation confirmed that traditional construction methods had performed well during the earthquake. This technique uses stone masonry combined with timber lacing and frames. The timber lacing binds the masonry and the frame holds up the roof independent of the walls. Unfortunately, more recent masonry structures, built without timber binding, were prone to collapse, as were buildings consisting of reinforced concrete frames with in fill walls. During the 20th century, 1.5 million people lost their lives due to earthquakes, with the vast majority being due to the collapse of masonry buildings. As a result, there is a significant international research effort to improve the construction of such structures in earthquake prone areas. Different methods of masonry binding are currently being developed in different countries; in Pakistan timber is preferred; whereas in Peru, fencing mesh is under investigation, and polypropylene straps are being studied in Japan.
A case study demonstrating the benefits of such methods already exists. Following the 1931 Balochistan earthquake, Quetta bond was developed, where steel strapping is used to bind the masonry. This technique was used to reconstruct a number of housing estates. Unlike the rest of Quetta, these withstood the subsequent 1935 earthquake. This construction method is still used in this region. Key messages that need to be understood by those living and building in earthquake prone areas are: Avoid Rebuilding as before Imported or high tech systems or materials Infilled reinforced concrete frames Encourage Location which takes account of ground conditions Connected foundations Improved (tied or confined) masonry Change in adjacent unaffected areas Pete Sweetnam explained that Mercy Corps is an international relief and development agency with an annual budget of $200
million and working in 38 countries. Mercy Corps mission is to support the poorest and most vulnerable people in society, particularly women during a crisis. A crisis is defined as the point where peoples coping mechanisms come to an end. Pete discussed the failure of dwellings during the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake in Iran. This occurred at 5 AM when most people were asleep, when the mud roofs of buildings collapsed and the occupants literally drowned in dust. Following the Pakistan earthquake, the terrain caused significant logistic problems in providing aid. Helicopter support from the Pakistan, and other, military was essential to the Mercy Corps operation. As with their response to other natural disasters Mercy Corps employed a Cash for Work Programme in Pakistan, where those in need of assistance are paid to undertake clean up tasks. Discussion A lively discussion followed the presentations. Topics discussed included: design measures to make buildings resistant to earthquake loading, the difficulties of coordinating relief activities with multiple relief agencies and military organisations involved.
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PUBLICATIONS
Proceedings A: Mathematics Six issues were published: Parts 135.5 and 135.6 (2005) and 136.1, 136.2, 136.3 & 136.4 (2006). Transactions: Earth Sciences Three issues were published: 96.2, 96.3 and 96.4 (2005). ReSourcE : the RSEs Newsletter: Issues 13 and 14. Royal Society of Edinburgh Directory 2006 (Session 20052006) Royal Society of Edinburgh Review of Session 2006 (Session 20042005) RSE Annual Review 2005-2006. Other Publications RSE Annual Review 2006 (April 2005March 2006) The Creation of Wealth Report of an RSE Conference (held November 2005) ISBN: 0 902198 64 5 Islam and Democracy Report of an RSE Conference (held May 2006) ISBN: 0 902198 94 7 Beyond the Human Genome: Deciphering Biology and Disease Report of CRF/RSE Conference (held May 2006) ISBN: 0 902198 89 0 Science Scotland Issue 5 (Spring 2006) - Energy Special. Human Nature a book edited by Malcolm Jeeves, developed from the proceedings of a week-long international meeting on Human Nature held in September 2000. Published July 2006. ISBN: 0 902198 69 Inquiry into Energy Issues for Scotland - Final Report the findings of an RSE Inquiry. Published June 2006. ISBN: 0 902198 79 3 Inquiry into Energy Issues for Scotland - Summary Report June 2006 ISBN: 0 902198 74 2 Stem Cell Research Report of Young Peoples Discussion Forum (held June 2006) ISBN: 0 902198 99 8 Languages in Scotland - Whats the Problem? Report of an RSE Conference (held March 2006) ISBN: 0 902198 10 6 Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Society, 1783-2002 C D Waterston and A M Shearer published July 2006. ISBN: 0 902198 84 X
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THE SCOTTISH SCIENCE ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Scottish Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) was established in May 2002 to provide independent advice to Scottish Executive Ministers on strategic scientific issues. Since this time, the SSAC has been uniquely placed to take a broad overview of the diverse scientific landscape in Scotland within an international perspective. Its medium to long term, horizonscanning, and strategic views have helped in formulating its advice on science strategy, science policies and science priorities with an overall aim of improving the social, environmental and economic prosperity of Scotland. To help develop Scotlands science priorities, over the past year the SSAC has produced a number of key reports: Scientific Network of Excellence in Energy The SSAC believes that Scotland has an outstanding opportunity to build on its existing strengths in energy research and to establish itself as a world leader in science and enterprise in the energy sector. The creation of a Scientific Network of Excellence in Energy in Scotland could act as a strong base from which to organise and coordinate participation in the DTIs recently announced UK Energy Technologies Institute, driving investment and expansion of the Scottish
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energy science and technology base. To ensure that this opportunity is not lost the following represent the key recommendations from the SSAC: 1. Energy is a sector where Scotland has the potential to become a world leader both in the science and technology. The SSAC believes that a Scientific Network of Excellence in Energy should be established in Scotland and this should play a major role in the UK DTI programme, and that Scotland should bid to lead this programme. 2. Energy research in Scotland should build on existing research excellence, in traditional and emerging energy sectors, but also embark on novel lines of research in its quest to be a world-class Institute. This will be achieved by engagement with academia and industry across the generation, supply, development and research spectrum. 3. Energy as a topic should be used as a cross-disciplinary exemplar to enthuse young people in science and engineering in schools, colleges and universities. Continuing professional development for science teachers should incorporate energy topics to influence and inspire the curriculum for excellence.
4. Building on the success of the Scottish Space School, a similar initiative in energy should be developed to enable Scottish pupils an opportunity to visit and participate in energy activities at leading international institutes such as MIT where energy would be the highlight. 5. More should be done to encourage multi/interdisciplinary research in sustainable energy supply, both with respect to its generation and its use. It should also stimulate social, environmental and ethical considerations of energy issues and research into methodologies of reducing the carbon footprint in energy production and distribution. The Network should play a role in promoting and championing these aspects. 6. The SSAC believes Scotlands energy research networks should be developed to encourage increased collaboration within the UK, and world wide, though a high-profile Scientific Network of Excellence in Energy. 7. The SSAC believes that improved collaboration of these energy groupings within Scotland, through participation in a Scientific Network of Excellence in Energy would further strengthen Scotlands research. This could have immediate impact with regard to the DTIs Energy Technologies
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Institute initiative as well as funding and economic development opportunities in other UK, EU and global contexts. 8. Mechanisms should be developed within a Scientific Network of Excellence in Energy to enable better exchanges of ideas between the Scottish academic sector and the Scottish energy industry sector. This would provide a driver for energy research in Scotland and facilitate more efficiently the translation of the research towards commercial applications. 9. A Scientific Network of Excellence in Energy should be established and charged with a responsibility to coordinate demonstration and testing facilities through optimised collaboration with Government, academic and industrial partners. Research Excellence in E-health The SSAC believes that Scotland is in an excellent position to take advantage of its expertise to initiate advances in a number of areas of e-health research. These relate to improvements in healthcare delivery, with concomitant prospects for commercial development of technology and services. The recommendations below identify key challenges and opportunities for Scotland where its capabilities in specific areas of
SSAC
e-health-related research could be taken forward: 1. Innovative, new activities are needed to improve interaction across the disciplines and organisations involved in ehealth research. These could include targeted research programmes, new blood academic appointments, targeted industrial fellowships, summer schools, research networks, workshops and visiting fellowships. They should be part of a national e-health programme and developed as a matter urgency. 2. A formal dialogue should be established between e-health researchers and procurers of generic clinical information systems. 3. The Scottish Executive should support test facilities for advanced information systems, in collaboration with NHS Scotland. Research Excellence in Medical Imaging Medical imaging technology is becoming increasingly important in the diagnosis and management of patients, in understanding disease mechanisms and more recently in improving routes towards drug development. Scotlands internationally competitive clinical researchers, life scientists, chemists, physicists and computer scientists, together with
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advanced imaging technology facilities afford new research opportunities, especially in elucidating disease mechanisms and pre-clinical drug discovery, as well as in the development of novel pharmaceutical imaging tracers. In order to capitalise on Scotlands strength in this area: 1. There is a need for a Scottish imaging strategy focused on improved connectivity between academia and the NHS. Developmental research should be better linked from the fundamentals through to clinical application. NHS-based clinical and academic research-based imaging would mutually benefit from interactions and some sharing of planning, data processing systems, hardware and human resources to bridge strategic gaps in equipment and personnel to catalyse more effective research but also with improved clinical care. 2. The SSAC strongly supports the Scottish Brain Imaging Pooling Initiative (SINAPSE) and strongly endorses better coordination of resources relating to current and future medical imaging technology 3. More needs to be done to develop human resources for medical imaging, including radiologists and scientists at the level of chair/group leader, midlevel scientist, junior/trainee
scientist and technician level. Consideration should be given to supporting exchange programmes between Scottish imaging groups and their leading international peers, with a view to rapidly increasing imaging expertise at all levels. 4. Medical imaging is an area where research foci should be provided across the chemistry, pharmacy, computing, physics and engineering disciplines, particularly in terms of the development of novel pharmaceutical imaging tracers. Animal Bioscience Research in Scotland. Scotland has world-leading research strengths in animal bioscience. The technologies now being applied in this area and the disease treatments now being developed for animals have the potential to be translated into human health, bringing benefits to animals, humans and the Scottish economy. There are, however, opportunities for better linkages and better coordination across Scotlands animal bioscience communities, and between the different funding bodies in this area, particularly across discipline boundaries. The next steps in this area should be: 1. Representatives from the principal research establishments should meet to discuss
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the relationship of a Scottish network with existing and planned centres and initiatives 2. Mission and vision statements should be drawn up to distinguish clearly the role of the Network in promoting excellence in Scottish establishments 3. Themes should be identified that cover the breadth of animal bioscience research among the Scottish establishments, and the contribution of the different partners to all or some of these themes should be mapped 4. Thematic working groups should meet quarterly to draw up plans of activities and for promotion of the Network 5. Targets for future funding opportunities should be 6. Bids should be made to attract Visiting Fellows to the Scottish Network for either short-term visits or longer-term collaborations Chief Scientific Advisor The work of the SSAC has helped lay a secure foundation in building the profile of science within the Scottish Executive. Reflecting this increased profile, a new post of Chief Scientific Advisor for Scotland was created within the Permanent Secretarys Office of the Scottish Executive in August 2006. This post, and its office took over the functions of the SSAC from 2007, after which the
SSAC
Society ceased to have any formal responsibility relating to it. Further information on the SSAC and copies of the reports can be found at: www.scottishscience.org.uk SSAC - Members Professor Wilson Sibbett CBE, FRSE (Chair) Professor Steven Beaumont OBE, CEng, MIEE, FRSE Professor Geoffrey Boulton, OBE, FGS, FRS, FRSE Professor Muffy Calder FRSE, FIEEE Professor Sir Kenneth Calman KCB, FRCS, FRCP, FMedSci, FRSE Professor John Coggins FRSE Professor Julie Fitzpatrick MRCVS Professor Peter Grant FREng, FRSE, FIEE, FIEEE Dr Stuart Monro, CGeol., FGS, ILTM, FRSSA Professor Peter Morgan FRSE Professor Richard Morris FMedSci, FRS, FRSE Dr John Nicholls Professor Stuart Reid MRCVS, FRSE Professor Jonathan Seckl FRCPE, FMedSci, FRSE Dr Barbara Spruce MRCP Professor Joyce Tait CBE Professor Chris van der Kuyl FRSE Eur Ing Graham Wren
SSAC - Staff Dr Avril Davidson, Head of Secretariat (maternity leave from May - December 06) Dr Marc Rands, Acting Head of Secretariat (May 06 to February 07). Marc supported the transition to the Scottish Executive. Ms Tracy Rickard, PA/Administrator (to June 06) Ms Ekua Hayford, PA/Administrator (June to December 06)
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EVIDENCE, ADVICE AND COMMENT

The Society submitted evidence, advice and comment on the following reports during the Session: November 2005 A European Institute of Technology? European Commission The UK Honours Degree: Provision of Information. Universities UK Scottish Commissioner for Human Rights Bill. Scottish Parliament Justice 1 Committee Consultation On The Animal Health And Welfare (Scotland) Bill. Scottish Parliament Environment and Rural Development Committee December 2005 Developing Proposals for Coastal and Marine National Parks. Scottish Natural Heritage Towards a Transport Strategy for Scotland: Consultation on Rail Priorities. Scottish Executive Best Value in Public Service. Scottish Executive January 2006 Review of Funding for Postgraduate Research Students. Scottish Funding Council February 2006 Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill. Scottish Executive April 2006 Crofting Reform etc. Bill. Scottish Parliament Environment and Rural Development Committee Enhancing our Care of Scotlands Landscapes. Scottish Natural Heritage May 2006 Policy for the Long Term Management of Solid Low Level Radioactive Waste in the UK. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Developing a New Strategy. Scottish Funding Council Strengthening Judicial Independence in a Modern Scotland. Scottish Executive July 2006 A Policy on Architecture for Scotland: Review of Policy. Scottish Executive
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Avian Influenza Working Group During the Session, the Society established a small group of Fellows to examine the implications of the avian influenza threat for Scotland. Chair of the group was Professor John Coggins, Vice Principal for Life Sciences and Medicine and Professor of Molecular Enzymology, University of Glasgow. The emphasis of the exercise was very much on Scotland, in particular the likely impact of an avian influenza outbreak on agriculture and on countryside activities important for tourism.
Scottish Parliament Science Information Scheme The Society continued its participation in the Scottish Parliament Science Information Scheme in collaboration with the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Scottish Parliament Information Centre and other affiliated organisations. The aim of the Scheme was to provide Members of the Scottish Parliament with access to reliable, rapid and impartial information on science, engineering and technology related issues; to help inform Parliamentary debates; and to raise the profile of science in the Parliament.
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INQUIRIES
Energy Issues for Scotland During the Session the Committee, chaired by Professor Maxwell Irvine, Professor of Physics, University of Manchester and former Principal & Vice-Chancellor of the Universities of Aberdeen and Birmingham, completed the evidence-gathering process and, in June 2006 launched its final Report on Energy Issues for Scotland. At the ASM on 10 October, Professor Maxwell Irvine gave a brief overview of the Energy Report and Professor Roger Crofts CBE, Inquiry Secretary, outlined the key issues. A lively discussion ensued to which many of those present contributed. This meeting was web-cast live and Fellows who were unable to attend were able to comment or raise questions during the meeting by e-mail. The Report states that there is a critical need for action and highlights opportunities and challenges for Scotland. The wide-ranging Report, which makes 37 recommendations, emphasises that diversity of energy sources will be crucial to security of supply, and suggests that Scotland: must develop a coherent, overarching approach to energy issues; has an opportunity to make important decisions on energy infrastructure; is in a position to influence decisions on electricity; can and should improve performance on waste management; must improve on energy loss in building; should reject the false polarisation of a nuclear v. wind debate and stimulate public engagement; has much potential in renewable technologies which should be explored. The strategic aim should be for a secure, competitive, socially equitable and low carbon emissions supply of energy for Scotland. Following the publication of the Report, Members of the Committee of Inquiry into Energy have also met with Mr Nicol Stephen MSP, Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning, Executive officials and MSPs from the relevant cross-party committees and groups. In October 2006, with the aim of facilitating public engagement on the issues, the RSE embarked upon a series of public and school discussion forums under the banner of Debating Scotlands Energy Choices, which is concluded with a conference for decision-makers at the RSE in April 2007.
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EVENTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

RSE@Schools 23 September 2006 Tour of the Universe, Islay High School 14 September 2006 Who are you? by Sue Black, FRSE. The Inverness Royal Academy followed by a public lecture, The Bare Bones Science, in the evening. 12-14 September 2006 Mathematics really matters by Bruce Davies as part of Techfest 2006. Glenalmond College, Turriff Academy, Lossiemouth High School and TCS of Auchterader 9 September 2006 Soap Bubbles and Membranes. Professor P Carris. Whitburn Academy 19 June 2006 Throwing Light on the Human Genome, Professor Wendy Bickmore. Glen Urquhart High School, Highlands 8 June 2006 Soap Bubbles and Membranes, Dr Ciaran Ewins. Arran High School, Isle of Arran 3 May 2006 A Guided Tour of the Universe, Professor Henry Ellington. St Ninians Primary School, Livingston 22 March 2006 Chemistry is Magic, Dr Christine Davidson. Wallace Hall Academy, Dumfries 20 & 21 December 2005 DNA Profiling: its use in famous cases. Dr Adrian Linacre. James Watt College, Ayrshire (Kilwinning and Greenock Campuses) 20 & 21 December 2005 Who Are You? Professor Sue Black FRSE. James Watt College, Ayrshire (Kilwinning and Greenock Campuses) 6 December 2005 Who are You? Professor Sue Black. Brechin High School, Angus 28 November 2005 Mirrors Medicines and Metals, Dr Susan Armstrong, St Saviours School, Dundee 27 October 2005 Throwing Light on the Human Genome, Professor Wendy Bickmore FRSE. Firrhill High School 27 October 2005 Drugs from Bugs, Dr Andrew Mearns Spragg. Drummond Community High School, Edinburgh 15 & 16 October 2005 Serpents and Synthesisers by Professor Murray Campbell at various schools in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire as part of Techfest 2005. Christmas Lectures 13 December 2005. Professor Sue Black. Who Are You? Elgin Academy, followed by a public lecture, The Bare Bones Science, in the evening. RSE Roadshows Workshops and talks for primary and secondary students, as well as the public. On the 6th and 7th March 2006 the RSE Roadshow visited Lochab259
er High School in Fort William where a variety of activities took place, including Computer Science interactive workshops, in which Primary and Secondary students learnt about Computer Science and how the subject underpins the technologies all around us. Primary students also got the chance to tackle Codes and Circles and Funny Money in mathematics workshops, whilst senior students learnt about the complex science behind DNA fingerprinting in a talk by Dr Adrian Linacre from The University of Strathclyde. Dr Linacre also gave an evening public talk on 6th March entitled, DNA Fingerprinting: Its use in famous cases. Using a variety of famous cases to illustrate the talk he explained what DNA Profiling is and how it has been used to identify people in previously unsolved mysteries. An important modern development in forensic science, DNA profiling has received much interest and attention in recent years as it has proved to be a powerful means by which criminals and innocent people have been identified. Discussion Forum The Discussion Forum took place on Thursday 15 June 2006 at Inverness College and S5 and S6 students from throughout the Highlands spent a day discussing and debating the issues surrounding Stem Cell Research.
Stem cells have the potential to help us treat many serious diseases, but their use raises many contentious issues. The forum addressed the question What must society consider before this potential is harnessed? In the morning experts introduced the topic through a variety of talks. Dr Neville Cobbe, University of Edinburgh, introduced the field, asking What is a Stem Cell? What is a Human Being? When does life begin? What is OK? Dr Matt Dalby, University of Edinburgh then discussed the potential applications of Stem Cell therapies. Finally, Professor Graeme Laurie, University of Edinburgh, discussed some of the legal aspects of Stem Cell Research, illustrated with responses from around the world. After the talks, students split into workshops to consider the issues and formulate their own opinions on topics as diverse as the medias role in the Stem Cell debate, clinical trials, the use of embryos in stem cell research, the funding of research and public trust of scientists. The day concluded with students presenting their views to the conference and an open-floor debate. The event was run in partnership with the Scottish Initiative for Biotechnology Education (SIBE). A full report is available on the RSE website.
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Young People
e-Discussion Forum In tandem with the 2006 Stem Cell Research Discussion Forum, this project was expanded to enable students from throughout Scotland to access the resources associated with the event. A CDRom, including video material of all the presentations, resources for teachers and a student debate pack has been produced and sent to all schools in Scotland. Schools have been invited to feedback to the RSE, the results of their future debates, and these, once received will be compiled in a report. This resource is also available on the RSE Website. Maths Masterclasses Maths Masterclasses involve Saturday morning games and puzzles for P6/7 students to encourage an interest in mathematics. Run in partnership with Aberdeen City Council and the University of Dundee and Professor Jack Carr and Mrs Teresa Carr (Dalmeny and Glasgow). Aberdeen City Council 14 January - 4 February 2006 13 May - 10 June 2006 University of Dundee 6 May - 27 May 2006 The High School, Glasgow 14 January - 4 February 2006 Dalmeny Primary School 5 November - 26 November 2005
Summer School The SET summer school includes workshops and talks on science, technology and maths subjects, but also on transferable skills and advice for those not sure about continuing into higher education. The summer school is run in partnership with Heriot-Watt University, supported by Edinburgh City, East Lothian, West Lothian and Midlothian Councils. The 2006 Summer School took place at Heriot-Watt University from 31 July to 4 August for S5/S6 students from East and West Lothian regions and 7 to 12 August for those from Midlothian and the City of Edinburgh. Startup Science Masterclasses The Startup Science Masterclasses take place on Saturday mornings in the form of workshops for S1/ S2 students and emphasise the role of science, engineering and technology in society. These workshops are run in partnership with organisations throughout Scotland. University of Dundee 6 May - 3 June 2006 5 November - 10 December 2005 University of Glasgow 22 April - 13 May 2006 5 November - 26 November 2005 Heriot-Watt University 22 April - 6 May 2006 29 October- 19 November 2005
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St Andrews University 22 April - 20 May 2006 22 October - 12 November 2005 University of Aberdeen 11 March - 8 April 2006 Annual Inspiration Awards Contributors to RSE Young Peoples activities are inspirational role models for young scientists in schools from the Borders to the Highlands. At a reception hosted by RSE Vice-President, Professor John Coggins in September 2006, awards were presented to those who have made an exceptional
voluntary contribution to the Young Peoples Programme of activities. At the ceremony Professor Miles Padgett provided a review of the year and Professor Mary Bowes gave a report on the Stem Cell Research Discussion Forum, before the awards were presented. The 2006 Inspiration Awardees were Professor Sue Black FRSE, Dr. Quintin Cutts, Ms Lorna Sibbett, Professor Wendy Bickmore FRSE, Professor Mark Chaplain FRSE, Dr. Adrian Linacre and Dr. David Miller.
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RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE AWARDS

The following awards were made in Session 2005/2006 RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS BP Personal Dr Cristina Persano. Magnitude and tempo of landscape changes: reading the music. University of Glasgow CRF European Visiting Dr Frank L Muller. University of St Andrews Professor Brian Girvin. University of Glasgow Dr Guido Alfani. Universitat commerciale L. Bocconi Dr Javier Calle Martin. University of Malaga. Dr Alexander Pavlenko. Tagenrog, Russia. Maria Fletcher. University of Glasgow Dr Jane H Stuart-Smith. University of Glasgow Dr Barbara Schaff, Starnberg, Germany. CRF Personal Dr Francois-Michel Boisvert. University of Dundee Dr Anne E King. University of Edinburgh Lloyds TSB Personal Dr Irina Erchova. Learning to Forget: Aberrant Plasticity in the Aged Hippocampus.University of Edinburgh
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Lloyds TSB Support Professor J R Speakman FRSE. Experimental induction of uncoupling as a mechanism for reducing free-radical production: an experimental test in the mouse. University of Aberdeen Scottish Executive Personal Dr Jan-Willem Bos. New Multiferroic Materials. University of Edinburgh Dr Huabing Yin. Click-Chemistries for 2D and 3D Programmable Surfaces: Applications in Biomedical Engineering. University of Glasgow Dr Nancy Sabatier. The role of hypothalamic peptides in the regulation of appetite.University of Edinburgh Scottish Executive Support Dr Stuart Macgregor. Towards Ever-More Realistic Modelling of the Chemical Reactivity of Transition Metal Systems. Heriot-Watt University Dr Tom G Mackay. Chiral Sculptured Thin Film as Biosensors. University of Edinburgh Dr Kevin Hammond. Guaranteed Resource Bounds for Real-Time Embedded Systems. University of St Andrews
RESEARCH SCHOLARSHIPS AND PRIZES Cormack Postgraduate Prize Mr Brian Hamilton. Electron Acceleration at Reconnecting XPoints in Solar Flares. University of Glasgow Cormack Undergraduate Prize Ms Katharine G Johnston. A search for starlight reflected from tau Bootis b. University of St Andrews Cormack Vacation Scholarship Ms Sharon Baillie. The building blocks of life. Combining SPITZER Observations and Laboratory Studies to unlock the first stage of Nitrogen-chemistry in protostellar objects. University of Strathclyde Mr Calum K Brown. The Fate of the Baryons. University of Edinburgh (ROE) Mr Duncan H Forgan. Investigating the Effects of Orbital Migration on Protoplanetary Growth. University of Edinburgh (ROE) Ms Jennifer A Noble. An alcohol problem! Understanding the role and formation of CH3OH in starforming regions. University of Strathclyde Mr Colin C Simpson. Gravitational Microlensing. University of St Andrews
Lessells Travel Scholarship Mr Alastair S Kilgour. How the structure of orthopaedic polyethylene changes as a result of wear in total joint replacements; an electron micorscopy study. University of Edinburgh Mr Guy K German. Drop impact studies of complex fluids and visualisation of polymer dynamics. University of Edinburgh Lloyds TSB Studentships Miss Katie L Blackett. The role of bacteria in the pathogenesis of Barretts Oesophagus and adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus. University of Dundee ENTERPRISE FELLOWSHIPS BBSRC Dr Suzanne Dilly. The Magic Tag Kit: A tool for simple, rapid immobilisation of Bioactive Molecules for Chemical Genomics approaches to drug discovery. University of Warwick Mr Gareth Richards. Novel cancer therapies. University of Sheffield Scottish Enterprise Electronics Miss Frances Flood. e-place University of Strathclyde Mr Amar Seeam. Completely Reconfigurable Display Keyboard. University of Strathclyde Life Sciences
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Research and Enterprise Awards
Dr Alison Reith. Section of Squamous Cell Biology & Dermatology. University of Glasgow Dr Alexis Enright. Detection of sexually transmitted infections using surface enhanced resonance Raman scattering (SERRS). University of Strathclyde Dr Romain Viguier. Harvesting Natural Products from Plants. University of Edinburgh Microelectronics
Dr Jochen Leidner. Mobile Search in Natural Language. University of Edinburgh TEACHING FELLOWSHIPS Ms Rebecca Sutherland-Shiell. Placement with Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh. Ms Jennie Hargreaves. Placement with British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. Ms Keeley Hathway. Placement with Glasgow Science Centre.
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MEDALS, PRIZES AND PRIZE LECTURESHIPS

Keith Medal 80th Award 2006 Professor Stefan Muller. MaxPlanck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences Professor Felix Otto. Institut fur Angewandte Mathematik Professor Antonio DeSimone Professor Robert Kohn Royal Medal 7th Award 2006 Sir John Ball FRS FRSE. Sir David Jack CBE FRS FRSE. Gannochy Trust Innovation Award 4th Award 2006 Dr Marie Claire Parker Makdougall Brisbane Prize 71st Award 2005 Professor C R McInnes FREng FRSE. BP Prize Lecture 8th Award 2005 Professor G T Laurie FRSE CRF Prize Lecture 17th Award 2005-2006 Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Henry Duncan Prize Lecture 6th Award 2005 Professor J Hunter CBE FRSE James Scott Prize Lecture 21st Award 2005 Professor Stephen Barnett, FRSE
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GRANTS COMMITTEE
The Grants Committee considered 38 applications and a sum of 18910 was awarded to 30 applicants. Approximately 47% of this sum was awarded as travel assistance. Travel Assistance Professor M R Blatt, for travel to Australia. 950 Professor J Cooper, for travel to Korea and Japan. 700 Professor G Duxbury, for travel to USA. 900 Professor A Hook, for travel to USA. 500 Professor D Jasper, for travel to USA. 400 Professor M R W Johnson, for travel within the UK. 300 Professor B Loftus for travel from USA to Scotland. 850 Professor J McGeough, for travel to Japan and Malaysia. 950 Professor G Milligan, for travel to China. 620 Professor P A Racey, for travel to Madagascar. 950 Professor T C Smout, for travel to China. 400 Professor M F Thomas, for travel to Brazil. 720 Professor R Watt, for travel to Canada. 500 Professor J R L Webb, for travel to France. 220 Support for Meetings Professor J C Eilbeck, for Algebraic Theory of Differential Equations. 700 Professor R Cogdell, for The Structure, Function and Regulation of Photosynthesis in Light-harvesting. 700. Professor A W Hood, for a UK MHD meeting. 750 Professor K Horne, to enable three-day International Workshop on Dark Matter vs Alternative Gravities. 500 Professor J Howie, for 3-Manifolds after Perelman. 750 Professor J J Lambert, for his annual Scottish Neuroscience Group meeting. 750 Professor J Reese, for Micro and Nanoscale Flows: Advancing the Engineering Science and Design. 750 Professor C Withers, for Geographies of Nineteenth-Century Science. 300 Visiting Lecturer Professor J Simmons, to enable Professor Albert Sacco, Director of the Center for Advanced Microgravity Materials Processing at Northeastern University, Boston, to deliver a lecture entitled Science
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in Space from Chemical Engineering to the Space Shuttle Columbia. 350 Research Visitor to Scotland Professor E N K Clarkson, to enable Dr Matilde Beresi, Department of Geology & Palaeontology, Regional Centre for Scientific and Technical Research, Mendoza, Argentina, to visit Edinburgh in October 2006 to carry out collaborative field work with the National Museums of Scotland and the University of Edinburgh. 900 Professor W J Firth, to enable Professor Salvador Balle, from the IKEDEA in Spain, to visit the Department of Physics at the University of Strathclyde in October 2006. 300 Professor G Hall, to enable Professor Victor Varela of the School of Physics, Central University of Venezuela, to visit the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen. 900
Professor I McLean, to enable Dr Toshifumi Nomura to visit the Division of Pathology and Neuroscience at the University of Dundee from Japan. 500 Professor Sir Alan Peacock, to enable Professor Romilda Rizzo, of the University of Catania to visit the Universities of Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt and the Italian Cultural Institute in Edinburgh. 300 Professor J Stringer, to enable Professor Keith Crews, University of Technology, Sydney, to visit Napier University in Edinburgh in June 2006, in his capacity as Visiting Professor to contribute to the strategic direction for the Centre for Timber Engineering at Napier University. 900 University/Industry Liaison Professor G Donaldson, to enable Dr Carol Trager-Cowan to visit the USA to work with Philips Lumileds Lighting Company in San Jose, California. 600
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INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME
Exchanges Awarded during the Session China - Incoming Professor Robin Williams. University of Edinburgh - Dr Xiaomin Zhu. Institute of Policy and Management, CAS China - Outgoing Dr Slobodan Mickovski. University of Dundee. - Dr Thierry Fourcaud, Professor Baogang Hu, Dr Alexia Stokes. Sino-French Laboratory for Computer Science, Automation and Applied Mathematics. - Professor Tianxiang Luo. Inst of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS. Dr Kaliyaperumal Nakkeeran. University of Aberdeen. - Dr Lixin Xu. University of Science and Technology of China Dr Shanwen Tao. University of St Andrews. - Professor Meng. University of Science and Technology of China - Professor Cheng. Dilian Institute of Chemical Physics Dr Simon Thirgood. Macaulay Land Use Research Institute. - Professor Ruijun Long. Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology Dr Paul Williams. Unversity of Aberdeen. - Professor Yongguan Zhu. Research Center for ecoenvironmental studies. Czech Republic - Incoming. Professor D W H Rankin FRSE, University of Edinburgh - Dr Drahomir Hnyk. Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, ASCR Professor A Tate FRSE, University of Edinburgh - Dr Michal Pechoucek. Czech Technical University Czech Republic - Outgoing Dr Andreas Schatzlein. University of Glasgow. - Professor Karel Ulbrich. Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, ASCR Professor Howard Stevens, Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu, Dr Christopher Van Der Walle, University of Strathclyde. - Professor Karel Ulbrich. Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, ASCR Dr Christopher Van Der Walle. University of Strathclyde. - Professor Vladimir Subr. Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry, ASCR Hungary - Incoming Dr Christophe Lacomme. Scottish Crop Research Institute. - Dr Giczey Gabor. Agricultural Biotechnology Centre Dr Phillip Lightfoot. University of St Andrews. - Dr Attila Benyei. University of Debrecen, HAS
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Poland - Incoming Dr Bernard Cohen. University of Glasgow. - Dr Maria Aleksandra Bitner. Institute of Paleobiology Dr Gernot Riedel. University of Aberdeen. - Dr Grazyna Niewiadomska, Dr Wiktor Niewiadomski. Medical Research Centre, PAS Poland - Outgoing Dr Anthony Dore. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Natural Environment Research Council. - Dr Mieczyslaw Sobik, Dr Marek Blas, Mr Maciej Kryza. University of Wroclaw Prof David Goulson. University of Stirling. - Dr Andrezj Kosior, Dr Maciek Konopinski, Dr Wojciech Solarz. Institute of Natural Conservation, PAS Dr Agnieszka Klemm. Glasgow Caledonian University. - Professor P Klemm, Dr M Jablonski. Technical University of Lodz - Professor W Marks. Institute of Fundamental Technological Research Dr Stephen Wallis. Heriot Watt University. - Professor Wlodzimierz Czernuszenko, Prof Pawel Rowinski, Prof Jaroslaw Napiorkowski. Inst of Geophysics, PAS
Taiwan - Incoming Dr Lynne Jack. Heriot-Watt University. - ProfessorCheng-Li Cheng. National Taiwan University of Science and Technology Dr Michael Moeller. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. - Professor Chun-Neng Wang. National Taiwan University Professor Margaret Stack. University of Strathclyde. - Professor Wang-Long Li. National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences Dr Changhai Wang. Heriot-Watt University. - Professor Kuen Ming Shu, Professor Chien Hung Liu, Professor Wen Yuh Jywe, Professor Wen-Hsiang Hsieh. National Formosa University Taiwan - Outgoing Dr Richard Meehan. MRC Human Genetics Unit, Western General Hospital. - Professor John Yu. Institute of Cellular& Organismic Biology, Academia Sinica Professor Eric Wilkinson. University of Glasgow. - Dr J C Chen. Taipei Municipal Teachers College
International
Open - Incoming Dr Andrew Flavell. University of Dundee at SCRI. - Michael Gbadegesin. University of Ibadan Professor D T Haydon FRSE. University of Glasgow. - Dr Juan Morales. Universidad Nacional de Comahue Radha Kessar. University of Aberdeen. - Mary Schaps. Bar-Ilan University Dr Peter McCaffery. University of Aberdeen. - Prof James Crandall. University of Massachusetts Professor Daphne McCulloch. Glasgow Caledomian University. - Dr Christina Pieh. University of Freiburg Dr David McGloin. University of St Andrews. - Dr Suman Anand. National Physical Laboratory Dr Julian Malins. Grays School of Art, Robert Gordon University. - Professor Deana McDonagh. University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign Dr Tara Marshall. University of Aberdeen. - Nathalia Yaragina. Polar Research Institute of Marine, Fisheries and Oceanography Dr Trevor Ridley. University of Edinburgh. - Dr Vadim Alekseev. St Petersburg State University
Dr Murray Roberts. Scottish Association for Marine Science. - Steve Ross. University of North Carolina at Wilmington Professor Avril Taylor. University of Paisley. - Dr Gail Gilchrist. University of Melbourne Dr Kay Tisdall. University of Edinburgh. - Prof Anita Rampal. Delhi University Professor Kenneth Turner. University of Stirling. - Prof Luigi Logrippo. Universite du Quebec en Outaouais Dr John Wallace. Rowett Research Institute. - Dr Kevin Shingfield. MTT Agrifood Research Finland Dr Keith Williamson. University of Edinburgh. - Maria Garrido-Anes. University of Huelva Dr Cheng-Xiang Wang. Heriot Watt University. - Professor Heung-Gyoon Ryu. Chungbuk National University Open - Outgoing Dr Mark Aspinwall. University of Edinburgh. - Professor Evelio Diaz, Professor Sergio Guerra. University of Havana Dr Guy Bewick. University of Aberdeen. - Dr Marilyn Duxon, Professor Ian McLennan, Dr Phil Sheard. University of Otago
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Dr Stefan Erhardt. Heriot Watt University. - Prof Walter Thiel. Max-PlanckInstitut fur Kohlenforschung Dr Mark A Freeman. University of Stirling. - Associate Professor Yoshinaga, Assistant Professor Yokoyama, Professor Ogawa. University of Tokyo Dr Laurence Lasselle. University of St Andrews. - Professor Clem Tisdell. University of Queensland Professor Godfrey Smith. University of Glasgow. - Professor N Kaneko. Dokkyo University School of Medicine Dr Hongyue Sun. University of Aberdeen. - Professor Jinping Zhao. Ocean University of China Dr Michael Taliansky. Scottish Crop Research Institute. - Dr V Gaba, Dr S Manulis, Dr M Lapidot., Dr A Gal-on. Agricultural Research Organisation, Israel. Professor John Watson. University of Aberdeen. - Professor Jinping Zhao. Ocean University of China
NNSFC Joint Project. Professor C J Secombes FRSE. University of Aberdeen. - Professor Pin Nie. Institute of Hydrobiology, CAS Dr Xiaozhong Zheng. University of Stirling. - Professor Zhaokun Ding. Guangxi University Events 10 12 October 2005: The RSE held a joint Scotland-Taiwan Hi Tech Forum with the National Science Council of Taiwan (NSC). The purpose of the event was to encourage further collaboration between researchers in life sciences and micro nanotechnology in Scotland and Taiwan, and to raise awareness of the Memorandum of Understanding between the RSE and the NSC. 17 - 18 November 2005: The RSE and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic held a Drug Delivery Workshop entitled Nanomedicines of the Future. The meeting enabled leading experts, researchers and commentators from Scotland and the Czech Republic to come together to; discuss and learn about recent advances in this rapidly changing area; establish international ties; and explore avenues for future exchange and collaboration. The meeting was a welcome occasion for the development of long-term ties and an important vehicle for
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International
generating collaborative initiatives. 14 February 2006: The RSE hosted and organised a reception to raise awareness of the International Exchange Programme, and specifically the Bilateral Programme with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, amongst the postdoctoral research community of Scotland interested in working with their counterparts in China. Amongst those who attended were delegates to a British Council-funded International Networking for Young Scientists meeting on molecular mechanisms underlying plant biology. 24 March 2006: This one-day event Languages in Scotland Whats the Problem? organised by the RSE European Policy Forum, explored the current situation with regard to language teaching and learning in Scotland. Speakers included policy makers and influencers, working linguists in the business community, academics, and teachers. The meeting offered an exceptional platform to discuss current developments and to chart future directions. 26 June 2006: Mr Jacek SaryuszWolski, Vice-President of the European Parliament gave the RSE Annual European Lecture, on the topic of Solidarity in the Enlarged European Union. Mr SaryuszWolski gave an excellent and thought-provoking address to a distinguished audience, dividing
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his theme into internal solidarity and support between and to member states, and external solidarity of EU member states in relationships with neighbours in adjacent countries. The lecture gave rise to a large number of topical and thought provoking questions to which Mr SaryuszWolski responded with careful consideration and insight. Visits 23 March 2006: Representative from the National Natural Science Foundation of China visited the RSE to discuss the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding and possible future collaborations. 28 March 2006: Chinese science and technology journalists visited Scotland on a Scottish Executive organised visit, and met with representatives of the RSE to discuss our ongoing links with China. 13 June 2006: A delegation of top political representatives and representatives of the technological R&D Centers in the Province of Gipuzkoa, the Basque Country, visited the RSE as part of a SDI organised visit. The main objective for the visit was to gain an overview both of the British R&D and innovation system and of the strategic research and development that it is taking place in Britain.
23 June 2006: A delegation of Chinese environmental engineers from Wuhan visited Edinburgh to meet with representatives of SEPA and the RSE. The group were interested in developing stronger links between Scotland and China and sharing knowledge and expertise. 31 July 2006: Marina Sokolova, British Council, Moscow visited the RSE to discuss possible collaboration with the RSE. The visit resulted in Professor Geoffrey Boulton FRSE giving a public lecture during the Moscow Science Festival. Relations with Sister Academies 2 - 3 November 2005: Frances Fowler (then International Relations Manager) and Prof Anna Dominiczak FRSE (International Committee member) visited the Polish Academy of Sciences to meet with staff of the Academy, discuss the progress of the International Exchange Programme and consider future collaborations.
16 June 2006: Professor Rona MacKie (then International Convener) visited the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. An informal Memorandum of Understanding between the RSE and the Swedish Academy was signed, setting out the intention to communicate and liaise regularly and work jointly where possible. 11 August 2006: Dr William Duncan, RSE Chief Executive visited the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts to sign a formal Memorandum of Understanding. The Memorandum sets out the agreement to facilitate encourage and support research collaboration in all areas between research groups in Scotland and Slovenia 20 - 22 September 2006: The Royal Society of Edinburgh organised a joint conference with the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters entitled The Vikings and Scotland: Impact and Influence.
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FELLOWS SOCIAL EVENTS

Fellows Reception 2006 The 2006 Summer Reception for Fellows was held on Monday July 3 in the Societys rooms, when the President presented Royal Medals to Sir John Ball FRS, FRSE and Sir David Jack CBE, FRS, FRSE. New Fellows Induction Day 8 May 2006 Fellows met Council for lunch, followed by a tour of the Societys rooms and an opportunity to meet RSE staff and view an exhibition of the Societys activities. Lord Kerr (Honorary Fellow), three Corresponding Fellows, Walter Paul Baier, Ian David Duncan and Daniel Szechi, and 49 Ordinary Fellows signed the Roll at an admission ceremony held in the Wolfson Lecture Theatre. Fellows Coffee Meetings Weekly Coffee Meetings were held throughout the winter and spring months. Speakers at the monthly lecture meetings were : 11 October 2005. A Mathematician Looks at Music. Professor John M Howie. 1 November 2005. The Delicate Interface between Scientists and Politicians. Dr Tam Dalyell 6 December 2005. Visual Art Provision Scotland; How Best can we Provide the Visual Arts in Scotland? Sir Timothy Clifford 10 January 2006. Reflections on Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellowship 1783-2003. Dr Charles D Waterston
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7 February 2006. Parasitic Wasps: Does Taxonomy Matter and Where Should it be Done? Dr Mark Shaw 7 March 2006. The Royal Society of Edinburgh - Past and Present International Connections. Professor Rona MacKie The Royal Society Dining Club This Club was established on 3rd January 1820, with the view of promoting the objectives of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In Session 2005/2006 meetings were held as follows : 835th dinner - 5 December 2005 Praeses: Sir Laurence Hunter Croupier: Professor Gavin McCrone 836th dinner - 3 April 2006 Praeses: Professor Thomas J Anderson Croupier: Dr Ian Sword 837th dinner - 12 June 2006 Praeses: Professor Malcolm Fluendy Croupier: Reverend Richard Holloway 838th dinner - 2 October 2006 Praeses: Professor Ian Rolfe Croupier: Professor John Dale Fellows Golf Challenge The 2006 Fellows' Golf Challenge was held at Auchterarder Golf Club on Thursday 24 August. The winner of the Stewart Cup 2006 was Professor Sean McKee.
GRANTS, SPONSORSHIP AND DONATIONS

The society is grateful to the following organisations for their continuing support during the Session: BBSRC BP Research Fellowship Trust Caledonian Research Foundation Lord Fleck Will Trust Lessells Trust Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland GM Morrison Charitable Trust Gannochy Trust PPARC Scottish Enterprise Scottish Executive
and also to the following for their support for specific events and activities: Anglo-Irish Encounter Airborne Initiative Ltd HRH Prince Alsaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud British Academy Aberdeenshire Council The Darwin Trust of Edinburgh Esme Fairbairn Foundation Foreign and Commonwealth Office Glasgow Maths Journal Trust Mrs S M W Heggie (legacy) Heriot-Watt University London Mathematical Society The Robertson Trust Royal Norwegian Consul General Strathmartine Trust James Weir Foundation
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CHANGES IN FELLOWSHIP DURING THE SESSION

DEATHS REPORTED TO THE SOCIETY
Fellows Terence George Baker Harold Burnell Carter Robert Alexander Chalmers John Barklie Clements Ian MacPhail Dawson Victor Colin Farmer William Ewart John Farvis Allan Douglas Galloway Ronald Haxton Girdwood Keith Edward Halnan Neil Hood Stephen Angus Hutchinson Arthur Percival Jenkins John William Beaufoy King Charles William McCombie Angus McIntosh John McIntyre Corresponding Fellows Peter Ladefoged Honorary Fellows Sir James Menter Dame Muriel Spark Daniel Martin William Ronald Aylett Muntz John Ross Raeburn Bernard Raistrick Lovat Victor Charles Rees Hamish Alexander Robertson William Devigne Russell-Hunter David Cumming Simpson John Bedford Stenlake Ian Hosie Stevenson Thomas Russell Tannahill Samuel James Thomson Patrick Tollin Peter Martin Brabazon Walker Frank Willett John Hunter Williamson
ELECTIONS
Fellows Paul Addison Donald Robertson Anderson (John) Paul Attfield (Alan) Graeme Auld Shomi S Bhattacharya Robert William Black Paul Joseph Boyle
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(Anthony) Michael Burton Harry Campbell (Maria) Saveria Campo David Lancelot Carey Miller Janet Carsten Paul Richard Crocker Iain Spencer Duff
Michael Christopher Forde Gavin Jarvis Gibson Adrian Maxwell Grant Stuart Gulliver Paul Hagan Desmond John Higham Andrew Warwick Illius David Jasper Walter Kolch Brian Lang Stephen Leslie Lee Andrew James Leigh Brown Angus Smith MacDonald Donald James Renwick MacRae Paul Anthony Madden Neil Benedict Metcalfe Ronald Milne Andrew David Morris John James Mullins Richard John Murphy Raffaella Ocone
Frank Christopher Odds John Andrew Peacock Andrew Justin Radcliffe Porter Ian Beith Mclaren Ralston Jason Meredith Reese Olivia Fiona Robinson Guenther Rosner Mandy Elaine Ryan David James Sibbald Thomas James Simpson Jeremy John Smith Fiona Jane Stafford Tom Strachan Joseph Sherman Sventek Elizabeth Joyce Tait Andrew Dawson Taylor Adrian C Todd Sarah Wanless Charles Picton Warlow Charles William John Withers
Honorary Fellows Bernard Bailyn Peter Charles Doherty John Olav Kerr (Lord Kerr) Robert McCredie May (Lord May) Corresponding Fellows (Paul) Walter Baier Ian David Duncan Daniel Szechi Romila Thapar
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STAFF CHANGES DURING THE SESSION

Arrivals Ms Lia Brennan, Events Officer Ms Morven Chisholm, International Relations Officer Mr Andy Curran, Property Services Officer Mrs Isabel Hastie, Receptionist/ Telephonist Ms Lyndsey Hume, Conference Centre Co-ordinator Mr Ian Melville, Policy Officer Ms Tracy Rickard, Research Awards Co-ordinator Ms Claire Swatton, Events/ Education Assistant Departures Ms Zo Eccles, Receptionist/ Telephonist Ms Emma Faragher, Education Officer Ms Jean Finlayson, International Relations Officer Ms Frances Fowler, International Relations Manager Ms Kirsteen Francis, Conference Centre Co-ordinator Mr Frank Pullen, Central Services Manager Dr Harinee Selvadurai, Education Officer
Other Staff in post throughout the Session Ms Christel Baudere, HR Assistant Mr Stuart Brown, PR and Communications Manager Mrs Rosn Calvert-Elliott, Events Manager Ms Jennifer Cameron, Office Services and IT Support Manager Dr Lesley Campbell, Fellowship, Policy, and Education Manager Dr William Duncan, Chief Executive Miss Kate Ellis, Director of Finance Mrs Anne Fraser, Research Awards and International Manager Mrs Vicki Hammond, Journals and Archive Officer Mr William Hardie, Energy Enquiry Administrative Assistant Mr Graeme Herbert, Director of Corporate Services and Deputy Chief Executive
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Mr Robert Hunter, Evening Caretaker Mr Robert Lachlan, Accounts Officer Mrs Jenny Liddell, Communications Officer Mr George Pendleton, Facilities Assistant Dr Marc Rands, Policy Officer (also see page 274) Mr Brian Scott, Technical Support Assistant Mrs Sheila Stuart, Administration Assistant Mrs Margaret Tait, Receptionist/ Telephonist Ms Susan Walker, Events Officer (Maternity leave Nov 05-Oct 06) Mrs Doreen Waterland, PA to Chief Executive and Officers Mr Duncan Welsh, Events Officer
OBITUARY NOTICES
Sir John (Dutton) Clerk Of Penicuik ...................................................... 286 William Cochran .................................................................................. 290 Morrell Henry Draper ........................................................................... 293 Victor Colin Farmer .............................................................................. 297 Charles Arthur Fewson ......................................................................... 301 James Kerr Grant .................................................................................. 305 Ian Simpson Hughes ............................................................................ 307 Violet Rosemary Strachan Hutton ........................................................ 311 George Scott Johnstone ....................................................................... 316 John William Beaufoy King .................................................................. 320 Sir Ian (Alexander) McGregor ............................................................... 324 Magnus Magnusson ............................................................................ 328 William Barr Martin .............................................................................. 333 John Drake Matthews .......................................................................... 338 Basil Richardson Stanley Megaw .......................................................... 341 Hans Anton Meidner ........................................................................... 344 Sir James (Woodham) Menter .............................................................. 347 Henry Gemmell Morgan ....................................................................... 350 John Ross Raeburn .............................................................................. 353 William Devigne Russell-Hunter ........................................................... 355 David Cumming Simpson .................................................................... 358 Harold James Thomas .......................................................................... 363 Samuel James Thomson ....................................................................... 365 Patrick Tollin ......................................................................................... 368 Peter Martin Brabazon Walker ............................................................. 371 Donald Elmslie Robertson Watt ........................................................... 375
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Commodore Sir John Dutton Clerk Of Penicuik, 10th Baronet 30 January 1917 - 25 October 2002
Sir John Clerk, who died on 25 October 2002, was not himself a scholar. A modest, kindly and humorous man, he would have been the first to admit this. He did not shine at school (he was sent to Stowe under its remarkable headmaster, the Edinburgh-born J. F. Roxburgh, where he was a contemporary of the young second Earl Haig), and he never attended university. Instead he went to work, effectively as an office-boy, for a Leith grain merchant, commuting by train to his daily grind (figuratively if not quite literally) from the familys house in North Berwick. Sea-side living and Leith working must have instilled in him that ancestral love of the sea which had directed the lives of forebears who had served in the Royal Navy and of his great kinsman, John Clerk of Eldin, who had devised the naval tactics of the Navy of Rodney and Nelson and whose famous theoretical manoeuvre of breaking the line had contributed in no small degree to the winning of battles from Dominica to Trafalgar. John Clerk took great pride in his familys naval connections, and loved to show visitors to Penicuk House the small cork and wax models of ships (they resemble nothing so much as desiccated
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cocktail sausages) which are alleged to have been those with which the land-lubber Clerk of Eldin worked out his theories on paper and with which he experimented on the High Pond of Penicuik and the canal at Mavisbank. In 1938, and in the shadow of war, Clerk was saved from office tedium by the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. On being commissioned he specialised in gunnery, and it was as a gunnery officer that he served in the battle cruiser HMS Repulse. He had the good fortune to be seconded as a gunnery instructor to the South African Navy and thus escaped (as so many of his comrades did not) the sinking of that ship along with the Prince of Wales off Malaya in 1941. He served subsequently in the Far East and North Atlantic, and was due to go again to the Far East theatre when the Japanese surrender brought to an end his active naval career. After the war he was an enthusiastic RNR officer, and was successively Captain of the Forth Division and Commodore of the naval reserve forces of the UK. For his services he was awarded the Volunteer Reserve Decoration and was appointed CBE in 1966. He was a member of the Queens
Obituary Notices
Bodyguard for Scotland, the Royal Company of Archers, and rose through the somewhat topsyturvy ranks of that body as Brigadier, Ensign and finally as Lieutenant. For twenty years he was Lord-Lieutenant of Midlothian, and represented the Crown in his county not only with distinction and diligence but with a remarkable ability to appeal to all sections of the community in towns and mining villages where gentlemen and landowners might not always be welcomed. His popularity was matched by the charm of his wife Elizabeth. Clerk took his many and varied duties seriously and revelled in the high moments such as his receiving the Pope on the Scottish visit of 1982. A few days after that meeting the present writer (a frequent visitor) happened to be at Penicuik on some occasion or other. The LordLieutanant offered his hand, with the invitation to shake it and get the goodness: he claimed not to have washed since His Holiness had pressed the flesh earlier in the week! John Clerk may not have been a scholar in his own right, but he was a great friend to all the countless students and scholars who came to Penicuik in pursuit of their research, or the much greater numbers who used the family papers for many different ends. He was heir to a great tradition of scholarship and
scientific enterprise, of taste and talent which extended in an unbroken line through the main and cadet branches of the family from the 1630s to the midVictorian period. Few Scottish or indeed British families can match this tradition of inherited cultural and scientific eminence, not simply as patrons (the recognisers of talent in others) but also as practitioners themselves. Antiquarianism, art-collecting, architecture, landscape gardening, music and poetry were the Clerks cultural preserves; geology, mechanics, mining technology, medicine, theoretical physics and astronomy, were the parallel scientific fields in which they achieved competence, eminence or supreme distinction. Sir John was hugely and rightly proud to be a kinsman of Clerk of Eldin, who had worked with James Hutton on the illustrations for the fundamental Theory of the Earth, and to hold, revered within the wider family circle of learning and achievement, the towering genius of James Clerk Maxwell. He was likewise proud of the Napier of Merchiston and Drummond of Hawthornden blood in his veins, and could show the ivory Napiers Bones of the one and the Ben Johnson correspondence of the other. If his circumstances had been different he himself might well have been an engineer. As things were, he took great
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pleasure in his fine ancestral clocks, and in the trips to North America and to Hawaii that the Clerk Maxwell connection and his own astronomical and navigational interests offered him. Country life and country pursuits, natural history, gardening and the maintenance of his estate (to which he had succeeded in 1943) with all its historic landscape features were among his relaxations. No-one who has worked in any of the fields, artistic or scientific, in which the Clerks were protagonists can ever forget the kindness and hospitality to the mind (the phrase of that of the antiquary Alexander Gordon, applied to the second baronet in the 1720s) extended by Sir John and Lady Clerk. Scholars all over the world owe these kindest and most generous of owners of historic collections the most profound gratitude. The Clerk Collection of paintings, drawings and works of art is remarkable and of great interest; but the family muniments are of even greater significance, and it is this archive, astonishing in its range and completeness, that has been for some sixty years a source of prime importance to scholars in many disciplines. After the war Clerk (now living in the quaint elegance and captivating charm of the Palladian stable block) began to look into his family papers that
had by luck survived the fire of 1899 which had destroyed Penicuik House. Professor Stuart Piggott, pursuing his own antiquarian research, came to inspect the charter room, and realised that there was a vast treasure-trove ripe for exploitation. The muniments were deposited in General Register House, where they still remain among the most heavily used of the Gifts and Deposits series. Of all the countless discoveries made in the archive, that of the hundreds of letters of Robert Adam written to his family from Italy in the 1750s stands out as perhaps the most significant. The lost drawings for Huttons seminal work on geology are another discovery of world importance. Access to all this was freely given by Sir John, who took great delight in the findings of those to whom he gave so much generous encouragement. In several cases the initial enquiry by young student or by established scholar was to lead to years of happy personal friendship and close involvement with a delightful family circle. Walter Scott, reminiscing of his own youth, spoke for many in subsequent generations when he praised the topographical and artistic pleasures of Penicuik and, overwhelmed with kindness, of the flattering hospitality of the owners.
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Obituary Notices
John Clerks generosity to scholars was legendary, and the many acknowledgements in the published works of others stand as testimony to this most valuable if indirect contribution to the cultural and scholarly life of Scotland in the second half of the twentieth century. The papers, and their kind and patient owner, have certainly underpinned a very large amount of scholarly work undertaken in Scotland and furth of the realm. The present writer knows more than most what this support and friendship meant. One has to think only of the Robert Adam exhibitions of 1978 and 1992 when the entire enterprise on both occasions was founded very largely upon the remarkable resources of the Clerk muniments. Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh was a wholly appropriate accolade for Clerk to have received from the scientific and academic communities. He used to appear in the list of Fellows
published in The World of Learning as Antiquary, a conscious echo of the virtuoso outlook of the second baronet who was among the founders of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, predecessor of the Royal Society. Sir John Clerk made possible much of the research and writing of others. But he was also, and much more important, quite simply a good man. As the Provost of St Marys, paraphrasing Chaucer, said at the memorial service (a characteristic Clerk occasion combining the Navy hymn with an ancestors music played by young members of the family, and with moving contemplative moments followed by a gigantic drinks party filling the Cathedral with gossip and laughter) the tenth baronet of Penicuik was truly a very perfect gentle knight. Iain Gordon Brown
Commodore Sir John Dutton Clerk of Penicuik, 10th Baronet. CBE, VRD, JP. Born 30 January 1917; Elected FRSE 7 March 1977; Died 25 October 2002.
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William Cochran 30 July 1922 - 28 August 2003
William Cochran, who died on 28th August 2003 at the age of 81, was a distinguished physicist of international renown. During the 1950s and 1960s he did pioneering work on many of the problems that underpinned Nobel prizes won by others, including the structure of DNA, so-called direct methods for determining the arrangement of atoms in crystal structures, and the interpretation of the way atoms vibrate in solids from the then new technique of inelastic neutron scattering. He was also responsible for major advances in the theoretical understanding of the way crystalline solids transform from one structure to another, often accompanied by important changes in physical properties. Bill Cochran was born on 30th July 1922 and was educated at Boroughmuir High School in Edinburgh before going to Edinburgh University to read physics. After the award of a First Class degree, he became an Assistant in the Department of Natural Philosophy in Edinburgh, but soon realised that his research would be better pursued in the Chemistry Department. Here he worked with Arnold Beevers on xray crystallography, and determined the crystal structure of
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sucrose and its derivatives, combining this with his war-time obligations as an air-raid warden. He was awarded his PhD in Chemistry in 1946 and left Edinburgh in 1948 for the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge where he held a succession of posts as Demonstrator, Lecturer and Reader until 1964. In this period he performed much of the research work for which he is well known. His interest and skills in the determination of complex crystal structures of organic molecules led Francis Crick to seek his assistance with the problem of understanding the diffraction patterns of DNA, and together they worked out a solution for the scattering from a helical structure that enabled Crick and Watson to obtain their Nobel prize winning structure of DNA. Around the same time, he became interested in systematic relationships between the intensities of the x-ray reflections from crystals and made the crucial breakthrough in showing how to exploit these relationships in a general way for solving structures. These direct methods of structure solving required considerable computational power to be effective, and he was one of the first to exploit computers for this
Obituary Notices
purpose, working with the EDSAC I and EDSAC II computers in Cambridge. Hauptman and Karle received the chemistry Nobel Prize in 1985 for the full development of direct methods which are now used routinely worldwide for crystal structure determination. Amongst other important work, he wrote key papers on x-ray scattering from defected crystals, made one of the very first really precise measurements of electron density in a crystal, and coauthored with Henry Lipson The Determination of Crystal Structures which was the definitive text for a whole generation of crystallographers. His research took a very different turn when he spent a sabbatical year at the laboratories of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. in 19581959 to work with Bert Brockhouse. At that time Brockhouse, another subsequent Nobel prize-winner, had just successfully completed his novel triple-axis spectrometer for the study of the crystal dynamics of solids using slow neutron scattering, and was obtaining the first data from a single crystal of sodium iodide. Bills analysis revealed that the model developed by Max Born and co-workers in Edinburgh 15 years before was inadequate. The success of his new model immediately attracted considerable and wide attention, especially when it was applied to other alkali
halides, like potassium bromide, and to the well-known semiconductors, germanium, silicon and gallium arsenide. Further developments of this model led to the so-called soft mode picture of the onset of ferroelectricity in a crystal a property now of high interest in a wide range of device applications in which the ferroelectric transition occurs as an instability of the crystal structure against a particular mode of vibration of the atoms. This mode was correctly predicted to decrease to zero frequency as the temperature of the transition was approached. The theory was later generalised by Bill and has been shown to provide a broadly correct picture of most structural phase transitions. In 1964 Bill was appointed Professor of Physics and established a new research group at The University of Edinburgh in condensed matter physics. His great success in this continues to bear fruit today in the high reputation of Edinburgh in this field. Bill played a leading role in creating the modern Department (now School) of Physics, and in 1975 he succeeded Norman Feather as Professor of Natural Philosophy and Head of Department. This led to a growing role in University administration as first Dean of the Faculty of Science from 1979 to 1982 and then VicePrincipal from 1984 to 1987.
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Bill was a Fellow of the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh, and a Fellow and then Honorary Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March 1965, serving on the Societys Council from 1980 to 1985, the last three years as Vice-President. He was awarded the Guthrie Medal by the Institute of Physics, The Hughes Medal of the Royal Society and the Potts Medal of the Franklin Institute among others. He will be remembered warmly by his colleagues as a kindly and perceptive man with a dry sense of humour. As a teacher he was revered by students at both undergraduate and postgraduate
level for the clarity of his explanation of even the most difficult topics, leavened by humour and an annual limerick competition. Bill was a keen Scotsman with interests in Scottish literature and heritage, and an enduring affection for the Scottish landscape. He wrote about the Edinburgh Natural Philosophers, David Brewster and James Clerk Maxwell, and his interest in Scots verse led him to twice address retiring Principals, to their surprise in his own verse, at Senatus. He will be sorely missed by his son and two daughters, and by his wife, Ingegerd, whom he married in 1953. R J Nelmes, P N Pusey
William Cochran BSc, PhD (Edinburgh), MA (Cantab), HonDSc (Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt). Born 30 July 1922; Elected FRSE 1 March 1965 (Vice-President 1982-85); Died 28 August 2003.
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Obituary Notices
Morrell Henry Draper 10 July 1921 - 1 October 2005
Morrell Draper was born in Adelaide, Australia, on the 10th July 1921. He was educated at St Peters College in Adelaide. Here he discovered science and one of the loves of his life, running. He ran for South Australia and I believe became the South Australia Champion at 440 yards. In 1944, he graduated MB, BS from the University of Adelaide, where he married Mary who survives him and where his eldest daughter, Genevieve, was born. He spent his residency as house surgeon at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He was called up in 1945 and gazetted as Captain RAAMC, serving until 1946 when he was transferred to the reserve of officers. From 1946 to 1949, Morrell was a Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. In 1949, he won an Australian National University Scholarship to study for a PhD in neurophysiology at Cambridge. There he joined the laboratory of Drs. Alan Hodgkin, Andrew Huxley, Richard Keynes, and Peter Lewis who were developing new techniques in their pioneering studies of the physiology of single axons. While in Cambridge, Morrell worked with Silvio Weidmann in exploiting the use
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of microelectrodes to open a new chapter in heart electrophysiology by intracellular recording of ionic fluxes. At Cambridge he continued with his running and was awarded a Blue in athletics. In the 1951 Oxford/Cambridge Match all the events were equal this meant that everything hinged on the relay. Morrell was the last Cambridge man to take the baton. There was an extremely good Oxford man as his opposite number but Morrell overtook him and thereby won the Trophy that year for Cambridge. In 1955, he graduated PhD. From Cambridge, he moved as a Lecturer to the Department of Physiology at the University of Edinburgh where he continued his work on electrophysiology combined with electron microscopy, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer. He left the University to take up the post of Senior Principal Scientific Officer, and subsequently Deputy Director, at the Agricultural Research Council Poultry Research Centre on the Kings Buildings Campus of the University of Edinburgh. While there, he carried out innovative research on the function of the hen oviduct. During this period, Morrell served on the Farm Animal Welfare Committee with
concerns about the maltreatment of the animals being bred for the food industry. He was awarded the OBE. in 1971 and elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1973. In 1976 he moved to the British Council in London where, as Assistant Director of the Medical Department, he was responsible for postgraduate medical education of students from overseas. From here, he transferred as Medical Officer/Senior Medical Officer to the Division of Toxicology and Environmental Protection at the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) where, among other things, he was largely responsible for compiling the draft guidelines on mutagenicity testing of new drugs issued by the Committee on Proprietory Medicinal Products (CPMP) of which he was the scientific secretary. This involvement was paralleled by activities in the development of guidelines for the testing of therapeutic substances for mutagenicity for the Commission of the European Community, and in the development of guidelines for toxicity testing by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The guidelines for mutagenicity testing outlined a philosophy which led to the CPMP working partys recommendation of a four-test screen comprising a
bacterial test, an in vitro test to determine chromosome breakage in mammalian cells, a test to demonstrate gene damage in vitro in mammalian cells, and finally a mammalian in vivo test to demonstrate chromosomal damage in proliferating tissue (bone marrow). The guidelines were published in 1980 and still set the pattern for mutagenicity testing. From the UK Division of Toxicology and Environmental Protection at the DHSS, it was a logical progression for Morrell to go to the World Health Organization (WHO) to work with the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) of the ILO/ UNEP/WHO, first in Copenhagen and then in Geneva. In Copenhagen, he started the IPCS manpower development programme to introduce more education in the science of toxicology which underlies all chemical safety. In Geneva, he worked closely with Michel Mercier, the Director of IPCS, especially in the production of a number of Environmental Health Criteria Documents, regarded as among the most reliable sources of toxicological information and now freely available on the IPCS website (INCHEM). He was an organizer or participant in a variety of international symposia and expert committees, and was responsible for the organization of the International Programme
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on the Evaluation of Short-Term Tests for Carcinogens. In collaboration with the Health and Safety Directorate (DGV/E/1) of the CEC, he was responsible for the organization of the International Seminar on Immunotoxicology: the Immune System as a Target for Toxic Damage - Present Status, Open Problems and Future prospects. This was one of the first meetings to focus on what is now recognised as a key area in toxicology. The subsequent book of the proceedings of this seminar, for which he did the final editing, is still an important part of the relevant scientific literature. After leaving IPCS on formal retirement in 1984, Morrell was asked to act as a consultant in toxicology to the Health and Safety Directorate (DGV/E/1) of the European Commission. This brought him in contact with the problems associated with the carcinogenicity of industrial chemicals, and especially of metals and their compounds. His major commitment became his involvement with the general scientific editing of monographs in the CECs Industrial Health and Safety series on the Toxicology of Chemicals, series 1: Carcinogenicity, summary reviews of the scientific evidence. These were prepared by the DGV/E/1 Ad Hoc Group on Dangerous Chemicals Carcinogens - with the participation of members of the toxicology
section of the scientific committee to examine the toxicity and ecotoxicology of chemicals. For Volume 1, Morrell acted as scientific and press editor. For Volume 2, he undertook, under contract, the responsibility of organizing the entire production of the volume, from the subcontracting of the expert authors for the various specialized sections of the reviews, through the compilation of these into chapters for the consideration of the Ad Hoc Committee, to the processing of their agreed text for publication in 1990. For Volumes 3, 4 and 5, he acted as chief consultant to the Edinburgh Centre for Toxicology which organized the entire production of these volumes along the lines Morrell had established for Volume 2. Following attendance at meetings at the International Association for Research on Cancer (IARC), he became convinced that the scientific data being used for classification of metals and their compounds were inadequate, and even wrong, and that the IARC classifications for many such substances lacked adequate justification. He was particularly concerned about the classification of nickel compounds on the basis of the cancer epidemic at the Clydach nickel refinery, because the relevant epidemiology was based on guesses about the extent and nature of the expo-
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sures, in the complete absence of measured data. Obtaining sound data and identifying the real cause of the Clydach epidemic became the main objective of his latter years. In spite of many setbacks because of his health, he completed most of this final study and even invented a new approach to epidemiology which he called metademography. The manuscripts which he has left are being prepared for publication in book form. Morrell leaves behind him his devoted wife Mary, who gave him boundless support in sickness and health, four children, and seven
grandchildren (two adopted). He is also mourned by many friends around the world. There can be few people who have contributed continuously throughout their lives so much, at such a high scientific and personal level, to the progress of science and medicine. His scientific work is recorded in his publications. His personal support and help for other people is not, but it will always be remembered by those of us who have been fortunate enough to know him. John Duffus
Morrell Henry Draper, MB, BS (Adelaide), PhD (Cantab), OBE. Born 10 July 1921; Elected FRSE 5 March 1973; Died 1 October 2005.
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Victor Colin Farmer 31 December 1920 - 18 August 2006
Colin Farmer was a brilliant innovative scientist who, in research spanning 60 years, pioneered the use of infrared spectroscopy in mineralogy, particularly its application to clay mineralogy, and additionally made many outstanding contributions to soil science in the field of both inorganic and organic geochemistry. With the exception of a short period immediately after his retirement in 1983, his entire research career was spent at the Macaulay Institute in Aberdeen where, unencumbered by administrative duties, he produced a steady stream of high-quality original papers throughout his working life. Victor Colin Farmer was born in Woodlawn, County Galway, Ireland on the last day of 1920. Shortly thereafter the family moved to Scotland and he was brought up in Ayrshire. He entered the University of Glasgow in 1939 and gained a first class Honours degree in Chemistry in 1943. Following this he was accepted for a PhD in the University of Aberdeen, although his research was conducted largely at the Macaulay Institute for Soil Research, gaining his PhD in 1947 for a thesis entitled Spectroscopic Investigations on the Minor
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Element Content of Plants and Soils. Following his appointment to the staff of the Macaulay Institute, Colins early papers were mainly devoted to the application of spectroscopic techniques to the chemistry of plant components, the way in which they are utilized by soil microbes and the nature of the metabolites so formed. Then in 1955 a landmark event occurred when the Institute purchased an Infrared Spectrometer. At the time no-one had a clear idea of just how useful this instrument would be in the Institutes research programme and, in an inspired moment, Colin was asked to lead investigations into the possible application of infrared spectroscopy to soil science. It is difficult to believe that such an open-ended, flexible arrangement would ever be supported in todays atmosphere of strictly accountable and relevant science. However, following an initial period when sample preparation techniques were developed and mastered, the next 25 years saw a quite extraordinary burgeoning of papers on the application of infrared spectroscopy as an investigative tool in the chemistry of soil minerals, particularly the clay
minerals. Not only could the technique be used to identify and characterize these minerals and their reactions, complementing and on many occasions surpassing the ability of X-ray diffraction in this respect, but it could also be used for the study of mineral surfaces and the way in which they interact with adsorbed molecules. Colins individual contributions to this area of research and his growing international reputation culminated in 1974 in the publication by the Mineralogical Society of a monumental monograph on the Infrared Spectra of Minerals. He not only conceived, planned and edited this monograph but also authored many of its individual chapters. Thirty years later this monograph is still in demand and is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative texts on the subject. It firmly established Colin Farmer as the leading world expert on the infrared spectroscopy of soil minerals and did much to cement the Macaulay Institutes international reputation for analytical excellence, a feature from which it continues to benefit up to the present day. He himself attributed much of this success to the teamwork in the infrared lab, particularly the efforts of his immediate colleagues Jim Russell and Tony Fraser, as well as the stimulation provided by visiting research workers from countries
across the globe. Above all, however, he appreciated the collaboration of colleagues throughout the Institute and the atmosphere of mutual support and open consultation. In his own words, our willingness to look at any sample that anyone cared to bring along certainly opened our eyes to the many applications of infrared spectroscopy that we would otherwise have dismissed as impractical or improbable. Regrettably, this free and easy way of working in science now seems to belong to a bygone era. One of the strengths of infrared spectroscopy is that, unlike X-ray diffraction, it can characterize amorphous materials and structures that lack long range order. In the latter part of his formal employment at the Macaulay Institute, Colin became very much interested in the inorganic amorphous constituents of soils, in particular a tubular polymer-like mineral called imogolite. In a series of papers he showed how this mineral, and related materials, could be identified, characterized and synthesized. Up until this time imogolite was only known to occur in soils derived from volcanic material, principally in Japan, but its occurrence in podzolic soils in Scotland, later to be found in similar soils across the world, led him to put forward a novel theory for the formation of podzols, a widely occurring soil
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type. This theory proposed that podzols form principally through the transport of alumium and iron down the soil profile as inorganic complexes rather than through the medium of organic complexation, which was the traditional view of soil science. Although it would be true to say that Colins podzolization theory was not universally accepted by the soil science community, it nevertheless aroused such widespread interest that the papers in which it was described were amongst the most heavily cited papers of the entire Agricultural Research Service in the UK. In fact, Colins papers have always been heavily cited and even in 2004 the number of papers citing the work of V C Farmer exceeded 200. Between 1975 and 2004 the ISI Web of Science recorded 3635 citations of his papers. Colin Farmers formal employment at the Macaulay Institute ended in 1983 but he was able to continue his scientific research in the capacity of Visiting Professor or Research Fellow in several different countries, including Australia (University of Adelaide and CSIRO Division of Soils), Italy (Istituto di Chimica Agraria, Portici), Canada (University of Saskatchewan) and France (INRA, Versailles). During this time his research was concerned mainly with the conditions of synthesis of amorphous or poorly ordered clay materials and
their implications for the genesis of various soil types. He later resumed his research at the Macaulay Institute in an honorary capacity and this he continued to do until the time of his death, focusing mainly on the chemistry of aluminium and silicon in soils. Colin authored or co-authored a total of 164 papers in the refereed journals, 39 of which were published in the period after his retirement. He remained productive until the last year of his life, his last full paper published in 2005 describing the way in which plant phytoliths control silica concentrations in soil and stream waters. Throughout his life Colin Farmer retained a genuine passion for science and not only in his own field of research. For many years he represented the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Aberdeen, helping to organize public meetings on a wide variety of topics and entering publicly into debates on topics as far apart as acid rain and the role of prions in Mad Cow disease. In fact, he was a formidable advocate in any kind of scientific debate. Referees who sought to change his manuscripts in any way did so at their peril and he was always prepared to enter the lists to defend his hypotheses and views in public or indeed to criticize those he thought were wrong. But this was always done in the
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spirit of scientific enquiry in pursuit of the truth, so that there was rarely any breach of friendly relations. During his career Colin Farmer received many honours from the scientific community but probably those that meant most to him were the Pioneer in Clay Science Award of the Clay Minerals Society of America, granted him in recognition of his research contributions that led to important new directions in Clay Mineral Science, and the conferment of Distinguished Member status by the Clay Minerals Group of the Mineralogical Society of
Great Britain and Ireland, for his lifetime research into clay mineralogy and infrared spectroscopy. Colin Farmer combined his dedication to science with a happy family life and enthusiastic participation in gardening and in hill walking both in Scotland and, during earlier years, in the many countries that he was invited to visit. He died suddenly on August 18, 2006 and is survived by his wife Jane, whom he married in 1947, along with their two sons and a daughter. M J Wilson
Victor Colin Farmer BSc (Glasgow), PhD (Aberdeen), FRSC. Born 31 December 1920; Elected FRSE 5 March 1979; Died 18 August 2006. Reprinted by kind permission of Clay Minerals (Volume 41, Number 3, September 2006).
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Charles Arthur Fewson 8 September 1937 - 28 August 2005
Charles Fewson was born on September 8 1937 in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He was proud of his Yorkshire heritage and could trace his ancestry back to the 17th century. His family had been tenant farmers for generations and he was brought up on Stud Farm near Aldbrough, East Yorkshire, where his father was tenant farmer. Life was not easy on the farm. Mains water was installed a few months after the Fewson family moved there but bathing was in a tin tub in the kitchen until a bathroom with a gas geyser was installed around 1947. Light was provided by paraffin lamps or candles until about 1950, when a petrol generator was installed, followed by mains electricity around 1954. One of Charles tasks throughout his childhood was to scour hedge rows for firewood for the house. During school holidays from the age of 12 until 17 he worked on the farm more or less full-time, feeding poultry, cattle and pigs and working in the fields. Nevertheless, he was greatly protected compared to many of his countryraised contemporaries. In those days, many boys left school at the earliest opportunity, often at the age of 12, and were hired out to farmers, living with the employer.
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Despite the hard work, Charles seems to have had a happy childhood, enjoying the outdoor life and the farm animals. As a teenager he created a laboratory in an outside shed, with a spirit burner and later a Calor gas Bunsen burner. He spent all his pocket money on equipment and chemicals, experimenting on inorganic chemistry and colloids. He also performed dissections on dead farm and wild animals. Because of wartime exigencies, Charles did not start at Aldbrough School until he was six years old. At that time, the school catered for ages 5-15, with four classes covering the entire age range. Since his father had read to him a great deal, he learned to read and write with enthusiasm, and later developed a love of reading. He started to write with his left hand but was made to change to his right hand, as was the usual practice in those days. After three years Charles moved to Hymers College, a day school in Hull. He travelled the 12 or so miles each way by bus and trolley bus, leaving home at 7.30 am and returning at 6.00 pm. There were classes on Saturday mornings and compulsory games on Saturday afternoons. Charles played cricket
and rugby. Hymers was fiercely competitive and demanding: until the age of 14 there were exams every three weeks. In Charles first few years, there were three female teachers who had been taken on to replace men in World War Two; they were referred to as Sir! Charles passed the eleven-plus exam at age ten, won a scholarship from the local council, and received ten shillings from his father. From the age of fifteen he excelled in science subjects. He took up squash and tennis and was an enthusiastic member of the Combined Cadet Force, reaching the rank of sergeant, and became a first class shot. (He deferred the compulsory two years of National Service until after University, during which time National Service was abolished; so he was never called up.) In common with all sons of farmers, it was assumed that Charles would follow his father in farming. He was a member of a Young Farmers Club in his earlymid teens and represented his club Yorkshire-wide at cattle and sheep judging competitions. However, he became more drawn to science, although he did not totally abandon thought of farming as a career until in his mid-20s. In 1955 he decided to go to Nottingham University to do Agricultural Chemistry, funded by a County Scholarship. This was a compromise between his love of
Chemistry and his parents wish for him to return to farming and he studied a wide range of chemistry and biology. He obtained an Upper Second in Finals, narrowly missing a First, perhaps because he was also studying extra biochemistry in preparation for his PhD. Charles spent the summer of 1957 at Weihenstephan, about 20 miles from Munich, where he milked cows from 4.30 am to 8.30 am and then spent the rest of the day in the Agricultural Chemistry laboratory, analysing soil and foodstuffs. Weihenstephan also contains the worlds oldest brewery, and while there he discovered wheat beer, for which he retained a liking. This was also the first of many science-related travels abroad. In 1958 he went to Bristol Universitys Long Ashton Research Station as a PhD student in Don Nicholas laboratory. He studied microbial chemistry, completing his thesis in less than three years. From 1961 until 1963 he was a postdoc with Martin Gibbs at Cornell University, on a Fulbright Scholarship. These were his most carefree years and he took the opportunity to travel. He spent several periods at the Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, and visited many places in the midwest. He also worked for three months in the Carnegie Institute
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of Plant Biology, Stanford University, driving there via the Grand Canyon and Death Valley, visited many parts of California, and returned to Ithaca via Oregon and Dakota. In the summer of 1962 he drove his parents around Washington, Gettysberg, Blue Ridge Mountains, Georgia and Florida. He returned to the UK in the summer of 1963, travelling via Canada, Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, India, Aden, Cairo and Italy! In the Department of Biochemistry, University of Glasgow, Charles was successively Assistant Lecturer (1963), Lecturer (1964), Senior Lecturer (1968) and Reader (1979). He was awarded a Personal Chair in 1982 and became Head of Department in 1993. From 1994 to 2000 he was the first Director of Glasgow Universitys Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences (IBLS). In 2000-2001 he took study leave prior to his retirement on September 30th 2001. He was elected FRSE (1979), FIBiol (1995), FRSA (1995), appointed OBE for services to biological sciences (2001), and awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the University of Glasgow (2004). Charles main research interest during his time in Glasgow was studying the metabolic pathways of micro-organisms, especially the metabolism of aromatic compounds by soil bacteria, and he
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also co-authored a number of research papers on the regulation of metabolic pathways in plants. He was a committed and popular teacher and inspired many undergraduate biochemistry students, myself included. I was one of the 22 PhD students he supervised and in whom he instilled rigorous standards. I well remember how fastidious he was about everything. The details of every step of preparing reagents had to be noted, including the batch numbers of all chemicals used. On the occasion of Charles retirement in 2001, I was invited to give a research lecture as part of the celebrations. As a prelude to my lecture I related some of my experiences as a graduate student with Charles, including the fact that I was required to write experimental notes in carbon copy books, filing the duplicate copies at home for safety. Soon after, there was a major fire in the building in which I had spoken, which, in addition to laboratories, housed a library and the Undergraduate Offices of the IBLS. Many rare botanical texts and important archives were destroyed and Charles promptly sent me an email pointing out the wisdom of keeping duplicate copies! Undoubtedly, Charles greatest challenge at Glasgow University was establishing the IBLS, formed by the merger of eleven departments of preclinical and biological
sciences into one unit. There was not uniform support for this merger and Charles worked tirelessly to integrate, motivate and raise the research and teaching profiles of the Institute. The success of this endeavour is indicated by the very substantial improvements in the grades awarded in subsequent Research Assessment Exercises and Teaching Quality Assessments. He was on the Editorial Board of the Journal of General Microbiology (1973-1978) and a Senior Editor (1979-1984). He was Publications Manager for the Federation of European Microbiological Societies (FEMS), a member of the FEMS Executive Committee and Chief Editor of FEMS Microbiological Letters (1991-1999). In addition, he was a Vice-President of the St Andrews Clinics for Children, a charity for establishing and funding childrens clinics in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Tanzania and other countries in Africa. After he received the Honorary Fellowship of Glasgow University at a ceremony to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of IBLS in 2004, Charles wrote to me saying that the greatest professional satisfaction in my career has been two-fold. First, to be part of the
international scientific community and to have acquired so many and such good friends and colleagues around the world. Secondly, to be part of the general academic life of this University, first in the former Department of Biochemistry and then in the Division of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, participating in research & teaching, having the pleasure and stimulus of working with many generations of students, sharing in administrative duties, and benefiting from the comradeship; that is really why yesterdays ceremony meant so much to me. At Glasgow University Charles met Margaret (Bunty) in 1963 and they were married in 1965. He said later that marrying Bunty was the best thing I ever did in life and that she and their two daughters, Claire and Katie, were my three chief joys. On Charles retirement he and Bunty moved from their flat in Hyndland, Glasgow, to Innellan in Argyle & Bute where they were very content. Charles died suddenly and unexpectedly on 28th August 2005 and is sadly missed. (Charles left detailed autobiographical notes from which I have quoted extensively.) Jean Beggs
Charles Arthur Fewson OBE, BSc (Nottingham), PhD (Bristol), FRSA, FIBiol. Born 8 September 1937; Elected FRSE 5 March 1979; Died 28 August 2005.
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James Kerr Grant 21 March 1916 - 6 January 2004
Dr James Kerr Grant - Jim or simply JKG as he was known to his staff died on 6 January 2004 at the age of 87 after a short illness. Jim Grant was born in Dundee, educated in Edinburgh and spent most of his working life in Glasgow. He graduated as a chemist, and after service in the Second World War he started work in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Edinburgh with Professor Guy Marrian, who introduced him to steroid biochemistry. It was the 1950s and Jim played a significant role in working out the pathways of adrenal steroidogenesis and the enzymes that control the process. In 1956 he spent a year in Professor F Lynens Laboratory in the Max Planck Institute for Cell Chemistry in Munich honing his steroid expertise. In 1960 Jim was recruited by the University of Glasgow as a senior lecturer to establish and run the Department of Steroid Biochemistry. This was based in Glasgow Royal Infirmary and it had the dual roles of research/teaching and NHS service provision. He remained in this post until he retired as Reader in Steroid Biochemistry in 1981. For twenty
years Jims department was one of five specialist steroid units in the UK, which together developed clinical steroid biochemistry. His expertise led him to be appointed from 1970 to 1974 as a WHO consultant to the Iranian Ministry of Health. Jims department had an impressive research output, and attracted research students and fellows from throughout the world. He continued his interest in adrenal steroids and also developed an internationally renowned team working on androgen metabolism and action in the prostate. At the time of his retirement, Jim had published more than 120 original papers and supervised or assisted 19 students to gain a PhD in steroid biochemistry. Several of Jims team went on to have successful careers in research, clinical biochemistry or industry. Jims academic life was broad and included long periods on the Editorial Boards of the Journals Endocrinology and Steroid Biochemistry. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1980 and an Honorary Member of the Society for Endocrinology in 1981. Jims NHS department developed a range of more than 20 steroid assays using the emerging
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techniques of chromatography, fluorimetry and immunoassay. These were validated in both analytical and clinical terms and subject to rigorous quality control and update. Jim was a man of tremendous energy and vision. His enthusiasm and attention to detail encouraged all to the highest standards of professionalism, but he could be a hard task-master. He was a great communicator and a genius at teaching with no more than a piece of chalk and a blackboard. Outside work Jim displayed the same energy and enthusiasm. He was a gentleman in the true sense
of the word, and a perfect host. He was also a tireless campaigner for a range of causes including Amnesty International and the Civic Trust for Milngavie, the town in which he made his home. Jim and his wife Ella have two daughters, four grandchildren and one great grandchild. With the death of Jim Grant the Society has lost a great character, who will be remembered with affection by his former colleagues. His legacy, however, lives on in modern clinical and steroid biochemistry. Mike Wallace, Graham Beastall
James Kerr Grant BSc, PhD (Edinburgh), FRSC. Born 21 March 1916; Elected FRSE 3 March 1980; Died 6 January 2004.
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Ian Simpson Hughes 1 November 1930 - 21 June 2003
Ian Simpson Hughes was Professor of Physics in the University of Glasgow until his retirement in 1989, and was a figure of national importance in the development of Elementary Particle Physics. He gained a B Sc in Natural Philosophy in Glasgow in 1952, studying under Dee, Gunn, MacFarlane and Touschek, and proceeded to post-graduate studies in the same place. In so doing, he embarked on a research career in particle physics arguably the most fundamental area of all physics which explores the basic building blocks of nature deep within the atom. His research employed the nuclear emulsion technique to study the properties of some of these fundamental particles and the polarisation of gamma rays from nuclear sources. Although a precise technique, the use of nuclear emulsions involved the painstaking scanning and measurement of photographic plates using microscopes over periods of many months and so the data collection rate was very slow. Having successfully completed his thesis in April 1956 he, shortly afterwards, took up a research position at Duke University and
Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Berkeley, in the USA. Here he worked with a helium bubble chamber, a new type of detector which had begun to open up new horizons for the study of the fundamental particles of nature. In the bubble chamber technique, large numbers of sets of three stereoscopic photographs are produced of the trails of bubbles left by the passage of charged particles as they pass through the liquid within the chamber not dissimilar to vapour trails in the sky which mark the passage of high flying aircraft. He returned to the University of Glasgow in 1958 to take charge of the recently formed Bubble Chamber Group. He determined on two actions. As frontier particle physics was progressively becoming the domain of international laboratories, he would take the group into CERN, the recently established European accelerator laboratory in Geneva. In addition, he would have to ensure that the Glasgow group had the very best of analysis equipment to scan and measure the vast numbers of photographs produced by the bubble chamber technique. Having successfully established collaboration with a number of
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European groups working at CERN, he set about the task of equipping the group in Glasgow. By the mid 1960s, and by dint of considerable perseverance, he had obtained for Glasgow three scanning and measuring projectors controlled by the very latest in mainframe computer technology (an IBM 7044 computer, fully transistorised and occupying a large air conditioned room) as well as several scanning machines. Early experiments were to involve the analysis of tens or hundreds of thousands of such photographs; by the mid 1970s this number had risen to several million. Shifts of scanning and measuring staff were employed to enable this work to proceed by day and by night. It was during these years that Ian Hughes vision as well as sense of adventure came to the fore. It was evident that he had a great gift of leadership. He would identify the particular skills and abilities of each person in his group and encourage and enable each to contribute to the full. In this way he built up the strength of the group enabling it to compete and contribute at the highest international level. The group expanded to seventy people. His contribution to the department was recognised in 1968 when he was appointed Reader and again in 1971 when he was
awarded a titular professorship. In 1974 he was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh. The work of the Bubble Chamber Group was to continue until the early 1980s but it had already become apparent in the early 1970s that this technique had its limitations. He encouraged part of his group to explore other techniques both at CERN and at the Deutsches ElektronenSynchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg. With colleagues, he began to work on the OMEGA spectrometer, a large and powerful magnet surrounded by a variety of detectors and electronic instrumentation, which removed the necessity for film. OMEGA was to provide a wealth of exciting physics well into the 1980s. In the 1980s it also became apparent that CERNs future lay in the construction of a new, large accelerator in which beams of electrons and positrons would collide at very high energy. Designing equipment to observe these collisions required several hundred engineers and physicists and once again he brought to Glasgow a leading role in the design, construction, commissioning and operation of major detector systems for the ALEPH detector, which became operational in 1989. He served on various national and international bodies. He was
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chairman of the SERC Film Analysis grants committee (196871), of the Particle Physics Grants Committee (1980-83), of the Rutherford Laboratory Users Advisory Committee (1973-76), of the Rutherford Laboratory Computer Liaison Committee (1983-86), of the Governing Committee of the Scottish Universities Summer Schools in Physics (1976-81), and of the Committee of Scottish Professors of Physics (1985-88). He was member of the SERC Nuclear Physics Board (1968-72 and 1980-83) and of the Particle Physics Committee (1980-83), of the Central Computer Committee of SERC (1983-86), of the Computer Consultative Council of the UGC Computer Board (1983-86), of the CERN track chamber committee (1970-73), and of the UK Particle Physics Experiment Selection Panel (1977-80), and UK delegate to the European Committee on Future Accelerators (restricted ECFA) (1980-83). With his research he combined an active role in the teaching and administration of the department in which he worked. To these he gave the same attention to detail as he gave to his research. In 1972 his undergraduate textbook Elementary Particles was published in the Penguin Library of Physical Sciences, appearing in its third edition in 1991. From 1986
until his retirement in 1989, he was Head of Department and while this made it more difficult for him to spend as much time in his research as he would have liked, he nevertheless continued to take a keen interest in what was going on, supporting and encouraging at every opportunity. On retirement, he continued his love for education, teaching particle physics to undergraduates in the University of Aberdeen and travelling to China to give a series of lectures to the University of Dalian under the auspices of the World Bank. He was also an active member of the Perth branch of the University of the Third Age, being responsible for its science programme for seven years. In all his teaching he was anxious to show that, in physics at least, it is more important to understand the basic principles and build ones understanding on these, rather than learn and remember numerous facts and figures. During his retirement years in Perthshire, he had more time to follow his wider interests including woodturning, sailing and his lifelong passion for the hills. He, with his wife, Isobel, completed the Munros in 1985. To his colleagues it was a privilege to have known and worked along side him. In all aspects of his life, his family, his love of mountains, walking and climbing, and his
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career in the University of Glasgow, he gave of himself unsparingly and with the greatest of enthusiasm. He will be sadly missed by all who knew him.
He is survived by his wife, Isobel, daughter, Anne, and son, Colin. David Saxon
Ian Simpson Hughes, B.Sc., Ph.D (Glasgow, 1956), F Inst P and Fellow of the European and American Physical Societies. Born Liverpool, 1 November 1930; Elected FRSE 4 March 1974; Died 21 June 2003 , Perthshire.
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Violet Rosemary Strachan Hutton 22 October 1925 - 1 April 2004
Dr Violet Rosemary Strachan Hutton passed away peacefully after a short illness at St Andrews Memorial Hospital on April 1st, 2004. Rosemary, as she preferred to be known, was born on October 22nd 1925 in Dundee where she attended Harris Academy for her primary and secondary education. In 1943 she entered St Andrews University in the Faculty of Science, graduating in 1948 with an Honours MA degree in Mathematics and Physics. In 1949 she took up an appointment with the British Jute Association in Dundee, but she resigned after a few years finding that the physics of textiles was not sufficiently challenging. Feeling an urge to travel, she moved to Africa in 1954 to take up a lectureship in Physics at the University of Ghana (then connected with The University of London). A lifelong attachment to the people of Africa, in particular furthering higher education in science, grew out of her auxiliary duties as Deputy Warden of Volta Hall. In addition to her main duties of delivering lecture courses to undergraduate students, she registered for a higher degree. Her thesis, Earth Current
Variations in the Equatorial Region was accepted for the award of a Ph.D. degree by London University in 1961. Thus began an impressive research career largely devoted to the investigation of how geophysical methods, and in particular electrical methods, could be applied to investigate the structure of the Earths continental crust and upper mantle, with many of the studies being focused on Scotland. In 1963 she moved from Ghana to Nigeria to take up an appointment as Senior Lecturer in Physics at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, and she was promoted to a Readership in 1965. She then moved on to the University of Ibadan as Associate Professor in the Department of Physics. During the period of fifteen years spent on the academic staff of African Universities, she presented undergraduate Physics courses at all levels, and also optional courses in geomagnetism to final year B.Sc. degree students. Also, some 13 of her research papers were accepted for publication in scientific journals of world renown, demonstrating a remarkable combination of resourcefulness and self-reliance in the energetic pursuit of the
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research programme that she had set for herself. Consequently her name became widely recognised and respected among her peers in the international geomagnetic community (IAGA, the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy) and more widely across the broader field of geophysics (International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics). Most importantly, her research came to the attention of Professor Alan Cook FRS, Head of the newly established Department of Geophysics at the University of Edinburgh, and in 1969 he invited Rosemary to join the Department as Lecturer. She remained in Edinburgh for the rest of her career in academia, becoming Senior Lecturer in 1973 and then Reader in 1982, retiring as Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh in 1991. Over the two decades that followed she made a profound impact on the growth and development of the Department of Geophysics at Edinburgh, both on the quality and direction of undergraduate teaching and particularly on the research side, where she established a thriving and world-renowned group working principally on three general topics: the electrical conductivity structure of the Earth and planets; continental rift systems and geothermal regions;
and source fields of geomagnetic time variations. Consistent with her continued attraction to Africa, the first geophysical research study she undertook, together with her first Ph.D. student Dennis Rooney, was of the interaction of a solar eclipse with the Kenyan Rift. It is important also to record that they used state-of-the-art (1972) magnetotelluric equipment built at Edinburgh, because this illustrated another aspect of Rosemarys diverse research programme, namely the design and construction of instruments. The microprocessor-based magnetotelluric instrumentation developed by Research Associate G.J.K. Dawes (1983-85) for the NERC Geomagnetic Equipment Pool and the University of Alberta, Canada, of which several versions were sold internationally, is particularly worthy of note. Next began her twenty year fascination with the enigmatic Eskdalemuir anomaly which is now known to be a consequence of the closure of the Palaeozoic Lapetus ocean and continentcontinent suturing of Laurentia (ancestral North America) with Gondwana. The geographical area of the investigation was then extended with the implementation of a number of field projects on Palaeozoic rock successions in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, Northern England, Ireland and
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neighbouring regions of continental Europe. Rosemarys growing scientific reputation and the manifest enthusiasm she displayed in collaborative projects undertaken outside the British Isles, attracted several generations of young post-doctoral research workers hailing from institutes from across the EU and from other continents, to join her in Edinburgh. Through the years, about a score of graduate students not only from the UK, but also from West Africa, Kenya, India and Brazil, gained their Ph.D. degrees under her supervision. Rosemary soon became aware of the need to boost the rather limited amounts of funding available from the UK research councils. In 1985 the Royal Society funded her project entitled Lateral variations in lithospheric electrical conductivity structure in Italy. Importantly, she was one of the earliest staff members of Edinburgh University to be awarded a research contract from the EEC (in 1985) to carry out a feasibility study of magnetotelluric measurements on Milos, Greece. Having yielded successful results this exploratory project was followed up in 1986 by a two year EEC contract to support geothermal exploration in an active volcanotectonic environment. This work involved collaboration with the Universities of Berlin and Braun313
schweig and other Institutes located in EEC countries. Rosemary also succeeded in gaining substantial financial support for her research programme from several different industrial sources. In 1985 her group carried out a mineral exploration survey in Portugal, and in 1989 a project entitled Broadband electromagnetic induction studies in the Olkaria geothermal field in Kenya. A geothermal project supported by the Camboume School of Mines comprising a magnetotelluric traverse across the Cammellis granite was undertaken in 1987 to search for fluid filled fractures. To commemorate and honour her overall research contribution, her peers of many nationalities organized the V R S Hutton Symposium entitled Electromagnetic Studies of the Continents during the 1992 Assembly of the European Geophysical Society held in Edinburgh. Its central theme epitomised the diversity of Rosemarys interests and the regard in which she was held by the community. It provided a fitting tribute to Rosemary Hutton. The papers were published as a special volume of Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, edited by Alan Jones (then at the Geological Survey of Canada) and Volker Haak (of the Geoscience Centre, Potsdam, Germany).
Her achievements have been recognized by election to Fellowship of The Institute of Physics (1965 - 80), The Royal Society of Edinburgh (1983) and The Royal Astronomical Society (1970); by membership of the American Geophysical Union (1963 - 89) and by membership of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (1982 - 93). She was also a member of several influential committees relevant to her research. These included the International IASPEI/IAGA Committee for the Electrical Conductivity of the Asthenosphere Project (1983 - 88); the UK National Committee for Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (1985 - 87); and, as a representative of The Royal Society of Edinburgh, the British National Committee for Geodesy and Geophysics (1984 87). She was invited on many overseas visits, notably in 1984 by the USSR Academy of Sciences for a threeweek visit to the Academy Institute at Troitsk, Moscow and the University of Leningrad; in 1985 to the University of Calabar, Nigeria; and also in 1985 to the University of Tasmania, the Australian National University at Canberra, La Trobe University, Melbourne, and the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. In 1986 and 1987 she went as a NATO Visiting Professor to the Istituto di Fisica Terrestre,
University of Padua, Italy; and also in 1987 to the University of Uppsala, Sweden; in 1988 to the Institute of Planetary Physics at the University of Alberta, Canada as a Distinguished Visitor; also in 1988 returning to the Academy Institute at Troitsk, and to Sochi to participate in the International Electromagnetic Induction Workshop; and in 1989 to the National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad, and to the Institute of Geomagnetism, Bombay, sponsored by the British Council. Beyond these tangibles, Rosemary was a pioneer, both in her science and in her personal life. Rosemary began research in her chosen discipline of magnetotellurics in the very early days of the 1970s when data were transcribed onto paper charts then digitized from paper. For over twenty years Rosemary and her group stayed at the cutting edge of development of many aspects of the method, from instrumentation development to processing and analysis methods, to modelling and interpretation, and finally to multidisciplinary integration. In terms of advancing the method through organizational activities, Rosemary was the principal organizer of the first-ever workshop on electromagnetic induction in the earth, held in Edinburgh in 1972 and since held biennially. This workshop attracts
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typically between 200250 participants, and is one of the most successful activities of the IAGA. As for her personal life, the early 1970s was a time when there were very few women in geophysics. Through her example and her dedication to education, many young women were encouraged to consider geophysics as a career option.
Those of us fortunate to have known Rosemary will recall many happy memories from our association, in particular the social gatherings she hosted, especially when she had guests from overseas, at her home at Peebles. She is greatly missed by all staff of the Department of Geophysics academic, secretarial and technical. Kenneth M Creer
Violet Rosemary Strachan Hutton, MA (St Andrews), PhD (London). Born 22 October 1925; Elected FRSE 7 March 1983; Died 1 April 2004.
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George Scott Johnstone 30 October 1922 - 9 May 2005
George Scott Johnstone (Scott) was born on 30 October 1922 in Glasgow and died on 9 May 2005 in Edinburgh. He was a field geologist whose knowledge of the Scottish Highlands, their landscape and the geology that underpinned them was probably second to none. He always considered himself very fortunate that his professional interests were so closely complemented by his love of mountaineering, skiing and photography. He supervised, and was an integral part of, the great wealth of Highland Survey work in the decades after the war. It was this work that formed or underpinned many of the major advances in Highland geology we see today. Scott was the youngest of a family of three. He was educated at Glasgow High School where he showed a bias for science, but it was probably his involvement with the scouting movement and trips to Arran that first instilled in him an interest in climbing and geology. He left school and went to Glasgow University with the aid of a Carnegie grant at the age of 16. After three years however, he was obliged to take up wartime work as an electronics engineer in Kent. In 1945 he returned to Glasgow to finish his course and
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graduated with 1st class Honours in 1946. His degree was biased towards palaeontology due to the influence of Truman but he had been encouraged on the hard rock side by McCallien. Throughout this period he maintained his interest in climbing whether it was on the sandstone cliffs of Kent, in the Peak District or in Scotland. He was a founder member and subsequently President of the Glasgow Mountaineering Society, through which he met his future wife Molly whom he married in March 1945. Together they spent their weekends ranging across the Scottish hills, climbing and laying the foundations of Scotts wide knowledge of Highland geology. He joined the Geological Survey at Edinburgh in November 1946: a time when many of the pre-war staff, such as VA Eyles, JE Richey and WQ Kennedy had retired or left for university chairs. Scott started work on the coalfields, concentrating on the volcanic rocks of East Fife and Renfrew (Geological Sheet 30). He mapped Misty Law in the Clyde Plateau lavas, continuing the work that had been abandoned at the beginning of the war. Scott was able to demonstrate that the
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proposed model of a caldera could not be substantiated and that the edge of the lavas was faulted. During his involvement with the Renfrew sheet, Scott mapped alongside JGC Anderson and was to follow him into the Highlands as work on the hydro schemes came on stream. This was a defining move for Scott. He started a line of work on which he was to prosper and it allowed him to gain directly from Andersons experience. Anderson like Scott was a climber and the two had a fruitful relationship covering many aspects of Highland geology. Anderson left to take up the chair in Cardiff in 1949 and the following year primary six-inch mapping restarted on the Moine rocks of the West Highlands. Scott, newly promoted to Senior Geologist, was a natural choice for this work despite his limited experience. Again he was picking up the suspended work of the pre-war mappers. This must have been a daunting task particularly as he started on his own with only the part-time supervision of his District Geologist, AG Macgregor. Scott became a Principal Geologist in 1957 and, as the unit increased in size and the work in the West Highlands progressed, he was the senior figure and a natural successor as District Geologist to TRM Lawrie whom he succeeded in1963. The size of the challenge facing the unit was immense, not
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only was the area among the physically most demanding and remote in the Highlands but, of the geology, Kennedy had said nobody will make sense of the ground east of Morar. It is to the credit of Scotts enthusiasm and leadership that over the next 20 years the unit was able to unravel the stratigraphy and structure of these complex successions. Scott was the lead author of a paper published at a comparatively early stage (1969) of the survey, which set out the overall tectonostratigraphic framework and which has become one of the seminal works of Moinian geology. While this work was in progress, Scott with JE Wright and DI Smith also led the substantial contribution to the development of many of the Highland hydro-electric schemes (HE) including those at Morar, Loch Tay, Cruachan and Foyers. The work involved both prospecting potential sites and logging tunnels after excavation. Studies ranged across the Highlands and provided a wealth of data and experience. Scott found the HE work particularly satisfying because it linked the work of the Survey with a direct application and benefit to the wider community. Scott promoted this policy when he became District Geologist by widening the units activities and experience so that they would be better placed to provide a consult-
ing service. He deliberately fostered the applied side of Survey work and encouraged participation in civil engineering projects and in the burgeoning minerals industry especially through the 70s. He accepted the customerconsumer principles introduced in 1976, although he retired before these began to bite, producing the difficult balance between strategic research and short term funding. He embraced and fostered cooperation with the universities before it became commonplace. He supervised collaborative projects with Liverpool University in Perthshire and the Great Glen, and he encouraged the work with Aberdeen University that resulted in a long and fertile period culminating in the publication of several maps and memoirs for NE Scotland. He also oversaw the major collaborative project with Janet Watson and her students at Imperial College that produced the first comprehensive coverage and understanding of the Outer Hebrides. Scotts extensive Survey activities gave him a wide understanding for Highland rocks. This base, along with the detail of his HE work, made him a natural author for the third edition of The Grampian Highlands regional guide which was published in 1966. Following this publication
Scott developed collaborative links with the Swedish and Irish Surveys, which in part led to his strong support for, and input into, the Mineral Reconnaissance Programme work on stratabound sulphides in the Southern Highlands during the 70s. He retired in 1982 but was joint editor of a new edition of the Northern Highlands regional guide that was published in 1987, and a major contributor to the fourth edition of the Grampian Highlands regional guide published in 1989. In addition, after his retirement he served as a member of the National Trusts Countryside and Nature Conservation committee until 1997. Scott became a FGS in 1942, a FRSE in 1963 and MIMM (CEng) in 1973 (resigned 1985). He was a member and held various offices in the Glasgow and Edinburgh Geological Societies and became President of the latter in 1979-81. He had many interests mainly associated with the outdoors. He was elected to the Scottish Mountaineering Club (SMC) in 1953, he was author of a SMC regional guide to the West Highlands and was a compiling editor of the SMC guide to the Corbetts and other hills. He lectured widely on geology and mountain photography. During nearly forty years of working in the Highlands he
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mapped or supervised work throughout the stratigraphic spectrum and across the mainland and in the Western and Northern Isles. He described himself as having an extensive if superficial knowledge of Highland geology; this self-judgement undervalues his worth as a field geologist whose knowledge of the rocks and the landscape they formed was unique. His focus was very much oriented to geology in all its aspects and he had little interest
in the wider politics of the organization. As a colleague and friend he will be remembered for many things, pithy and sometimes earthy sayings to describe most situations, a man who wore his heart on his sleeve and who was not driven by personal ambition or gain but by a genuine love of Scottish mountains and their geology. He is survived by his wife, Molly, and by three sons. Douglas Fettes, Tony Harris
George Scott Johnstone BSc (Glasgow), FGS. Born 30 October 1922; Elected FRSE 4 March 1963; Died 9 May 2005.
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John William Beaufoy King 28 June 1927 - 12 January 2006
John King had a passion to see research in animal genetics translated into breeding practice. His work helped to transform the pig breeding industry in the UK, but his influence stretched worldwide. John was born on 28 June 1927 in Nailsworth in Gloucestershire to a family of farmers and corn millers. He had an outstanding record at Stroud School from where he won an open scholarship to Cambridge to take a natural science tripos followed by a diploma in agricultural science in 1948. His post-graduate studies were undertaken at the Institute of Animal Genetics of Edinburgh University, using mice as an animal breeding model. He worked under the guidance of Douglas Falconer who trained and influenced many animal geneticists of Johns and subsequent generations. After obtaining his PhD he was appointed to the scientific staff of the then recently established ARC Animal Breeding Research Organisation under the directorship of Hugh Donald. John, like many of his contemporaries, thrived in an environment that was unique for promoting animal breeding and genetics
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research and development. It is useful to remember, as an aside, how such an environment arose. During and following World War II, the Government decreed that science be put to work in the interests of food production. This resulted in the establishment or expansion of many research institutes. Edinburgh was a major recipient of the largesse in the field of animal breeding and animal genetics research and teaching. A very large number of geneticists, scientists from related disciplines and animal breeders were concentrated in and around Edinburgh. This arose from the decision of the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) to establish the headquarters of the Animal Breeding Research Organisation (ABRO) alongside the already well-known Institute of Animal Genetics of the University. ABRO with its own staff of scientists and technicians had the facilities of six research farms and a field laboratory, whilst the Institute was greatly strengthened by an ARC-funded group (later named the ARC Unit of Animal Genetics) under the direction of CH Waddington. The marriage of the ARC group to the University was sealed by the Universitys offer to Waddington of the Buchanan
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chair of Animal Genetics. In addition, the ARC Poultry Research Centre (PRC) was set up in the Edinburgh area around the same period, providing another multi-disciplinary centre of excellence, including genetics. Some time later, an applied animal breeding group from the Edinburgh School of Agriculture added further expertise and research facilities. For several decades the campus became a magnet for animal geneticists and animal breeders from across the world as well as a training ground. The Roslin Institute of today was formed from a merger of a scaleddown ABRO and PRC, but the Institute is no more. The rise, and the later relative fall in the fortunes of research profoundly affected John Kings career. John King quickly established himself in the field of pigbreeding, with experiments involving inbreeding and, later, selection techniques. His interests were fostered by Hugh Donald, who himself had worked on pigs at the then Shothead farm of the University, and they were further strengthened by the award of a Kellogg Foundation Fellowship at Ames, Iowa. There John was under the direction of Professors Jay L Lush and Lanoy N Hazel, two of the pioneers in the development of
animal genetic theory applied to practice, and part of a brilliant generation of animal geneticists. Hazel himself was pre-eminent in pig-breeding. In 1959, whilst still working in ABRO, John was appointed an advisor to the (then) Pig Industry Development Authority (PIDA). That was take-off point for him. It gave him the opportunity to develop testing and selection programmes at a time when quantitative genetics was at last ready to provide the methodology for the improvement of farm livestock. He was greatly helped in this by the more theoretical work of Charles Smith in ABRO and Alister Pease in PIDA. Pedigree breeders, however, needed convincing that genetic improvement had to go beyond established practices if the benefits were to be on a national scale. John King was in the forefront of this crusade in relation to pigs, and his influence on the industry to adopt new schemes was immensely successful. He was also a major catalyst for achieving similar changes in other countries. Dr Maurice Bichard, one of Kings protgs and himself a renowned leader in animal breeding, writes to say that King was godfather to almost all UK pig breeding companies. He also helped the successful ones to take over most of the US pig breeding industry.
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The fact that animal geneticists in the US were less effective in influencing their own local pig breeders to adopt change had to do more with politics than knowhow. Local breeders in the US had influence with the State legislators who in turn controlled the purse strings for the Land Grant Universities which employed most of the academics. John King was not constrained in that way in the UK. John also influenced significantly the work of technical officers in advisory services and other public bodies to facilitate the transfer of new breeding strategies to the industry. He started the Pig Breeders Round Table in 1965 and it has continued with annual meetings to this day. It quickly established itself as a most successful (and inexpensive) forum for the joint exchange of ideas and information among practical breeders, academics, researchers and commercial companies. His research interests also included sheep and cattle and he became increasingly interested in large gene effects such as double muscling, as well as maintaining an interest in his earlier collaborative studies involving blood polymorphisms. His publications cover a range of such topics in addition to his key work on pigs. Following the retirement of Hugh Donald in 1974 from the director-
ship of ABRO, John was appointed to that post. One of his first successes was to release latent energy and bring new direction into ABRO by creating disciplinary Departments in place of the earlier individualistic and highly hierarchical style of management. As fate would have it, attitudes among the funding bodies, and the Agricultural and Food Research Council (AFRC) in particular, started to change around the time of Johns appointment. A science-led expansion in food production had been, if anything, too successful and the AFRC decided to reduce or stop the more applied breeding work. John would not accept this change in the emphasis of research and resigned from ABRO. He was given a role in 1982, until his retiral, as Head of a newly created AFRC Animal Breeding Liaison Group, which was meant to provide an interface between research and its application. However, lack of support never allowed him to fully exploit its potential. John retired in 1987 to his farm in West Linton. He continued an active interest in livestock improvement and, with his sons, established the Advanced Breeders Company to provide advice and selected semen to cattle breeders. He also practised what he had always preached by collecting an assortment of sheep
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breeds with novel genotypes to see what they might have to offer the farmer. He was a keen naturalist, and enthusiastic conservationist, and loved country pursuits. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1975. Among his other awards and honours was the David Black Award for services to the British
pig industry (1966), a visiting lecturership to Gttingen University (1973), an Honorary Professorship from Edinburgh University and Fellowship of the Institute of Biology (1974). John was a devoted family man. He was married to Pauline for more than 50 years and is survived by her and their four sons and ten grandchildren. Gerald Wiener
John William Beaufoy King MA, DipAgricSci (Cantab), PhD (Edinburgh). Born 28 June 1927; Elected FRSE 3 March 1975; Died 12 January 2006.
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Sir Ian Alexander McGregor 26 August 1922 - 1 February 2007
Ian Alexander McGregor, was born in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire on 26th August 1922 into a family of modest means. His father was a respected tailor, his mother a thrifty housewife who ensured that, despite their modest means, the years of economic depression in the late 1920s and 1930s impacted little on the family who were always well fed and well dressed. His parents had a deep respect for education and it was no surprise that following a happy but undistinguished schooling at Rutherglen Academy, Ian aspired to follow his older stepbrothers into University. His schooldays had engendered a dislike of mathematics that, surprisingly for such an able scientist, remained with him throughout his career. He entered his final year at grammar school at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and, while conscription seemed likely at the end of his schooling, he was persuaded by his family to consider further education. For a time he was unsure whether he should pursue a career in human or veterinary medicine, and by the time he had made up his mind in the summer of 1940 it was too late to secure a place at the University of Glasgow. One of his stepbrothers, a specialist surgeon, persuaded him
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to apply for one of the extra-mural colleges and so Ian attended his first classes at the St Mungo College and the Glasgow Royal Infirmary in October 1940. Determined to be as good and knowledgeable a doctor as he could, Ian secured the class medals in Anatomy, Physiology, Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Public Health with Certificates of Merit in seven other subjects. Final examinations in 1945 were followed by house jobs in surgery and obstetrics, at 1 per week, less eightpence for laundry charges. In September 1946, Ian was conscripted into the Army and posted to the RAMC base in Surrey for training as a Lieutenant on Probation. Before the end of the year he was posted to a Field Ambulance at Suez, by the side of the Canal, relocating after only a few weeks to Sarafand in Palestine. Ordered to report to the Deputy, then Acting Director of Medical Services in Jerusalem, Ian discovered that Lieutenant Colonel Alistair Young, who had issued the summons, was from Cambuslang, and that their families knew each other. Ians own account of that meeting records that he laughed when he was told
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that he was to be trained as a malariologist, and then was severely reprimanded. Following training he was to assume the post of Command Malariologist, with responsibility for malaria control in Palestine and Transjordan. Ian was trained in malariology at the Middle East School of Hygiene at Dimra, near Gaza and then spent his time travelling through Palestine and Transjordan inspecting the seven malaria control units that were under his control, and organising training courses for other regimental medical officers. These experiences would shape his future, and when he completed his military service towards the end of 1948, he enrolled to study, at his own expense, for the Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. On 6th October 1949, Ian left London on his way to the Medical Research Councils Fajara Station in The Gambia, having been persuaded by Professor BS Platt to join the Nutrition Research Cadre. His task was to investigate the possible contributory role of parasitic infections on protein malnutrition. This proved to be more difficult than he had imagined. When he arrived in The Gambia there were no available data on the prevalence of diseases like malaria, filariasis, intestinal helminth infections or trypanosomiasis. And nothing was known
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about the vectors of malaria or filariasis, or their susceptibility to control by residual insecticides. So, Ian set about the task and, based on the incidence of splenic enlargement and anaemia in children under 10 years of age, coupled with its remoteness and a lack of medical services of any kind, he selected Keneba in West Kiang with the nearby villages of Jali and Manduar as the potential control villages. Armed with a medical phrase book prepared by David Gamble, a social anthropologist in the Government Service, Ian was conveyed by lorry from Fajara and deposited in Keneba in May 1950, to be collected some five months later, as the roads in West Kiang were impassable in two-wheel drive vehicles during the rains. His isolation encouraged him to focus all his energies on the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, and on efforts to control malaria through house-spraying using a residual insecticide, benzene hexachloride. His dedication left little time for anything else. An early distraction was having to descend 15ft in a modified breeches buoy he had rigged himself in order to deepen the Keneba well. On one occasion, Ian was discovered down the well by Sir Eric Pridie, the Senior Medical Officer of the Colonial Office, who was visiting The Gambia at the time, and who had expressed an
interest in Ians work. I suspect that Ian was quizzed on his welldigging expertise when he was interviewed at MRC Headquarters. While working in Keneba, his lifelong interest in acquired malarial immunity, the mechanism(s) responsible for it and the effects of pregnancy on that immunity, was stimulated. The use of insecticide and periodic drug treatment reduced the incidence of malaria in Keneba but did not eliminate it. Many children, severely ill from malaria, were brought to Ian from surrounding villages, reinforcing his awareness of the serious impact of malaria in the children of West Kiang. However, he was intrigued by the relatively infrequent episodes of clinical illness in the adults. His observations were at odds with the view that acquired immunity to malaria was ineffective and tenuous, as he noted that adults maintained their resistance to clinical malaria even through the wet season when food was short and physical exertion on agricultural work was at a peak. Following a visit of an MRC delegation, Ian was invited to develop a research programme, building on his early work and focusing on the diseases that appeared to be important in The Gambia. In 1954 he was appointed Director of the Gambian Unit, now termed the MRC Laboratories, and in January of that year married Joan (Small). By providing
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essential support to Ian on research administration and logistics, Joan shares in the credit for helping to establish the MRC Laboratories in The Gambia as one of the leading research centres in tropical medicine. As Director, Ian embarked on the seminal field studies on malaria immunity that demonstrated the association of malaria with enhanced levels of serum gamma globulin. Initially though, he had no proof that the raised levels reflected a specific antibody response, or that the response was protective and responsible for the acquisition of an effective immunity. The definitive experiments emerged from collaboration with Sydney Cohen at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill. Ian collected a pool of serum from healthy Gambian volunteers. Sydney fractionated the serum, providing Ian with the 7S gamma globulin fraction from adult Gambian serum and adult Gambian serum minus the 7S gamma globulin. In addition, 7S fraction of gamma globulin from the serum of UK blood donors was prepared as a control. The therapeutic effects of these fractions was assessed in young Gambian children suffering acute clinical P. falciparum or P. malariae malaria, and compared with the progress of malaria in similarly infected untreated children. Unlike the other two fractions, the
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7S gamma globulin fraction reduced both the levels of parasitaemia (the asexual but not the sexual stages), and clinical illness in the recipients. This was the first reliable experimental data to support the view that humans repeatedly exposed to malaria infection could develop an immunity that was capable of restricting clinical illness and parasite blood density, and that this acquired immunity could be transferred to non-immunes in the 7S gamma globulin fraction of immune serum. Thus, vaccination against malaria was at least theoretically possible. Ian had also demonstrated that the 7S gamma globulin fraction from adult Gambian serum had the same therapeutic effect in Tanzanian children with P. falciparum malaria suggesting that West and East African strains had antigenic similarities, and that a vaccine against parasites from one region of Africa may be effective against parasites from other regions. Many other important contributions followed and Ians work at the MRC Laboratories, The Gambia, on malaria immunology and epidemiology, still serves as the foundation for much of the current global research effort on malaria. The quest for an effective
vaccine, essentially triggered by Ians passive transfers of gamma globulin, continues today. Ian served as chair or rapporteur on several important World Health Organisation Committees on malaria. He contributed generously of his time, and his encyclopaedic knowledge of malaria, gleaned from his many years of practical experience in the field, ensured that the epidemiological features of malaria immunity were paramount when decisions on policy and planning of malaria research and control activities were being made in Geneva. The McGregors finally left The Gambia in 1980, with Ian becoming a Professorial Fellow at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He continued to write about malaria and was particularly supportive of younger researchers at the school until he retired in 1994. We owe much to Lieutenant Colonel Alistair Young who decided in 1947 to have the young Dr McGregor trained as a malariologist. We owe an even greater debt to Ian himself. Paul Hagan (Ian left detailed autobiographical notes that I have quoted from extensively.)
Ian Alexander McGregor LRCP, LRCS (Edinburgh), LRFPS (Glasgow), DTH&H (London), FRCP, FFCM (London), HonLLD(Aberdeen), HonDSc(Glasgow), OBE, CBE, Kt, FRS. Born 26 August 1922; Elected FRSE 9 March 1987; Died 1 February 2007.
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Magnus Magnusson 12 October 1929 - Died 7 January 2007
To the majority of people Magnus Magnusson was a TV personality best known for his role over a quarter of century as the interrogator on Mastermind. But to those of us who had the privilege to work with him, as I did for the best part of a decade I as Chief Executive, and he as Chairman of Scottish Natural Heritage he was a much more ken-speckled man: if that can be said of an Icelander. He was erudite, personable, and an achiever; as well as being a writer, broadcaster, speaker, translator, and historian; he was a leader and innovator. It is no understatement to say that he was a highly gifted, charismatic man of many parts who graced public life and the media in Scotland, in Britain as a whole, and also in his native Iceland. Many know his catch phrase - Ive started so Ill finish, but few realise the extent to which this represented the man himself. He always completed the task he had set for himself, irrespective of how many different roles he was playing at any one time: and they were often many and varied. In the early days of his Chairmanship of Scottish Natural Heritage he was at the same time chairman of the Cairngorms Working Party and writing books and presenting
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Mastermind. He was a hard task master, especially on himself. Many are the times that fax and latterly emails would be received from him in the early hours of the morning demanding a speedy response. I can certainly testify to this, as can many colleagues. And it worked. You could not say no to him because the work meant everything. You were inspired by his drive and tenacity and also by his no nonsense approach. Nothing would get in the way of achieving the job in hand, not even what others would regard as insurmountable obstacles. Anyone who met him warmed to him. His opening line was often: Just call me Magnus. It showed that he had no airs and graces and immediately put one at ease. He made many friends as he visited all parts of Scotland on his various roles. Schools openings, tree plantings, public lectures, seminars, informal talks were all part of his get down to the people approach. The schedule necessary to allow him to undertake all of these engagements, which he so much enjoyed, would have broken a lesser man, such was his stamina and his care for people. And he was always meticulously prepared: researching the information himself and
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relying on those whom he trusted, writing and rewriting what he was to say: he was a veritable wordsmith and also a tyrant for ensuring that the grammar was correct, as I know to my cost. And he made sure that he met and talked to everyone: not for him just speaking to those in highest positions. In debate he was no pushover. He consulted thoroughly, he assiduously absorbed the background material provided, he made up his mind, and he held by the conclusions he reached. No one could accuse Magnus of ducking issues. He held many and various public appointments and in none was he ever the cipher of politicians, or for that matter of bureaucrats. That was certainly the case as Chairman of SNH, and that approach did so much to benefit the natural heritage and Scotlands communities. He did force politicians to stand up and listen even when he was critical of their line or arguing against their decision. As a result he was widely regarded, held somewhat in awe and often won the day. He frequently had government ministers agreeing absolutely with him, much to the chagrin of their civil servants, because he had mastered his brief and argued it cogently and fairly, and obviously convincingly. He raised the profile of the environment, and through his influence and tireless work
raised the financial support made available to it. He was a good judge of whom he could trust and work with. A common phrase was I like the cut of his jib; this was a high compliment. To others about whose views he was at best sceptical he would say you may well be right, and so disarmed them without agreeing or disagreeing. I had the privilege of being introduced to Iceland by Magnus. It was then that I appreciated many new facets of this manyfaceted friend. He was a scholar in his own country. Many years after completing his first translation of the Icelandic Sagas, he reflected that a better job could be done and so he set out on a re-translation: a very substantial task which, of course, he finished. But it was not just in the written word of the sagas that he excelled; he related this to the landscape of the place right down to the detailed knowledge of the names of features in the landscape (of which there are many in Iceland) and how they related to a particular saga, Njals Saga set in southern Iceland being his particular favourite. His knowledge of the history of his country was legendary. I recall on my first visit with him being overwhelmed by his oration at the Lberg rock (the site of the annual gathering of the nations leaders at the Althingi - the Icelandic parlia329
ment). We were on that occasion accompanied by the wonderful President of Iceland Vigdis Finnbogadttir: it was like being at one of the original ceremonies one millennium before, such was the power of his rendition, the magic of the location and the stature of my companions. The recent work, written by daughter Sally, Dreaming of Iceland, describing a tour to the family sites around the country with her father, captured his knowledge of and passion for his native country. In the environment field he opened up new approaches and challenged outmoded ideas. Sometimes this was to the grave discomfort of those who held them, but he always wished to move ideas forward and ensure that people were accepted as part of nature and not separate from it. He was the exemplary Chairman of Scottish Natural Heritage. He was appointed to oversee the restructuring of government agencies and in so doing to bring together the dissident voices of the conservation movement. He had previously been President of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and his appointment to SNH was a shock to many who did not immediately identify with him. But his appointment was an astute one by the Ministers of the day and, while he did not always agree with them, they respected his determination, his creativity and his commitment. He and I
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toured the country, meeting each one of the staff of the new body and asking about their aspiration for themselves and the new organisation. He took real trouble to listen, he cared about the discussions we had, and he rightly expected action when it was needed. His achievements in that period on the environmental front were many. For example, he oversaw the completion of an inspiring and visionary report on the Cairngorms agreed by all of the participants, which given their disparate views was a major step forward. He brokered the early agreements on access with farmers and landowners which led to the Access Concordat and eventually to the right to roam legislation. And, practical man that he was, he guided the Paths for All concept into practice. He received many Honorary Degrees and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1980. In 1989 he was awarded an honorary Knighthood. I hope we have the great good fortune in the future to hear his eloquent speeches from his tapes, read his erudite translations, leaf through the reports of committees and bodies he chaired, walk the paths he helped to create, visit the sites where he opened new facilities, as well as relive the black chair moments of Mastermind. Roger Crofts
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I first met Magnus in 1974. he was already so famous that BBC Scotland had given him six television programmes to do with as he pleased. He chose to devote one to the Antonine Wall - as, he said, because he crossed it every day and wanted to know more about it. He invited me to be his guide on the programme. We met for lunch and Magnus asked for a reading list. When we next met, the reading list was digested and he had already planned the halfhour programme. I was mightily impressed by his professionalism, both as a TV presenter and academic. The next time our paths crossed was in a different forum. Magnus was invited to become chairman of the Ancient Monuments Board for Scotland. He brought his intellectual rigour into play here and decided that each year the Board should consider a particular theme. This worked very well, the discussions at the meetings having a focus in the annual tour and a more directed report at the end of the year. Magnus used his name to help the Board in a variety of ways. He proposed the publication of a booklet to celebrate the anniversary of the passing of the first Ancient Monuments Act in 1882: the result was not only Echoes in Stone, edited by Magnus of course, but a TV programme of
the same name, presented by Magnus. Running the Ancient Monuments Board tour also shone a different light on Magnus. When we met the public in our perambulations, they parted in awe in front of the great man: it was like travelling with royalty. Furthermore, his name would gain us access to places that were difficult even for the officials of Historic Scotland. His votes of thanks at the end of the tours were a joy to listen to. I remember one very clearly, to the south-west of Scotland where we had seen a lot of mottes: his final speech was sprinkled with references to bon mots and many other plays upon the word. When he retired from the Board he moved on to chair the newly established Scottish Natural Heritage. I met him at a lecture shortly after and he explained his approach. The Board had been asked to state who its clients were as part of the preamble to their first Corporate Plan. This was straightforward, said Magnus, we decided that we only have one client, Scotlands natural heritage. His support for archaeology continued of course. He twice presented the awards at the British Archaeology Awards ceremony. On the second occasion, he was not at all fazed when I, as chairman, forgot to ask him to speak at the end of the ceremony in spite of the fact that I knew
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that he had a polished speech prepared! Indeed, his fame never seemed to impress Magnus: he was always the same cheerful self, never
pompous, always enquiring about people - and listening to their answers. He will be missed by many. David Breeze
Magnus Magnusson, MA (Oxon), Drhc (Edinburgh), DUniv(York, Paisley), Hon DLitt (Strathclyde, Napier, Glasgow, Glasgow Caledonian), Hon KBE, FSAScot, FRSA, Hon FRIAS, FSA, FRSGS. Born 12 October 1929; Elected FRSE 3 March 1980; Died 7 January 2007.
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William Barr Martin 11 August 1924 - 6 October 2004
Bill Martin, who died peacefully at home in the early hours of 6th October 2004, was born in 1924 in Glasgow where he attended Hutchesons Grammar School. On leaving school he volunteered for pilot service in the RAF but was turned down because of colour blindness (he used to ask why the sand was blue). Instead, because his family had farming links he entered the old Glasgow Veterinary College, gaining his MRCVS in 1947. Those were difficult years due to the prevailing wartime conditions and the very basic and underfunded facilities of the College. But if academic conditions were Spartan they fostered enduring attributes of initiative and self-reliance coupled with humour, comradeship and lasting friendship. Bill always spoke fondly of those crucial years which laid the foundation of what was to be a productive and distinguished professional career during which he was always proud to identify himself as a veterinary surgeon. He consolidated his earlier training by taking the one-year DVSM course in the Royal Dick in Edinburgh before entering general practice in Kent. However, in 1950, he was head hunted as one of the foundation staff of the
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new Glasgow University Veterinary School. There, he was responsible for running the clinics owned by the West of Scotland Dog and Cat Home but operated by the Veterinary School, and the lecture courses on infectious diseases of pigs and poultry. These dual commitments were carried out with a care and thoroughness that earned him the respect of the students whom he tutored. So comprehensive and focused were his works on poultry disease (never the most popular subjects in the veterinary curriculum!) that some 40 years later one of those students, who later became a recognised specialist in the field, acknowledged that Bills notes had been a continuing and reliable source of reference during his career. However, experience in the Glasgow clinics of the then rampant canine distemper kindled an interest in virology, at that time a very young science but one which Bill recognised would have major implications for veterinary medicine. In pursuit of that interest he moved in 1957 to the Animal Virus Research Institute at Pirbright and later, in 1961, to the newly established Institute of Virology in Glasgow.
At Pirbright, he set up the Institutes centralised cell culture unit, initially for cell monolayers and latterly for the then innovative development of continuous cultures for growing viruses. He also developed an attenuated Foot and Mouth disease vaccine that underwent an extensive field trial in South Africa to very good effect. It demonstrated convincingly, for the first time, that a barrier of immunised susceptible cattle could prevent the spread of infection from the adjacent FMDendemic areas a practice subsequently adopted in several parts of the world. In Glasgow, Bill collaborated with Professor Bill Jarrett, carrying out seminal work on bovine and feline leukaemia, contributing to the studies that established the viral aetiology of feline leukaemia. This was a significant milestone in the understanding of mammalian leukaemia, and the potential role of viruses in cancer, and an early example of how veterinary medicine impinged on human medicine. Together with other colleagues in Glasgow, Bill also initiated work that led to the isolation of a herpesvirus (Bovine Herpesvirus 2) from a severe outbreak of bovine ulcerative mammillitis in the West of Scotland the first record of this virus outside Africa but which subsequent work showed was widespread in the UK.
Something of a career shift occurred in 1963 when Bill became a key member of the task force marshalled by Glasgow University Veterinary School to help set up the new Veterinary School of the University of East Africa in Kenya. Seconded as Head of Pathology, Bill was responsible for courses in basic virology and infectious diseases but was able to continue his work on BHV and to study other cattle diseases endemic in East Africa. With the new School established and producing its first graduates, Bill returned to Glasgow Vet School, where he responded to an invitation from the United Nations FAO to work at the Sheep Disease Laboratory in Turkey on control of sheep pox. This he was able to do by devising and testing attenuated vaccines, one of which was adopted for use in Turkey. In 1971, Bill became Head of Microbiology at the Moredun Research Institute in Edinburgh and six years later was appointed Director, a post he held until his retirement in 1985. During his 14 years at Moredun, Bill stimulated new areas of interdisciplinary research, fostered external collaborative links and attracted young veterinary and science graduates to Moredun to engage in new research areas. Particularly notable were projects of pasteurellosis and pulmonary adenomatosis (jaagsiekte), the former leading ultimately to a
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vaccine now used internationally, and the latter demonstrating the transmissibility of infection and involvement of a retrovirus. His time at Moredun was a period of renewed activity for the Institute and provided a sound and integrated research structure that continued well beyond his retirement at the early but mandatory age of 60. It saw also the first edition in 1983 of Diseases in Sheep. In retirement, Bill immediately took up the role of co-ordinator of veterinary CPD in Scotland, laying the foundations of what grew into the VET Trust that supports continuing professional development, principally in Scotland. He also continued to work on viral diseases of animals through his collaboration with an Italian colleague in the University of Perugia. This entailed regular visits to Italy for laboratory and field work, for participation in research seminars and for lectures to veterinary practitioners. During and beyond his working career Bill served or represented his profession in a number of ways, through his Presidency of and other services to the Sheep Veterinary Society, membership of a range of scientific and professional advisory bodies, Council of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, UK Medicines Commission and of the Southwood Working Party set up by govern335
ment in 1988 to review what was then known about BSE. With his abiding interest in FMD, and first hand knowledge of the disease, his expertise was called upon during the 2001 epidemic when he served in the control centre in the Scottish Borders, an experience which, apart from the food, gratified his desire to help. In the aftermath of the epidemic he was set to chair one of the Royal Society of Edinburghs subcommittees in the outbreak in Scotland but had to resign due to health problems. In his working career and beyond it, Bill Martin was the recipient of many accolades from his peers and from others who recognised the innovative and enduring qualities of his research and achievements. These included elections to Fellowships of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Institute of Biology and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, honorary doctorates from the University of Perugia, Edinburgh and Glasgow, awards from the Royal Agricultural Society of England and from the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland for his work on animal disease, together with honorary membership of a number of professional bodies. These formal tributes have been complemented by the universally high regard in which he was held by colleagues in all branches of the veterinary profession and beyond it as a
thoroughly decent man leaving, as an associate put it, a trail of goodwill behind him. Bill wore his distinctions lightly, ever unassuming about his accomplishments, of which many of his social friends and neighbours were quite unaware. Inherently caring and courteous he was ever ready to respond when his assistance was sought but was never presumptuous. He gave his service willingly to his local community which soon recognised his worth, electing him chairman of their Council, a position he held for some years before his health began to deteriorate. An intractable respiratory problem compounded by the onset of Guillain Barr Syndrome made the latter years difficult for Bill and his immediate family and greatly concerned friends. Ever mindful of others, it was typical of him that, with personal experience of debilitating disease, he should join with a fellow member of the profession similarly affected to offer support to other veterinary surgeons who might be trying to come to terms with protracted illness. A talented sprinter in his youth Bill competed against top athletes of the day, including an Olympic medallist. He also had a passion for racing cars. This led him to acquire and rebuild an old classic Grand Prix Bugatti, installing a hotted-up Riley engine, in which
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he competed successfully in Hill Climbs for some years. East African Veterans will never forget the adventures of Bill and Professor McIntyre in the famous gruelling East African Safaris of 1964, 65 and 66. In 1965, they entered the first ever Mini-Cooper S to be imported into East Africa; although they didnt complete the safari, they were more successful than Stirling Moss and Erik Carlsson, who started immediately behind them, achieving considerable media coverage for Scotland and Nairobi University. In later years, Bill favoured and lavished attention on less sporty vintage cars that became well-known in his neighbourhood and car clubs. He also enjoyed curling and flyfishing. The condolences of many, of more than perhaps they realise, are extended to Mamie, Bills wife of 52 years, their children, grandchildren and extended family. He was one of the fathers of Veterinary Virology. He was one of the worlds true gentlemen. Bill Martins was a life well lived, for his family, his profession and his many friends, a sentiment much expressed at his funeral service in Edinburgh on 14th October. As a lover of his poetry, Bill would have appreciated the epitaph by Robert Burns on the order of Service. Max Murray, in collaboration with Professor Ian Aitken
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On a Friend An honest man here lies at rest, As eer God with his image blest; The friend of man, the friend of truth; The friend of age, and guide of youth. Few hearts like his with virtue warmd Few heads with knowledge so informd; If theres another world, he lives in bliss; If there is none, he made the best of this. William Barr Martin MRCVS (Glasgow), DVSM (Edinburgh), PhD(Glasgow), DVMhc(Perugia), DVM&Shc (Edinburgh), DVMShc (Glasgow), FIBiol., FRCVS. Born 11 August 1924; Elected FRSE 7 March 1983; Died 6 October 2004.
Bill Martin with his son and the MG he drove with Ian McIntyre in the 1964 East African Safari Rally.
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John Drake Matthews 13 September 1923 - 26 May 2005
John Matthews died of pneumonia in Wallasey on 26th May 2005 aged 81 after a most distinguished and action-packed career in the Merchant Navy, as the pioneer of tree breeding in Britain, and later as Professor of Forestry at the University of Aberdeen. John was an achiever and an irrepressible ideas man. He was able and imaginative and everything he did was tackled with seemingly boundless energy and total conviction. His huge enthusiasm was catching and a very striking feature of his life was the way in which those who knew him, and especially those who worked with him, were inspired and motivated by his personality. He was charismatic and slightly eccentric and possessed a keen sense of humour and a very infectious laugh. He was one of the most distinguished foresters of his generation and achieved great things and won many friends and admirers. Bom in Wallasey in 1923, he was educated at Wallasey Grammar School before joining the Merchant Navy and going to sea as an Apprentice Deck Officer at the outbreak of war in 1939. His ship hit a mine in 1941 and he was
invalided out at age 18 with impaired hearing. In 1942 he chose to become a Forest Worker with the Forestry Commission at Delamere Forest in Cheshire. entering the Commissions Forester Training School at Benmore in 1943. He qualified as their best student in 1945. Later the same year he was accepted at the University of Aberdeen to study for a Forestry degree under the late Professor H.M Steven. He graduated with the Gold Medal Award and in 1948 was appointed by the Forestry Commission to start up a forest tree improvement and breeding programme based at their new Research Centre at Alice Holt, at Farnham, in Surrey. This was a golden opportunity for him and he quickly forged close links and friendships with some of worlds leading tree breeders, notably Syrach Larsen in Denmark and Bruce Zobel in the United States. He built up a forest tree improvement programme for Britain based on selection and propagation of Plus trees throughout the country. He pioneered these developments with great energy and flair. Under his direction the process of tree selection, propagation, and progeny testing moved at a fast pace, with the result that Britains
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first Seed Orchard was planted in 1953. In the late 1950s he started a scheme for the certification of tree seed collected from Registered Seed Sources in Britain, a process which evolved by 1971 into an international scheme. At this time, he also contributed much to Forest Services abroad by means of lecture tours and advisory visits to several countries, notably to India. In 1963 John was appointed Professor of Forestry at Aberdeen, where he remained for 20 years until he retired in 1983. In a sense this was his second and perhaps even more distinguished career. In the Aberdeen Chair he gained great prestige and personal fulfillment in building up a Department effective and lively in both teaching and research. He received many honours and distinctions at this time. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1964 (where he later served on Council from 1975-1977); Fellow of the Institute of Foresters of Great Britain in 1968; as well as becoming Chairman of the newly formed Forestry Training Council in 197183. He became Dean of the Faculty of Science at Aberdeen 1975-78, a rare honour. He was Vice-President and President of the Institute of Foresters 1969-73, a period that was marked by the organizations
change of status from Learned Society to Professional Institute, and no one contributed more than John to bring this about in an acceptable manner. The range of his involvements about this time is a totally amazing reflection of his phenomenal energy and capacity. He became actively involved in the International Union of Forest Research Organisations, (IUFRO), the Nature Conservancy Council, the Red Deer Commission, and not least the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). With NERC, he was influential in the establishment of their Unit of Tree Biology, later to become the Institute of Tree Biology (ITE), at the Bush Estate, Edinburgh. He was a gifted speaker and much in demand overseas and he took part in many Missions and consultancies during the 70s and 80s to places including Turkey. Pakistan, India, China, Burma, the USA and Canada. He was the author of more than 60 forestry and scientific papers, and in 1989, when well into retirement, he wrote a major textbook in the form of an update of R.S.Troups classic Silvicultural Systems. He was awarded the CBE in 1982. What a remarkable man he was the like of whom one seldom meets in a lifetime. His enthusiasm was highly contagious. His ideas flowed fast and furious and often the main job of his col339
leagues was to hang on to his coat tails and help identify the best of his good ideas! He was a natural leader and his personality bloomed when he took charge of an event - and he liked to be in charge! He was a proud and devoted family man. He married Marjorie in 1951 and she died in 1987
after a long illness. They have two sons, George and Peter, with families to whom we extend deepest sympathy. One of Johns proudest legacies resides in the many forestry graduates now at work all over the world who were once his students. They will be proud too - and grateful to him for his inspiration. George Holmes
[With permission from the Institute of Chartered Foresters.] John Drake Matthews, BSc (Aberdeen,) CBE, FICF, FIBiol. Born 13 September 1923; Elected FRSE 2 March 1964 (Council Member 1975-1977); Died 26 May 2005.
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Basil Richardson Stanley Megaw 22 June 1913 - 22 August 2002
Basil Richardson Stanley Megaw was born in Belfast on 22nd June, 1913, and died in Stevenage on 22nd August, 2002. He received his schooling in Belfast at Campbell College, and proceeded thence to Peterhouse College, Cambridge, in 1932. There he chose to study for the Archaeology and Anthropology Tripos, in the curriculum which had been devised by Hector Monro Chadwick to realise his vision of the cross-disciplinary study of cultures, including especially those European cultures which had long traditions of literacy to set beside their material remains. This combination of the study of material culture with that of history, language and literature both attracted Megaw and helped to mould the ethnological interests which dominated his research and thinking for the rest of his life. After graduating BA in 1935, and following the award of a Leaf Fellowship to undertake research in Spain, he took up a post in the Isle of Man, becoming Secretary and Assistant Director of the Manx Museum in 1936. He quickly established himself as an active archaeologist in the Isle of Man, and at the same time began to extend his field excavation
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experience by working in Scotland with Gordon Childe, in England with Grahame Clark and in Northern Ireland with Estyn Evans, wisely judging that this wider involvement offered the best preparation for a balanced interpretation of the Manx material, and the best way of allowing the richly concentrated Manx evidence to make its contribution to the wider picture. A study visit to Scandinavia in 1938 helped to shape his sense of the direction in which the Manx Museum could be moving, and he soon received the opportunity to put these ideas into effect, being appointed Director and Librarian of the Museum in 1940, when he also became Inspector of Ancient Monuments for the Isle of Man. War service, as a Scientific Officer with the RAF, intervened in 1941; but he resumed his chosen career in 1945, and for the next twelve years brought his widely based, cross-disciplinary approach to bear on the material culture of the island. During this period he was associated with the setting up of the Nautical Museum at Castletown and the Manx Open Air Museum at Cregneash, and with the implementation of the Manx Folk-life Survey (1948).
The theoretical and procedural developments which he introduced in the Isle of Man mirrored similar advances in the fields of ethnology and museum curation in post-war Britain and Europe. More particularly, the foundation in 1951 of the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University, with its ambitious programme of folklore collection and associated linguistic and place-name surveys, provided a close parallel on a larger scale. In 1957 the School was in a position to appoint its first full-time Director, and Megaw filled this position till 1969 a period which saw the high tide of the Schools primary fieldwork activities. His wide-ranging interests in geography, language, history, folklore and archaeology helped in a powerful and benign way to establish the School of Scottish Studies as an internationally acclaimed research institute and paved the way for the modern University subject of Scottish Ethnology. From 1969 onwards he was able to devote more of his time to personal research, as a Senior Lecturer within the School, until his retirement in 1980, and as a Research Fellow from then until his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries shortly before, and of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland shortly after his arrival in Scotland. He served on the Council of the
Scottish Society (1959-62) and as its Vice-President (1974-77). He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1966. He was actively involved with many bodies and organisations whose work coincided with aspects of his personal interests and professional expertise. These included the Scottish Regional Group of the Council for British Archaeology, of which he was Vice-President in 1966 and President in 1967. He also served on the Council of the Highland Folk Museum and was a Trustee of the Auchindrain Folk Museum. He published many articles, notes and reports, often homing in on questions where a timely intervention could resolve an unnecessary controversy, reopen a blocked road or suggest an unnoticed area deserving of scholarly attention. As Editor of Scottish Studies, the Schools academic journal (1964-68), and as a member of the journals Advisory Board both before and after that period, he enabled Scottish Studies to play an important role in establishing the credentials of the School, and of Scottish Ethnology, in the international context. Basil Megaw was courtly and softly spoken in manner, and there was usually a twinkle in his eye. He was assiduous and genuine in his interest in the work of others, especially younger scholars. The death of his beloved
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wife Eleanor in 1977 was a severe blow, for she had shared in his scholarly interests since their Cambridge days. However, the activities and achievements of their children and wider family provided an abiding focus for his concern and attention. He continued to live in the family home in Merchiston Gardens and to frequent the School of Scottish
Studies, including seminars and conferences, until the end of his long life. He left a generous legacy to the School, which is now being used to fund a series of Fellowships bearing his name a fitting commemoration of a long and fruitful association with Edinburgh University and Scotland. William Gillies
Basil Richardson Stanley Megaw, BA (Cantab), FSA FMA. Born 22 June 1913; Elected FRSE 1966; Died 22 August 2002.
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Hans Anton Meidner 14 January 1914 - 11 September 2001
Hans Meidner enjoyed two reputations. He was a distinguished plant physiologist making important contributions to our knowledge of stomatal behaviour. But he was also widely known for his active and wholehearted commitment to world peace and support of human rights. Indeed, it was probably this life-long commitment that he regarded as a major contribution of his life. No starry-eyed idealist, Hans brought a tough-minded grasp of political facts and realities to his campaigning zeal, and it is for his public-spirited activities as well as for his scientific reputation that many of his friends in Scotland will remember him. Born in Berlin 14 January 1914, Hans received his schooling in Breslau and originally trained as an industrial chemist. However, the turmoil in Germany in the mid-1930s and his abhorrence of the Nazi regime led him to leave Germany, and to move eventually to South Africa. He saw war service in the South African Engineering Corps and at one stage, when based in Greece, was arrested by partisans because he was not a communist. After the war he returned to South Africa where he joined the Liberal Party.
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Following the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, his longstanding and outspoken opposition to apartheid led to his arrest again, this time for being a communist. He was jailed without charge for three months. Given these first hand experiences of human stupidity and brutality, his vigorous support for Amnesty and other human rights organisations was to be expected. With his wife Olga, he was an active member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, setting out a CND bookstall in the middle of Stirling each month, whatever the weather. As well as combining these activities with a busy academic career, he also found time to become a member and officer of the Friends of the Smith Gallery in Stirling, something that, as a talented amateur artist, gave him special pleasure. Hans enrolled as a student in the University of Natal in 1945, graduating MSc in 1950. Joining the staff of the Botany Department at Natal he gained a PhD and became Senior Lecturer. On a sabbatical leave spent at Imperial College, London, (1956-7) he worked on aspects of gas exchange in leaves with O V S Heath, a leading authority on stomatal physiology. This work led to the
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award of a second PhD and the Diploma of Imperial College (DIC). More importantly, it confirmed and deepened his interest in stomata. It was therefore almost inevitable that in 1964, when he finally left South Africa, he would join Heath again, this time at the University of Reading. Here he spent six productive years, becoming Reader in the Department of Horticulture. Hans moved to Stirling in 1970 to become Professor and Head of the Biology Department. He was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1978. Hans published more than 100 scientific papers and was the joint author of three books (The Physiology of Stomata, with T A Mansfield, Methods in Stomatal Research, with J D Weyers, and Plants and Water, with D W Sheriff); he also wrote Class Experiments in Plant Physiology, a formulary of experiments which actually worked when put into the hands of students. He was first and foremost an experimentalist and much of his work was conducted with apparatus that he had built or designed himself. In the 1950s he designed a very simple apparatus to measure the resistance of leaf mesophyll tissue to viscous flow of air through it, the first time that direct estimates had been made. He went on to build a variety of porometers to measure stomatal aperture and resistance to gas flow.
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His time with Heath, both at Imperial College and at Reading, was highly productive. The increasing availability of reliable techniques for infrared gas analysis in the 1950s meant that more sophisticated analysis of gas exchange by leaves had become possible. Using these techniques Hans was able to show that the minimum carbon dioxide concentration in illuminated maize leaves, the CO2 compensation point, fell to zero, whereas in most temperate grasses the value was significantly above zero. This important observation was quickly related to the major discovery, in other laboratories, that the path of carbon in photosynthesis in maize and a number of other tropical species, so-called C4 plants, is different from that of most plants from temperate regions where the first product of photosynthesis is a three-carbon compound. The move to Stirling did little to reduce the flow of papers on stomata and plant water relations. Particularly noteworthy were the papers, many with Mary Edwards, involving micromanipulation of the stomatal guard cell complex. Because of the presence of a strong cell wall, plant cells are much less amenable to manipulation and injection than animal cells. In the case of guard cells, the characteristic wall thickening, essential for the change in shape as the pore opens and closes,
compounds the difficulty. Using apparatus designed and built by himself, Hans was able to pierce the guard cell wall with a microprobe that, when attached to a pump, enabled him to alter the turgor of the cell directly and reversibly. He found that increasing the internal pressure caused the pore to open, while decreasing it caused closure. A film made to show these effects was something of a crowd puller amongst his colleagues. The direct proof of the dependence of aperture on turgor was followed by investigations of the role of the adjacent cells of the stomatal complex; it was shown that changing the turgor of these cells could also affect stomatal aperture. These studies demonstrated directly that gradients of water potential across the leaf epidermis could affect stomatal aperture through so-called hydropassive effects, without the intervention of other signals from the environment. Research was a keen source of pleasure for Hans and he was always ready to discuss his ideas with anyone. He was an entertaining lecturer capable of stirring the most dilatory students into thought and of disconcerting his peers by challenging current dogmas or reminding them of fundamental unsolved problems. With a gleam in his eye and a
prodding forefinger, he was a source of stimulation to research students and colleagues alike; possessing the invaluable gift of helping to broaden their enjoyment in what they were doing. He was regularly seen riding a highpowered Sunbeam motorbike, raising his credibility with the student population while impressing those of his colleagues who often saw him arrive for meetings wearing his black leathers. Even professional bikers were at ease with him, discussing the engineering and maintenance of high performance machines. After his official retirement in 1981, Hans continued his research into stomata as Emeritus Professor. With support from the Auber Bequest of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he produced a prototype Pressure Difference Porometer for measuring stomatal aperture in the field and demonstrated the apparatus to the Society in 1995. Hans and Olga moved to Northampton in 1996. Here he remained active, giving talks to the University of the Third Age and cultivating his garden. He died in Northampton on 11 September 2001.
I am grateful to Professor T A Mansfield FRS, Dr C M Willmer and Mrs Olga Meidner for comments on an earlier draft of this account. John E Dale Hans Anton Meidner BSc, MSc, PhD (Natal), PhD, DIC (Imperial College, London). Born 14 January 1914; Elected FRSE 6 March 1978; Died 11 September 2001.
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Sir James (Woodham) Menter 22 August 1921 - 18 July 2006
Sir James Menter came to live permanently in Scotland on retirement twenty years ago after a full and highly successful working life in scholarship, scientific research, industry and university management. He could have been simply an academic, albeit one of great distinction, but he was one of those all too rare individuals who combine intellectual integrity, professionalism and a sound sense of judgement which made him successful also in the wider world of industry and business. Jim Menter started out in life from a modest family background of working parents with ambitions for their childrens future. With their support he gained a scholarship to Dover County School for Boys, the local grammar school, where he had the good fortune to be taught by a physics master who inspired him to embark on what was subsequently a lifelong interest in science. From there he won an Open Scholarship in Natural Sciences at Peterhouse, Cambridge. His undergraduate studies were disrupted by the Second World War when he was recruited to work at the Admiralty Research Station at Fairlie in Ayrshire on Under Water Sound Detection systems, which played
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an important part in the war at sea. Jim spent much of his time there, virtually as a sailor, assisting in sea trials on destroyers; no doubt a first experience of the real world! He returned to Cambridge in 1945 to complete his degree and then embarked on a PhD. Also at this time he married Jean, whose support played such an important part in the whole of his subsequent career. Working in the Laboratory for the Physics and Chemistry of Rubbing Solids, as it was known then, under the direction of Philip Bowden, Menter developed a novel use of the newly arrived electron microscope to examine the micro-topography of surfaces by glancing incidence of the electron beam. Electron microscopy was still in its infancy in those days and the technique employed required a close collaboration with the manufacturers, Metropolitan Vickers, which gave him a valuable insight into industrial research. The post-war years saw an unprecedented emergence of industrial science laboratories, as the importance of introducing new scientific ideas into modern industry was increasingly recognised. Among these was the Tube Investments Research Laboratory
being set up in the 1950s by the TI Group of metal manufacturers at Hinxton Hall near Cambridge. Jim Menter was attracted to work there with the prospect of an open remit to undertake good science, and a generous budget. He was thus able to procure the most powerful electron microscope then available, the newly developed Siemens Elmiscop 1. He demonstrated for the first time the possibility of using the electron microscope as a tool for the direct study of the atomic structure of crystalline solids. His paper on the resolution of the atomic lattice of platinum phthalocyanine, published in 1956 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, was a major breakthrough in this newly emerging field. Fifty years later, in the year of his death, the importance of this paper has now been recognised by reproduction in full in the Philosophical Magazine as a landmark publication. Under his leadership the group of young scientists attracted to work with him at Hinxton quickly established an international reputation for research, not only of great fundamental importance in the theory of solid structures but also highly relevant to the metallurgical industry. Having by then assumed the Directorship of the Hinxton Hall Laboratory, Menter set about building up a wider framework of research in other
areas of electron optical instrument development, most notably X-ray microanalysis. This was later to be developed into a major tool for the study of complex alloys and other materials of industrial importance. His own major scientific contribution was recognised when he was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society of London in 1961. Menters technical ability and organisational skills were further recognised by Tube Investments when, in 1965, he was appointed to the Companys Board as Director of Research and Development and a member of their Executive Committee. Here he was much involved in all the major issues, political as well as technical, facing many British companies at that time, such as the nationalisation of the steel industry, the downturn of manufacturing and subsequent amalgamations and closures. His ability as a scientist to weigh up the facts and to analyse a problem critically before reaching a solution stood him in good stead. Just as his scientific colleagues at Hinxton had found him to be a good listener and wise counsellor, his advice was much valued by fellow directors. At this time his services were also widely sought by Research Councils and other government agencies concerned with research and technology. He became Honorary Treasurer of the Royal Society and President of the
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Institute of Physics. He was knighted in 1973. Jim Menters move to become Principal of Queen Mary College in 1976 was in many ways a natural return to the academic world. He took with him all the experience and wisdom gained in his earlier career. This was of immediate importance at a time when universities were in a period of turbulence and change. Over the ten years of his Principalship, the college not only weathered the storm but also gained in stature. The merger of the London Hospital and St. Bartholomews, with QMC providing the science teaching for 900 medical students required enormous patience and negotiation to bring about the necessary changes in ethos and purpose. Jim Menter was the man to do this. He could listen, he could use an air of gravitas, which came naturally to him, to good effect, and he always seemed able to bring out the best solution at the appropriate time. He had to fight hard both within the college and outside to gather support for necessary changes and to secure the funds for bringing them about. The merger of Westfield College with Queen Mary to form what is now QMWC ensured the institutional robustness that was vital for their future viability. His legacy is what is now a successful and confident institution.
On retirement, he and his wife Jean moved to live permanently at Rannoch in highland Perthshire where they had already established a much loved holiday home. However, this was by no means a retreat into isolation. They were warmly welcomed by the community around them and they participated fully in their new life. As an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Jim retained contact with science, which he much valued. He was a member of Court of the University of Stirling and Chairman of the Audit Committee where his experience and wise counselling were invaluable. Jim Menter retained many deep and lasting friendships over the years. Between them, he and his wife Jean, ever at his side, offered a hand of friendship that always made one feel welcome. Their home at Carie on the shore of Loch Rannoch and their generous hospitality was always there for frequent visitors and friends, many from past times at Hinxton and QMC. Jim Menter was a great man. He will be long remembered, not only as a distinguished scientist and industrialist, but, above all, a good friend of so many people. He leaves behind a much loved family, Jean, their three children, nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. A J Forty
Sir James Woodham Menter MA, PhD, ScD(Cantab), HonDTech, FInstP, FRS. Born 22 August 1921; Elected HonFRSE 2 March 1992; Died 18 July 2006. 349
Henry Gemmell Morgan 25 December 1922 - 31 October 2006
Professor Gemmell Morgan lived in an era of unprecedented technological change in the provision of healthcare in Scotland and his drive and enthusiasm put him at the forefront of that process. The science of clinical biochemistry in the country owes more to him than to anyone else of his generation. Born into a well-known east coast medical family, (his father, Dr J M Morgan, was Senior Physician to the Royal Infirmary in Dundee), he was educated at Dundee High School, Merchison Castle School and the University of St Andrews where he graduated BSc in 1943 and MB ChB (with commendation) in 1946. After house jobs in Dundee and short spells of paediatrics in Kent and general practice in the Carse of Gowrie, he was drawn to the challenges of pathology in Dundee Royal Infirmary where, contrary to the trend to settle on morbid anatomy (histopathology) as a career, his enquiring mind turned to the development of clinical biochemistry almost as a hobby. His obvious enthusiasm for his subject led him to be appointed in independent charge of Clinical Biochemistry at Dundee Royal from 1952 onwards, and to encourage interest in his subject
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he immediately went about designing an extensive final year undergraduate teaching course of lectures and practical classes which was implemented from 1953 onwards. From two small rooms and an office at its inception, his department expanded ten-fold and included the newly introduced flame photometer, blood gas analyser and, ultimately, a multichannel autoanalyser prior to his departure for Glasgow in 1965. During this flurry of activity he took time out from 1956-57, with the aid of a Fullbright Research Fellowship to work in Baltimore, USA, under the tutelage of John Eager Howard on calcium metabolism and bone disease. This episode brought him to the realisation that good clinical practice comes from researchbased fundamental knowledge. It also led him to discover what, in the immediate post-war period may have been a major public health blunder. Following preliminary experiments on chickens a decision was taken by central government to fortify cod liver oil, cereals and dried milk with vitamin D2, using doses appropriate for the chickens. Unfortunately, infants are substantially more sensitive to vitamin
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D2 and as a consequence of this vitamin overdosage, cases of infantile hypercalcaemia began to appear out of the blue. This dawned on Gemmell when he did full metabolic studies on two hypercalcaemic infants. He rushed his findings into the Lancet and, very quietly, the vitamin D2 fortification program was dropped. When he arrived in Glasgow in 1965 to take up the newly established Chair of Pathological Biochemistry, the appointments committee, behind closed doors, recognised in him a firebrand whose selection was risky, but well worth making. He immediately set about expanding the horizons of his subject by encouraging his staff to develop individual research projects and to contribute to a clinical biochemistry teaching program in Glasgow University. This formed the basis of an undergraduate textbook used worldwide and translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Greek and Japanese. His vision ultimately led to the opening of a new Institute of Biochemistry on the Royal Infirmary site in 1977, followed a few years later by expansion into the new University Tower on the fourth floor of the Queen Elizabeth Building. While Gemmell was justifiably proud of his achievements in terms of the first class biochemistry service to the clinicians and
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patients at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, he also created the physical environment which encouraged the development of his staff to their full potential. Over his 23 years in Glasgow his primary objective was to attract staff of the highest quality and to give them the freedom to develop their own interests within the framework of a department which promoted collaborative team work both within and beyond its walls. He took great pride in recounting that in his day his Institute had trained 24 medical consultants (five of whom became full professors in and beyond the UK) and large numbers of senior clinical scientists and medical technologists. Throughout his career he held many influential positions, most memorable of which was his election to Chairmanship of the Association of Clinical Biochemists in the UK from 1982-85, followed by appointment to its Presidency between 1985-87. While in that post he developed the UK Manpower Board for Clinical Biochemistry and helped promote the establishment of an annual national meeting for his subject, the second of which, dedicated to his unparalleled contribution to the development of his subject, was held in Glasgow just before he retired in 1988.
All of the above achievements made Gemmell Morgan a remarkable man, but one little known fact adds a new dimension to his distinction. At the age of 18, while a first year medical student he was discovered to have a fistsized malignant tumour of his left thigh which, remarkably, did not spread widely throughout his body, but did recur locally on
three occasions. Major mutilating surgery was recommended but Gemmell opted for intensive courses of radiotherapy which caused the tumour to regress. In 2005 he confided that the lump is still there and worries me occasionally. The story did not end there. As a result of his intensive radiotherapy Gemmell developed a blockage of his left femoral artery and a swelling of his lower aorta which almost cost him his leg during a business trip to Mexico. Skilful reparative surgery in his own hospital replaced the defective artery with a Dacron graft which served him well for almost thirty years. Ultimate failure of the graft deprived us of a clinical biochemist of tremendous vision. The Institute which he left behind is a monument to his enthusiasm, persistence and drive. He is survived by his wife, Margaret, daughter Imogen, son-in-law David and grandchildren Iona and Alasdair. Professor Jim Shepherd and Professor Alan Shenkin
Henry Gemmell Morgan, BSc, MB ChB (St Andrews), FRCPE, FRCPG, FRCPath. Born 25 December 1922; Elected FRSE 1st March 1971; Died 31 October 2006.
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John Ross Raeburn 20 November 1912 - 9 July 2006
John Ross Raeburn (affectionately known to his colleagues as JR) was born in 1912 in Kirkcaldy, and educated at Manchester Grammar School and Edinburgh and Cornell Universities. His first post was as Professor of Agricultural Economics at Nanking University, but he had to leave quickly because of the Sino-Japanese War. He joined the Ministry of Food in 1941 as an economist in the Dig For Victory campaign, for which he must take much of the credit. After the war he worked at Oxford University on plans to develop food production from Britains farms, before being appointed in 1959 as Strathcona Fordyce Professor of Agriculture at Aberdeen University, and Principal of the North of Scotland College of Agriculture in 1963. The amalgamation and development of these two Institutions to form the School of Agriculture, Aberdeen, was to be Raeburns major achievement. His was the impetus for the move away from the dingy premises at 41 Union Street and Marischal College to the magnificent nine storey School of Agriculture Building (SAB) at Old Aberdeen. Here he created an organisation based on the USA land-grant system whereby teaching, research and
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advisory work were closely linked, with staff often having a tripartite function. Raeburn liked the idea of staff working closely with progressive farmers in the field and returning to give students the benefit of the knowledge gained. This system worked splendidly in the School of Agriculture in spite of opposition from some senior University academics who openly stated that agriculture was not a fit subject for a University and felt that the sole function of a University farm was to maximise profit. He also faced opposition for some of his ideas from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAFS) in Edinburgh as well as from the East and West Colleges of Agriculture who, Raeburn felt, were intent on amalgamating the Scottish Agricultural Colleges. His system proved robust right through his retirement in 1978 until the Government-sponsored Williams Report in 1989 led to the setting up of a single College, The Scottish Agricultural College (SAC). This inevitably meant the break-up of the School of Agriculture, with the College leaving SAB and going out to a new building on the outskirts of Aberdeen at Craibstone. Raeburn had always felt that the University Department
by itself was not viable and so it proved. The Department moved out of SAB into lesser accommodation and then in recent years was disbanded. Raeburn felt these changes bitterly and fought battles with SAC and the Scottish Executive right through his remaining years, but to no avail. He had to see his noble ideals demolished. Ironically there is now a current of opinion sympathetic to his system but it is now too late. Apart from these problems which were a major part of his life, Raeburn had a full and satisfying career. He travelled widely on Government, World Bank and UN missions to Europe, Africa and China. He published regularly in Journals and his 1984 book Agriculture: Foundations, Principles and Development was highly regarded in economic circles. He was appointed CBE in 1972. He had a pawky sense of humour well illustrated once at a University
Dinner for visiting Chinese Professors, when at the end of the meal Raeburn got up and apologised to the visitors for the poor quality of the meal, much to the horror of the University Principal and the Catering Officer. They did not know that this was the normal protocol in China. I am sure that Raeburn knew well what he was doing. For all his somewhat gruff manner he was a kindly soul, especially with his overseas students, whom he befriended. Indeed he often cooked meals for them, for he was an excellent cook. His other accomplishments were photography, painting, fishing, especially in his beloved Orkney, and gardening. In his garden he grew a wide range of excellent vegetables and fruits. John is survived by his wife Mair whom he married in 1943, and a son and three daughters. Alistair McKelvie
John Ross Raeburn CBE, BScAgric(Edinburgh), MS, PhD(Cornell), MA(Oxon). Born 20 November 1912; Elected FRSE 6 March 1961; Died 9 July 2006.
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William Devigne Russell-Hunter 3 May 1926 - 21 May 2005
Professor W D Russell-Hunter, known to his friends as Gus, was an outstanding Scottish aquatic scientist and a wellloved university teacher. He was born in Rutherglen on 3 May, 1926 and died at home in Easton, Maryland in the United States on 21 May, 2005. With his passing, the world has lost one of the most influential aquatic ecologists of the 20th Century. Gus attended the University of Glasgow and graduated with an Honours BSc in 1946. This degree was followed with a PhD in 1953 and a DSc in 1961, both degrees from the University of Glasgow. His initial research was in marine biology when, as a result of the Second World War, he served with the British Admiralty as a Scientific Officer on a marine anti-fouling team. This research had been made urgent by the sinking of the fouled and therefore slower HMS Hood by the Bismark earlier in the war. His placement on the Scientific and Technical Register, due to his academic achievement, moved him to this duty from his training as a Pilot and Observer flying in Swordfish aircraft (the
last cloth and wood biplane to see significant combat in the war). His first published papers in 1948 and 1949 were derived from this work. In 1948 he was appointed Assistant Lecturer in the Zoology Department of the University of Glasgow, then under the direction of Professor C.M. Yonge FRSE. His promotion to Lecturer in 1951 enabled him to achieve a start to the three most important facets of his future life and career. Firstly, he married Myra Porter Rankin Chapman, a talented artist, in the Glasgow University Chapel on March 22, 1951. Secondly, he initiated a series of outstanding courses in invertebrate biology, which the writer was privileged to attend in the late 1950s. Thirdly, he was able to develop a research programme on the physiological ecology of freshwater molluscs in Loch Lomond and other waters in the west of Scotland, which were to prove the basis for his nowclassic studies of marine and freshwater organisms and their behaviour, physiological ecology and functional morphology. His field base for these studies was the University Field Station at Rossdhu, which he helped Dr Harry Slack FRSE to establish in 1946.
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In 1953 and 1954, Gus spent some time in Jamaica as a Carnegie Brown Fellow at the University of the West Indies. His interest in island faunas had been stimulated by his participation in an expedition of young scientists to the Garvellachs a group of small uninhabited islands off the west coast of Scotland. Useful publications resulted from this trip and, at the time of his death, he was attempting to publish a resulting book, The Isles of the Sea. Dr Russell-Hunter was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1965. He was a member of many learned societies during his lifetime, but his oldest membership was with the Natural History Society of Glasgow, which he joined when it was still the Andersonian Naturalists of Glasgow. He became an influential member of the Andersonians when he was elected to its Council and also became Editor of The Glasgow Naturalist. During his time as Editor he maintained a high standard of editing, helped several budding authors (including the writer) and attracted many important papers to the journal. At the time of his death, he was the member of longest standing in the Society, having joined in November 1948. From 1961 to 1963, though still based at the University of Glasgow, Gus spent time at the Marine Biological Laboratory at
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Woods Hole, Massachusetts, as an independent summer investigator and lecturer in the influential invertebrate zoology course. Scotlands loss was the United States gain when he moved to a permanent appointment there as director of that course from 1964 to 1968. His experience with The Glasgow Naturalist proved of value when he served as Editor of the laboratorys Biological Bulletin (1968-80). During those years this journal rose to prominence as a leading biological journal. Gus was also appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Marine Biological Laboratory, on which he served for four terms and in emeritus status thereafter. As well as his appointment at Woods Hole, Gus was appointed to the staff of the Biology Department at Syracuse University, where he taught from 1963-90. His career there, in both teaching and research, was distinguished and he and his many graduate students not only produced significant research but also created an environment for learning about biology for which the university became well known. He received research grants from many bodies and was recognised by the University in 1988, who honoured his teaching career with the William Wasserstrom Award. In spite of being very busy with teaching and research, Gus managed to write four major texts
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A Biology of Lower Invertebrates (1968), A Biology of Higher Invertebrates (1969), Aquatic Productivity (1970) and A Life of Invertebrates (1979). All of these were foundational for decades of students of invertebrate zoology throughout the world in their various translations. Over his long research career of nearly six decades, Gus authored and published over 120 research papers. He was involved in very many more than this through his research students, but chose not to follow the common practice of adding his name so as to allow them a better chance to launch their own careers. This facet of his life that of mentor and teacher was perhaps his greatest hallmark as his generous and gracious work, advising his graduate and undergraduate students, created a diaspora of researchers and teachers through whom he has had a global impact in the fields of physiological ecology, malacology and invertebrate zoology.
His long career was honoured in 1984 at the International Symposium on the Physiological Ecology of Freshwater Molluscs Honoring Dr. W.D. Russell-Hunter - the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Malacological Union. At this symposium, a full account of his extensive scientific achievements was presented in a paper by McMahon & Burky (1985: American Malacological Bulletin, 3, 135-142). He was again honoured in 1999, when the Freshwater Mollusc Conservation Society presented him with their first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award. In later years, after the death of his wife in 1989, for whom he cared during her decade-long battle with cancer, Gus turned to oil and acrylic painting (for which he won awards), boating, reading and the Religious Society of Friends. He is survived by his son Peregrine and three grandchildren. Peter S Maitland
William Devigne Russell-Hunter BSc, PhD, DSc (Glasgow). Born 3 May 1926; Elected FRSE 1 March 1965; Died 21 May 2005.
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David Cumming Simpson 24 July 1920 - 15th May 2006
David Cumming Simpson MBE, Emeritus Professor of Orthopaedic Bio-Engineering and former Executive Dean in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Edinburgh, died 0n 15th May 2006 in Edinburgh. David was born on 24 July, 1920 at The Retreat, Dovecot Road, the Simpson family home in Corstorphine, then a village outwith the City of Edinburgh. His father James Cumming Simpson (18731936) was Financial Director of The Simpson Label Company, a respected Edinburgh firm of specialist printers founded in 1858 by his grandfather David Cumming Simpson, of which he was himself an active nonexecutive director until the company was bought by a Dutch printing firm in the 1990s. His mother was Jeanie Hucheon Sim (1884-1960), a Glasgow lady and a silversmith. David had only one sibling, his elder sister. David attended The Edinburgh Academy from 1927 until 1938 during which time the family moved to 178 Mayfield Road. The Simpsons were members of the Catholic Apostolic Church of which his grandfather was an Elder, his father a Deacon and David himself an Acolyte. Here the
seeds of his Christian faith were sown which matured with the experience of life and from which his finest qualities derived. On leaving school, Simpson spent a summer holiday in the Bavarian Alps returning by way of Munich and the Party Stadium in Nuremberg and, mistakenly, found himself in the Jewish Quarter when in Frankfurt. He was so appalled by what he saw the Nazis doing in Germany that he joined the Territorial Army (Royal Scots) as soon as he returned to Edinburgh. In October 1938 he became an apprentice chartered accountant with Messrs Graham Smart & Annan of Edinburgh. Before he sat his first professional examinations, however, he was called up for military service in August 1939 and served with the 5th Battalion Highland Light Infantry as a commissioned soldier until invalided out of the Army in October 1945. It was with the HLI that, having endured the waterlogged trenches in the Walcheren campaign, he was wounded on 26th March 1945 near the Rhine. Shrapnel from an 88mm shell damaged his brachial plexus leaving him a legacy of chronic pain and, for some time, loss of use of his right arm. It was characteristic of David Simpson
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that, as an act of reconciliation, he sent Easter flowers each year to the Evangelische Kirke in Hamminkeln, the church in the little town where he was wounded. Simpson had not liked accountancy and in October 1945 started an honours physics course at Edinburgh University. Disablement and poor health made difficult his undergraduate years. The prognosis was discouraging and he learned to write with his left hand. Perhaps he was encouraged by the recollection that his successful Simpson grandfather had lost a leg when run over by a cart as a boy. He found release in mad-hat, one-handed drives down the A1 to London. It was on one of these in June 1946 that he had what he called his road to Damascus experience when he realized that he really wanted to marry the sister of an old school friend. Isobel Jean Ross-Smith (19231996) had trained in domestic science at Athol Crescent and was teaching the subject in Darlington, so to Darlington he drove, proposed, was accepted and they were married later the same year. He was fond of saying that it was Isobel who put me on my feet again and he remained devoted to her. Simpson was fortunate that J R Learmonth (later Sir James), a world authority on peripheral nerve injuries, was then Professor of Clinical Surgery at Edinburgh and in three opera-
tions from 1947 restored considerable function to Simpsons right arm. Simpson completed his undergraduate course in 1949 and, despite the fact that his first child Allen was born on the day of his third year Heat and Thermodynamics examination, he graduated B.Sc (Hons). His daughters Joan and Mary completed the family. Several jobs offered to him on graduation were in armaments and not acceptable to Simpson. He was fortunate, therefore, to get a Medical Research Council grant to do a PhD. In 1951 he was asked by the Department of Surgery to design and construct a multi-channel recording machine for use in the operating theatre similar to one seen in the Mayo clinic by Professor Learmonth. Through the good offices of Dr J M M Johnstone, the Scottish Hospital Endowment Research Trust gave Simpson 1000 to buy materials for the project and the MRC paid for a technician. He submitted his thesis The development of a method of following changes in the radio-opacity of the small bones of the hand and graduated PhD in 1952. Because of Learmonth, he joined the Department of Surgery at Edinburgh University as a member of the external staff of the MRC to work on problems of instrumentation in the operating theatre. His monitoring equipment supported pioneering work in transplant
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surgery at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and Western General Hospital. He also developed one of the first successful foetal heart monitors for clinical work at the Simpson Memorial Maternity Hospital. His career as a medical physicist was now opening to him and his theoretical knowledge and natural dexterity made it a very suitable job for him. In 1953 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis which was successfully treated by Sir John Crofton with streptomycin. Simpson often said how fortunate he was that penicillin had been introduced just in time to save his life after his war-wound and streptomycin just in time to save him from tuberculosis. In 1955 the Medical Physics Unit was formed in Edinburgh and Simpson was involved in the design and implementation of a wide variety of instruments for departments of the University and the NHS. In 1956 he was appointed lecturer in Medical Physics. He was asked by Dr Sandy Wilson of the Scottish Home and Health Department if he would take responsibility for the design and supply of upper limb prostheses for thalidomide children. He welcomed the opportunity to concentrate on one project of research, design, development and clinical trial on an immediate basis but this had to be done in an atmosphere of emotions,
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politics, and intense media interest. He visited Ernst Marquardt in Heidelberg who, since the 1950s, had been building and fitting pneumatic carbon dioxidepowered limbs to adults; a visit which resulted in the setting up of the Edinburgh Powered Prosthetic Unit on 4th May 1963 and his appointment as its Technical Director and Senior Lecturer in 1964. In 1967 he became Director of the Orthopaedic Bio-Engineering Unit at the Princess Margaret Rose Orthopaedic Hospital and Honorary Director MRC Unit for Physical Aids for the Disabled at the same hospital. The stage was set for Simpsons master work. He recognized that however cleverly designed and miniaturised new powered arms for children might be, they were of little use if the arms could not be controlled. If the prostheses were to be used in a controlled and coordinated way, they needed feedback. By a clever analysis of arm movement, Simpson chose an appropriate polar co-ordinate scheme which effectively treated the arm as a lever which radiated from the childs shoulder joint. He provided feedback to the children by linking their intact shoulder movements to the prosthetic joint movements by simple cables. Thus their residual shoulder joints received feedback about position, force and acceleration. As David Gow has written children could
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learn to control up to five movements on the Edinburgh arms and become proficient in half a day. No other system in the world to this day has managed to achieve this. Thus Simpson propounded the idea of Extended Physiological Proprioception (The Choice of Control System for the Multi Movement Prosthesis: Extended Physiological Proprioception (EPP) Chapter 15, pp.146-150 in The Control of Upper Extremity Prostheses and Orthoses Ed. P. Herberts et al 1974). He was made Reader in Medical Physics in 1968 and appointed to a Personal Chair of Orthopaedic Bio-Engineering in 1972. Simpson visited clinical centres around the world telling of the work done by his Edinburgh unit and learning of bio-engineering advances made elsewhere. As the value of his work became recognized honours came his way. He was appointed MBE in 1966 and received the S G Brown Medal and Award from the Royal Society of London in 1970. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1967 and among the many other learned bodies of which he was a member may be mentioned The Biological Engineering Society (President 1973-5), now subsumed in The Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, The International Federation for Medical and
Biological Engineering of which he was a Council Member and awarded Honorary Life Membership in 1988, and he was an Honorary Member of Arbeitskreis fur biophysikalische Prothetik. Simpson changed his career in 1976 when he was appointed Executive Dean in the Faculty of Medicine in Edinburgh University; a post which suited him well and in which he proved himself a wise and capable administrator until his retirement in 1980 when the University honoured him by making him Professor Emeritus. After his retirement he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1997) which kept him in touch with his many medical friends and gave him much happiness. He listed as his outside interests old maps, topographical prints, antiquarian books on Edinburgh, publishing, typography and book illustrations. To this should be added horticulture in which he shared his wifes keen interest. His expert knowledge of Edinburgh and its topography found expression in the magisterial folio of facsimiles of plans of the City published as Edinburgh Displayed in 1962. He was also well qualified to assist as a member of the Committee of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society responsible for compiling and producing the two volume work Early Maps of
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Scotland published in 1973 and 1983. He served on the Council of that Society on a number of occasions between 1967 and 1992 and was a member of its Library Committee from 1967 to 1992 (Convener 1974-1980). Isobels death in 1996 was a bitter blow to Simpson. Together they had raised a closely knit family and his three children and their families gave him the support he needed. His war memories remained with him restless and unquiet and, in his eighties, he found catharsis by committing them to paper as poetry. Some of these were published in 2001 as Interesting Times and their vividness and simplicity touched people of all ages. A larger collection Private World was published in 2005 by the exservice welfare charity Combat Stress. David Simpson respected people of whatever class or culture and, although a man of strong convictions - he was a thorn in the flesh of authorities who indulged in practices of which he disapproved - he was tolerant and gracious to all. When he saw a need his instinct was to provide the means to put it right and his many acts of
quiet generosity are known only to the recipients. On seeing the bare walls of the enlarged premises of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2000 he clothed them with the outright gift of forty framed botanical prints and the loan of thirty-three pictures and prints. To these were added the loan of twenty framed Slezer prints which give character to the Fellows Room. For this the Society remains deeply grateful. David gave me a copy of his poem Ecce Homo, The bravest man which has the lines Slowly, quietly, day by day, step by step, he went to death and when it came to his own time to die of cancer he did so with a bravery and dignity which his friends will never forget. He was interred at Mortonhall Cemetery. I am grateful to Dr Allen Simpson for his help and for access to his fathers autobiographical writings. Dr Tam Dalyell, Dr David C Gow, Dr J S Milne, Lieutenant Colonel Ian Shepherd and Canon Norman Wickham have made this notice possible by kindly allowing me to quote from their own published and unpublished obituaries of Professor Simpson. Charles D Waterston
David Cumming Simpson MBE, B.Sc, Ph.D(Edinburgh), FRCPE, FIDSPO,FRSG. Born 24 July 1920; Elected FRSE 6 March 1967; Died 15th May 2006.
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Harold James Thomas 26 October 1913 - 14 February 2007
Dr Harold J Thomas, who died on 14th February 2007, was a Senior Principal Scientific Officer at the Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen where he was Head of the Shellfish Team on his retirement in 1976. His early education was at the Crypt School, Gloucestershire, from where he went to the University of Bristol, graduating BSc in 1936 with Honours in Zoology, and gaining a PhD there in 1939. He volunteered for military service in the Royal Corps of Signals in 1939, being later transferred to the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. On demobilization in 1945, he returned to the staff of the University of Bristol, and was, among other things, sub-warden in the University Hostel of Burwalls. He married Armine Marriott (Mimi) in 1948, and in that year joined the staff of the Marine Laboratory. He was knowledgeable in the field of molluscs and of seabed fauna in general, but he specialised principally on crustaceans. His research activities were focused on shellfish, particularly lobsters, Norway lobsters (scampi) and crabs. In this area he made a significant input to the development of Scottish fisheries, advising on national and interna363
tional regulations and on management. His best remembered contributions to fisheries science were his study of the oxygen requirements of lobsters in relation to the operation of lobster holding tanks, and his use of catch-per-unit effort (CPUE) and length composition data as stock indices in assessing the status of crustacean resources that cannot be aged. Collecting this information involved both regular on-board measuring trips and visits to ports and holding facilities. The vital CPUE were derived from the logbooks of trusted fishermen who were each paid a small honorarium. All this was entirely dependent upon good working relationships between scientists, buyers and fishermen and was pioneered by Thomas. He published in national and international journals, as well as producing pamphlets for the fishing industry. His work was recognised by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea when he was elected Chairman of its Shellfish Committee, and in 1975 he chaired the Special Shellfish Meeting of that body. He was appointed Buckland Professor for the year 1965 in tandem with A C Simpson from the Burham
Laboratory in England. During that year they lectured jointly on The Lobster Its Biology and Fishery. In 1965 he was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, an appointment of which he was particularly proud and which he acknowledged through a generous bequest. Tommy, as he was known to his friends and colleagues, was an enthusiastic bridge player, partnered by his wife at both the social and competitive level. He was also a keen gardener and a
great lover of dogs. Indeed he supported Mimi in regular entries of their pets at Crufts, where they qualified most years and came home with numerous rosettes. During Mimis illness in the early 1990s, he turned his attention to domestic duties, and latterly became an accomplished cook, bringing to this all the meticulous attention to detail that characterised his previous scientific work. He had no children, and was widowed in 1994. Alasdair D McIntyre
Harold James Thomas BSc, PhD(Bristol). Born 26 October 1913, elected FRSE 1 March 1965, died 14 February 2007.
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Samuel James Thomson 27 September 1922 - 4 March 2006
Sam Thomson first developed his interest in science, and chemistry in particular, when as a pupil at Hamilton Academy, he was stimulated by his science master, whom he has described as the best and most profound teacher under whom he studied. This interest was further developed as an undergraduate at Glasgow University where he pursued a B.Sc.(Honours) degree in chemistry. His studies at Glasgow were interrupted for three years when, in 1943, he volunteered for service in the army; he was commissioned in 1944 and served as a lieutenant in the Royal Signals in India and Malaya. On his return from the army in 1946 he completed his BSc degree and then proceeded to study for a PhD. Here he developed his early interest in heterogeneous catalysis. Following the successful completion of his studies, he was appointed to a lectureship in radiochemistry at Durham and worked with the late Professor F.A. Paneth on radiometric age determinations of meteorites to gain knowledge about their cosmic origins. At the same time, he developed an active interest in the use of radioactive tracers to study self- diffusional processes in
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inorganic and organic single crystals. After six years at Durham, Sam returned to Glasgow as lecturer in chemistry. Here, in addition to maintaining his research interests in solid state and hot atom chemistry, he successfully developed his interests in the use of radioactive tracers for the direct observation of adsorption and catalysis at solid surfaces, a subject which was to attract much of his time and interest for the rest of his academic career. The main thrust of his researches was aimed at identifying the nature of the surface sites of a heterogeneous catalyst, which participated in the actual catalysis. The breadth of Sams interests is clearly demonstrated when one considers the work he carried out with colleagues on such areas as direct monitoring of adsorption, catalysis and poisoning of metal surfaces; the formation and activity of carbonaceous overlayers during adsorption and catalysis of hydrocarbons on metal surfaces; the development of a molecular beam system to carry out one of the first beam studies of catalysis; application of the Occupancy Principle, developed by others for use in medical studies, to measure the size of the active pool on a
catalyst surface; electrical conductivity of supported metal catalysts and exo-electron emission from metal surfaces during hydrocarbon adsorption. The real significance of these studies is seen in the conclusions he wrote in his specialist periodical report on the Characterisation of Catalyst Surfaces; Adsorption studies in static systems may not bear any relationship to catalysis, except in so far as adsorption creates the working surface of the catalyst; characterisation requires a detailed examination of the changes which occur in the surface during catalysis. He was awarded a DSc in 1966 for his research contributions and was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1974. His standing and contributions to research in the use of radiotracer techniques were also recognised the strong links he developed in the early 1960s and, for many years, maintained with the Institute of Isotopes of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and by his appointment to the editorial boards of Advances in Catalysis and the Journals of Catalysis and Applied Chemistry. He was, in 1971, a founding member of, and subsequently a Trustee of, the Rideal Trust, now administered by the SCI. Throughout his academic career Sam was progressively promoted to Senior Lecturer, Reader and, in 1973, a Titular Professorship.
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During the latter part of his career, more of his attention was turned to administration in the University, an area where he had gained valuable experience during his army service. In 1970 he was appointed as the Assistant Director of the Chemical Laboratories and then, in 1978, as Director and Head of Department, a position he held for 11 years until his retirement. In addition to successfully running the department, he maintained an active research school in heterogeneous catalysis. He also served on a wide variety of University committees, including the convenorship, over the period 1964-72, of the committee for the design and building of the Boyd Orr Basic Science building. With a colleague, he wrote a History of the Faculty of Science in Glasgow. He was, for three years, the Chairman of the SCEB Chemistry Panel and served the university representative on the Board of Governors of Dollar Academy for over 20 years. Sam was very proud of his alma mater, which he served with great dedication and distinction for over 30 years. He was meticulous in everything he did, always paying careful attention to the minutest detail. He was a fine and enthusiastic teacher whose lectures, covering subjects as widely apart as descriptive inorganic chemistry and statistical mechanics, were always well received by his audience. He was extremely kind,
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courteous and well-respected by both his colleagues and friends. As a research leader and Head of Department he was extremely supportive of his staff and students. He was always ready to discuss, often over many hours, the interpretation of results and new ideas both in research and teaching. Many of his colleagues, the writer included, in whom his interest extended well beyond his retirement, undoubtedly owe their success to the unstinting encouragement and support he gave. We will always owe him a great debt of gratitude. Outwith the University, Sam was appointed as a University Scientific Training Officer for the Scottish Home and Health Department on defence against Nuclear Warfare and served as a Zone Scientific Adviser from 1959 until the service was disbanded in 1993. He also served as a Consultant on Catalysis to various UK companies and a Consultant to UKAEA. He also developed considerable interest in Visual Perception, collecting and perfecting a large number of demonstrations, as the basis for a lecture which proved extremely popular in both Universities and Industries. Following his retirement from the University, Sam commenced a new career. He had held a lifelong interest in the railways in the UK and this led to him being invited
to become a member of the British Railways (Scottish) Board, subsequently known as the British Railways Board Scottish Committee, where he contributed reports on statistics, avoidance of buffer-stop collisions and component analysis of accidents. During this time he was invited to become an Associate of the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers and from 1994 to 2002 he was appointed as an adviser, in turn, to Railfreight Distribution, English Welsh and Scottish Railways and finally Freightliner Scotland, where he was made a Director for his final year. There is no doubt that Sam Thomson made a major contribution, not only to his field of research where he was a world authority, but also to the careers of those who worked with and for him, many of whom were present at the RSC Surface and Reactivity Group meeting held in Glasgow in 1988 to mark his retirement. The warmth of Sams personality and his delightful sense of humour will long be remembered by all who knew him and who now sadly mourn his passing. He is survived by his wife Ina, his two children Fiona and Hamish and his three grandchildren. We extend our deepest sympathy to each of them in their sad loss. Geoffrey Webb
Samuel James Thomson BSc, PhD, DSc (Glasgow). Born 27 September 1922; Elected FRSE 4 March 1974; Died 4 March 2006.
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Patrick Tollin 22 April 1938 - 21 March 2006
Patrick Tollin, an internationally recognised physicist and crystallographer, died in Monifieth on 21 March 2006. Patrick was born in Glasgow on 22 April 1938. He was educated at St Aloysius College, Glasgow, Glasgow University and Cambridge University (Fitzwilliam House). At St Aloysius College he took the University of Glasgow Bursary Competition and was awarded a bursary to go to the university in 1955. Patrick participated fully in university life as a prominent member of The Cecilian Society as stage manager for the Societys annual Gilbert and Sullivan productions a skill and interest he had first developed at St Aloysius. Patrick was proud of the fact that his degree at Glasgow University was in Natural Philosophy, rather than in Physics! After graduating with Honours in 1959 he moved to the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University, to carry out doctoral studies in crystallography under the supervision of William Cochran. His thesis was entitled The use of a high-speed digital computer for the direct determination of crystal structures.
He revived his rowing skills, dormant since rowing on the River Clyde with his school, by joining one of the Cambridge City Rowing Clubs and participated in Head of the River races on the Cam. With Cochran, he developed a method of solving the crystal structures of molecules containing planar groups, and he used this to determine the structure of deoxyadenosine with David Watson and June Sutor. Patrick chose academic life in preference to joining the developing Atomic Energy Authority at Dounreay, and in 1962 was appointed Assistant Lecturer in Physics at Queens College, Dundee. This was then part of St Andrews University but became the University of Dundee in 1967. He became Lecturer in 1963, Senior Lecturer in 1973 and Reader in 1976. At Dundee he became a vital member in a research group that included Douglas Young, John Low and Herbert Wilson. He developed a method for determining the molecular location within the crystal cell, which, when combined with the method of determining the orientation of planar groups, became a very powerful technique for structure
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analysis. This was applied to the structure determination of many nucleic acid components and their analogues, including anti-viral drugs. In 1965, Patrick was Visiting Associate Professor at Purdue University in Michael Rossmanns research group. Here he collaborated with Rossmann on various aspects of the rotation function developed by Rossman and David Blow for crystal structure analysis. Combining the rotation function and his method of determining molecular location, Patrick was able to determine the position and orientation of the myglobin molecule in the crystal of seal myoglobin. At Purdue, he was also involved in showing the relation between holography and its crystallographic equivalent, and he demonstrated the relation between image deblurring and a certain crystallographic function. Patricks expertise was recognised by a number of invitations to lecture at international crystallographic schools, and he wrote a chapter in Direct Methods of Solving Crystal Structures. At Dundee, Patrick was also involved, with others, in pioneering studies on the structure of flexuous plant viruses, mainly of the Potex group. This involved combining X-ray diffraction studies with optical diffraction
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and digital analysis of electron micrographs. These studies were carried out in collaboration with the Virology Group at the Scottish Crop Research Institute, Invergowrie, and as a Visiting Scientist at the University of Western Ontario in John Bancrofts group. He was the author and co-author of two authoritative reviews on the structure of filamentous plant viruses. His optical image processing of electron micrographs led to a general interest in image processing and he lectured on this in an MSc course on Remote Sensing and in a NATO Summer School on Remote Sensing Applications in Civil Engineering. Patrick was an inspiring teacher, but rarely made use of modern methods, preferring, as he said, the chalk and talk method. He was involved in physics teaching at all levels, including MSc courses in Amorphous Solids and Remote Sensing. He supervised many Honours projects, including two on character recognition which resulted in publications with Honours students. He supervised several doctoral students and also Carnegie Undergraduate Vacation students. For four years he was External Examiner at Edinburgh University. Patrick played an active role in many aspects of university life, including membership of the
Science Faculty Board, as a member of the University Computer Committee and as Convener of the Computer Users Committee. He had many interests in educational matters outside the university and served his local community well. He was, at various times, Chairman of Monifieth High School Board, member and then Chairman of the Monifieth Schools Councils Constitution, member of the Tayside Regional Council Working Party on Schools Council Constitution, and member of the Tayside Regional Council Panel for Education appeals. He was also a lifelong member of Monifieth Golf Club.
Patrick was elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1977. On the personal front, it was a pleasure to have collaborated with Patrick on many occasions for nearly 40 years when I experienced at first hand his sharp and incisive mind. He was rather reserved in manner, but had a droll sense of humour. Patricks wife Marie, whom he married in 1962, died in 2002. He is survived by his sons Patrick and Andrew, daughters Anne and Ruth, and grandchildren Rebecca and Andrew, of whom he was very proud. I am indebted to Brian Tollin and Professor A G Fitzgerald for their help with some of the details of Patricks life. Herbert R Wilson
Patrick Tollin, BSc (Glasgow), PhD (Cambridge). Born 22 April 1938; Elected FRSE 7 March 1977; Died 21 March 2006.
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Peter Martin Brabazon Walker 1 May 1922 - 16 January 2006.
Peter Walker had a distinguished career within the University of Edinburgh and also with the Medical Research Council, becoming the founding Director of a MRC unit in Edinburgh which developed pioneering work in molecular biology. He was born in Kenya in 1922, where his parents were coffee farmers. Sent to Britain for education, he was effectively brought up by his grandparents, leaving school just at the outbreak of WW2. University had to be postponed and he joined Smiths Aircraft Instruments as an apprentice. This was a reserved occupation during the war and Walker became a highly skilled craftsman toolmaker; these skills and a love of fine machinery remained throughout his life. They were put to great effect both in his scientific career and for another life-long enthusiasm, railways and their reconstruction in model form. His family moved to Cambridge after the war and Peter went up to Trinity College to take a natural science tripos in botany and zoology. On graduating he got an MRC research studentship to work in Sir John Randalls Biophysics Unit at Kings College, London. This was both a key time and a key place in the history of
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biology. At Kings, Maurice Wilkins and Rosie Franklin were using X-ray crystallography to elucidate the structure of DNA whilst back in Cambridge, eagerly watching their results, were Francis Crick and Jim Watson. It seems certain that this atmosphere of new discoveries in the making influenced Peters own scientific development and he moved easily into the newly born field of molecular biology. At Kings he had already begun to build a refined piece of scientific machinery - a recording microdensitometer. Even though the elucidation of DNAs structure still lay ahead, it was known to be the genetic material. Walkers machine measured accurately the amount of DNA in single cells and, by frequency analysis at different stages of the cell cycle, it was possible to identify at what stage in cell division the genetic information itself doubled. This work he subsequently published with J.M.Mitchison. He later moved to Edinburgh in 1958 as an MRC Research Fellow, where Michael Swann and Murdoch Mitchison were building up a cellular/molecular group in the Universitys Zoology department. He arrived with his wife Violet and three children to occupy a Geor-
gian house in Lasswade near Edinburgh, where the family inherited a most beautiful garden, a source of great pleasure and an opportunity for some creative redesigning. They were wonderful hosts there, the family was young - it was here that their fourth child was born - and many of us will particularly remember huge bonfires and fireworks on November 5th. Peter moved from his Fellowship to join the academic staff as a Reader and was promoted to the Chair of Natural History in 1966 when Michael Swann resigned to become University Principal. He shared with Murdoch Mitchison the duties of running a growing department covering a very wide
range of teaching and research. Still supported by the MRC, he built up a group working on nucleic acids and himself embarked on designing and constructing a large and more sophisticated densitometer for quantitative measurements on single cells, but never completed it. At this time Peter was most often to be found in the Departments new and very well-equipped workshop where a highly-skilled technician ruled with a rod of iron. Nobody except Peter was allowed to use the machinery in its inner sanctum one craftsman recognising the calibre of another! In the decade following determination of DNAs structure,
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molecular biology began exponential growth. (Edinburghs own Department of that name, headed by Martin Pollock, was one of the first in the world.) At this time, Peter began some pioneering collaborative work with Anne McClaren (at that time working in Edinburghs Genetics Department) using new techniques which stabilised denatured DNA in single-stranded fragments in agar plates. Having set up a plate with DNA from one species of rodent, they then measured the degree to which these bound to form duplex structures with DNA from another species when this was added. Such duplexes would reveal base sequences in common between the species, and thus yielded some of the first evidence relating genetic structure to phylogeny. In fact it might be seen as an early form of DNA fingerprinting, albeit at a far less detailed level. That came later when the MRC invited Peter to head up a new mammalian genome unit which was built close to the main zoology laboratories. Here he attracted some brilliant staff members, several of whom have gone on to become leaders in the field. One of these, Ed Southern, points out that an important contribution was then made to the junk DNA debate by showing that the amount and sequence of satellite DNAs differed sharply between closely
related species. This revealed that a large amount of the DNA could not have a protein coding function. Peter retired in 1980, but for a number of years was very active on MRC committees and those of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. By this time the family had moved to Perthshire, first to a large house inherited from Peters aunt with huge grounds in which he built an amazing 7 railway track on which to run his beautiful scale Talyllyn steam locomotive, lovingly built over years in various workshops and helped to completion by the persistent urging of his first grandson! This railway has been taken over and extended by a neighbour who bought the house which had become out of scale for Peter and Violet once the children had left home. Typically, Peter turned to house construction and was much involved with the building of a smaller house in the grounds, incorporating an already existing cottage and, needless to say, including a large workshop overflowing with machine tools. Sadly, Violet died in 1985 soon after this was finished and Peter subsequently remarried, inheriting two of his new wife Joans children, with later their own daughter. Soon their house incorporated a second workshop for Joans own work. Peter usually had some big practical project on the go, often
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involving family members who were pressed, more or less willingly, into service in diverse semi-skilled capacities! Latterly he undertook major editing work which led to new, and much praised editions of Chambers Dictionary of Science & Technology. This task was particularly well-suited to his very broad knowledge of science and engineering. He took to the advanced use of computers for writing, illustrating and editing with the same facility which he had developed for mechanical engineering. Overall, Peter seemed effortlessly to combine biology with engineering, horticulture, photography and knowledge of a very wide range of literature. Then, of course, there were always the
railways - making models, railway history, with the Highland Line in the 1870s a speciality, and travelling on the more exotic lines when he had the chance. He loved Australia, where one of his daughters now lives, and it was only ill health which prevented a recent project to enjoy the last link on the Ghan line which opened for passengers in 2004, finally completing the Adelaide to Darwin railway. He was a stimulating colleague in the University, a great friend and equally splendid company on a hill walk in the Highlands or around the dinner table at his different homes. We are grateful to Anne McClaren, Ed Southern and Maurice Shepherd (Peters son-in-law) for help with this obituary. Aubrey Manning and Murdoch Mitchison
Peter Martin Brabazon Walker CBE, BA(Cantab), PhD(London). Born 1 May 1922; Elected FRSE 6 March 1967; Died 16 January 2006.
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Donald Elmslie Robertson Watt 15 August 1926 - 18 April 2004
To know medieval Scotland, fitting together the tessera which have survived and sketching the outlines of what is missing to show them in a possible whole picture, engaged the energies of a generation of scholars in our post-1945 universities; they benefited from expansion in the older universities, and saw the history of Scotland find a respected place in teaching. Their day is past, but their work speaks for them, and for no-one more firmly and lastingly than for Donald Watt. His career from 1953, apart from one year at Columbia University, New York, was spent in the new Medieval History department of St Andrews University, where he was a lively teacher with an appreciative student following, though discourse on medieval Europe and a specialist treatment of Edward I gave little scope for discussing his research interests. He was active in university affairs after the 1966 act made more room for lecturers on Senate and Court; in no way a radical, but constructively firm in a way which did not always fit the aims of Principal Watson. In 1977 his scholarship was recognised there by the conferment of a personal chair in Scottish Church History.
His home was a warm place in which his wife, Helen, and their two daughters balanced his absences in the study with his concern for family life. They shared a love of hill-walking, and of highland dancing, while he could turn a mean spadeful in the vegetable garden. The youngest son in the prosperous family which owned Aberdeen University Press a printing business, as the word Press properly implies he attended Aberdeen Grammar School and then Aberdeen University. Interrupted by a spell in the RAF for national service, he took first class honours in history there in 1950; his teachers included the distinguished medievalist Kathleen Edwards, responsible, as he acknowledged, for directing his interest to the medieval church. Afterwards he came up to Oriel College (195053) as a Carnegie scholar to research and take his DPhil (1957) on Scotsmen at Universities between 1340 and 1410, supervised by A B Emden, who published major prosopographical works on medieval Oxford and Cambridge graduates.
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From this work in 1977 came his Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Graduates to A.D. 1410 , the fruit of thirty years dedicated research into archives in Britain and continental western Europe, and the work by which his name will persist in bibliographies for generations to come. I have a copy of his first proposal (in 1958) to publish such a dictionary, describing how for 1340-1410 he had found 450 biographies, only a handful of the subjects having been noticed by historians despite the importance of the whole scholarly cadre to contemporary Scottish society. He proposed to extend the period of study backwards and to produce in four years work a reference book of permanent value to historians of the period 12001410. In fact the book took another eighteen (or so) years, appearing in 1977 and never off our desks since then, with the careers of eleven hundred Scots or servants of Scotland who attended university from the first appearance of such institutions in the twelfth century to the foundation of St Andrews University. It has been acknowledged in works of the past thirty years as a masterly, indeed flawless, record, with full references drawn from published work and archives from Aberdeen to southern Italy. Upon this, its pages say, you can rely.
There is far more of value to the scholar in his twenty-page introduction than its brevity might suggest, but it is of a technical character, indispensable to the neophyte in ecclesiastical history. The text identifies those in Scottish society who had the new type of higher education including some who were non-Scots in origin and career but picked up a Scottish post as they advanced. But there is no treatment of the place in Scottish society of the graduate clergy, no fulfilment of the suggestion he made in 1958 that he would shorten his thesis to provide an introduction to the dictionary. I am unsure whether we should regret his revised decision, but the fact that his thesis, with (as I recall) much to say on the social background and motivation of the clergy, remains effectively unpublished, suggests that he did not find extending his analysis back before 1340 a congenial prospect. I think he would agree that his Dictionary will have a much longer life than would another treatment of the medieval Scottish church, even from his own pen. To the influence of his teacher and supervisor add that of the annual meetings of historians interested in medieval Scotland, the first in 1957, where he urged the decisions taken to list, with source-references, the bishops and senior clergy of the Scottish
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dioceses, to investigate the manuscript authorities for Walter Bowers Scotichronicon, written in the 1440s and published in 1759, and to produce an atlas of Medieval Scottish History by collaborative effort. The first of these gave us a first draft Fasti, almost entirely his own research, published in cyclostyled form (1959), and ten years later a printed second draft incorporating additions from many sources. From 1994 he took up a new conference-sponsored project: to establish the succession of abbots and priors who headed Scottish religious houses. There was little in the bank when he began but fortunately he found another joint editor who could share in the library and archive research. By the time of publication of Heads of Religious Houses (2001) his health was deteriorating, but he had already turned to complete work on the Fasti. In 2003 the revised edition of this was published, expanding 385 pages of the second draft to 503 pages, with new information from several scholars but mainly from Watt and (an innovation) a felloweditor. Heads of Houses and Fasti are indispensable reference tools, saving each scholar of the period hours of labour in establishing the context from which comes the document he studies.
The Atlas project, with maps from many scholars including Watt, published in 1975, did sterling service as a teaching aid and in showing the holes where cartography ought to have been possible but work on the sources had not been done. A second edition was planned and appeared in 1996. Professor Donald Watt continued as a tower of strength throughout, mixing cajolery, encouragement and participation in the task in hand in equal and generous measures wrote the editors. For several years he was the Scot active on international bodies planning studies of aspects of the medieval western church. One such intends to describe the work of local councils in each province; Donalds contribution, Medieval Church Councils in Scotland, appeared in English (2000) and German, and shows how much more can be added to a subject well travelled by Victorian scholars by greater attention to papal decrees and decisions of councils of the whole church. He had already won recognition for participation in such efforts by a detailed account of the Scottish sees and bishops before 1198 (when the series of papal registers begins) published as Series Episcoporum Ecclesiae Catholicae Occidentalis, Series VI Britannia etc. Tomus I Ecclesia Scoticana.The full title reveals that Britannia etc
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are England and Wales; Scotland and Scandinavia were also in Series VI, but the first completed and published volume was his Scotland (1991), to which another Fellow, Dr Barbara Crawford, contributed Caithness, while Donald published the Isles, technically a Norwegian diocese, in a periodical. The plan was to present title and text in the Latin language, thus ensuring a privileged readership. In the British volumes at least the text will be in English, not the least of Donald Watts determined stands for common sense. As early as the 1950s he had urged a new edition of Bowers Scotichronicon based on the standard histories of Christian Europe available in the 1440s, interwoven with, even dominated by, a parallel narrative of Scotland. We all used the 1759 edition, though it lacked a translation and a modern index; a years work by Watt revealed that it also ignored a manuscript preserved in a Cambridge college belonging to the author and preserving his emendations. These lacunae he set out to remedy in a new edition published in nine volumes between 1987 and 1997. Volume 8 (1987) was wholly his work, but it was the maquette for the series, produced by Watt with seven contributory editors. Each volume has a Latin text with critical
apparatus, a facing translation and detailed historical notes identifying sources used, all subject to rigorous scrutiny by his eagle eye even where his had been the productive hand. For this daunting task he retired early to make time for co-ordinating editorial work, standardising the contributions and raising the finance for publication. With ancillary material it stands completed as ten volumes on our shelves, a tribute to what teamwork and the PC can achieve when driven by the determination of a dedicated scholar. His honorary doctorate from Glasgow University (2000) was a late acknowledgment of this scholarly production, but silently also of his outstanding capacity to organise a team, to cooperate and to secure cooperation among others, to maintain impetus until completion. He fell out with noone in any of these collaborative efforts, and we all shared in the warm welcome given to the volume of essays presented to him to mark the completed Scotichronicon. He was for eight years joint editor of the Scottish Historical Review, for four president of the Scottish History Society, served on the councils of learned societies and on a committee of the RSE. He was an elder and treasurer of his Kirk and headed the successful
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effort to establish in St Andrews the Cosmos Centre for its young people. One night in the fifties he arrived at our door in Edinburgh, stranded by fog on his way from
seeing Helen whom he was to marry. He told us all about her, and I reckoned he was the luckiest man in Scotland. He was, and he deserved to be. A A M Duncan
Donald Elmslie Robertson Watt, MA(Aberdeen), DPhil (Oxon), HonDLitt (Glasgow). Born 15 August 1926; Elected FRSE 7 March 1988 ; Died 18 April 2004.
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INDEX
A Aberdeenshire Council, 279. Alm, Norman, 229. Animal Bioscience Research in Scotland (SSAC Report), 252. Annual Inspiration Awards 2006, 262. Annual Statutory Meeting, 5. Antarctic Ice Sheets and Climate Change, 203. Auditors Report and Accounts, 47. Avian Influenza Working Group, 7, 256. B Bakewell, Joan, 77. Ball, Sir John, 13, 267. BBSRC, 279. Enterprise Fellowships, 9, 264. Bentley, Mike, 203. Beyond the Human Genome: Deciphering Biology and Disease, 235, 247. Binks Trust, 31. Biodiversity, Poverty and Sustainability for the 21st Century, 201. Black, Sue, 11, 185. BP Research Fellowships Trust, 39, 279. Personal Research Fellowship, 263; Prize Lectureship in the Humanities, 14, 267; British Academy Shakespeare Lecture 2006, 107. Browitt, Chris, 10, 220. Bruce-Preller Prize Lecture, 159. C Caledonian Research Foundation (CRF), 279. European Visiting Research Fellowships, 263; International Conference, 235; Personal Research Fellowships, 263; Prize Lectureship in Arts & Humanities, 14; Prize Lecture 2005, 77; Prize Lecture 2006, 122. Changes in Fellowship, 281. Chief Scientific Adviser, 252. Christmas Lecture, 11, 259. Clerk of Penicuik, Sir John (Dutton) (Obituary), 286. Climate Change, Young Peoples Discussion Forum, 11. Cochran, William (Obituary), 290. Cognitive Assistive Technology: An Emerging Discipline, 213. Composite Individuality: A Gaian View, 177. Conferences: Beyond the Human Genome: Deciphering Biology and Disease, 235; The Creation of Wealth, 217; Islam and Democracy, 236; Languages in Scotland : whats the problem?, 225; Nanomedicines of the Future, 219; The Vikings and Scotland: Impact and Influence, 242. Conway Morris, Simon, 10, 223. Cormack Bequest: Lecture, 141; Meeting, 241; Postgraduate Prize, 241, 264; Undergraduate Prize, 241, 264; Vacation Schlarships, 241, 264.
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Council, 24. Statement of responsibilities of, 28. Coustenis, Athena, 141. The Creation of Wealth, 10, 217, 247. Cuschieri, Sir Alfred, 186 D The Darwin Trust of Edinburgh, 279. Dining Club, 277. Discover Antarctica Lecture, 203. Discussion Forums: Lloyds TSB, 229; Natural Disasters, Earth Wind, Fire and Water Series: Earthquakes, 10, 245, Tropical Storms, 10, 238, Tsunami, 10, 220; Science Meets Religion, 223; Young Peoples Discussion Forum, 260; Young Peoples e-Discussion Forum, 261. DNA Profiling: Its Use in Famous Cases, 195. Donaldson, Ian, 107. Draper, Morrell Henry (Obituary), 293. E ECRR/Peter Wilson Lecture, 193. Edinburgh Drug Absorption Foundation, 30. Edinburgh Lecture, 186. Election of Fellows, 281. Election of Officers & Council, 24. Enderby, Sir John, 30, 33. Energy Issues for Scotland, 6, 30, 31, 257. Enterprise Fellowships, 9,34, 264.
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Environmental Choices Lecture, 199, 201. EU Lecture, 204. Evidence, Advice and Comment: A European Institute of Technology?, 255; The UK Honours Degree: Provision of Information, 255; Scottish Commissioner for Human Rights Bill, 255; Consultation on The Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Bill, 255; Developing Proposals for Coastal and Marine National Parks, 255; Towards a Transport Strategy for Scotland: Consultation on Rail Provision, 255; Best Value in Public Service, 255; Review of Funding for Postgraduate Research Students, 255; Aquaculture and Fisheries Bill, 255; Crofting Reform etc. Bill, 255; Enhancing our Care of Scotlands Landscapes, 255; Policy for the Long Term Management of Solid Low Level Radioactive Waste in the UK, 255; Developing a New Strategy, 255; Strengthening Judicial Independence in a Modern Scotland, 255; A Policy on Architecture forScotland: Review of Policy, 255. Extreme Fluid Dynamics and the Search for a New Engineering Science, 159. F Farmer, Victor Colin (Obituary), 297. Fellows: Deaths of, 281; Election of, 281; Former, Biographical Index of, 247; New, Induction Day 2006, 20,277.
Index
Fellows Coffee Meetings, 277. Fellows Golf Challenge, 277. Fellows Summer Reception, 277. Fellowship, 13, 20. Deaths reported during Session, 281; Election of Fellows, 281. Fellowship Secretarys Report, 20. Fewson, Charles Arthur (Obituary), 301. Fleck, Lord, Will Trust, 279. Forensic Anthropology - the Bare Bones Science, 185. G Gannochy Trust, 267, 279. Gannochy Trust Innovation Award, 34. 2006 Award, 9, 30, 34; 2005 Lecture, 3, 95. General Secretarys Report, 6. GM Morrison Charitable Trust, 279. Gow, Alan, 232. Grant, James Kerr (Obituary), 305. Grants Committee, 269. Grants, Sponsorship and Donations, 279. H Hall, Wendy, 3, 10, 197. Harrison, John, 3, 34, 95. Heming, Julian, 238. Henry Duncan Prize Lecture, 14, 267. Horton, Julia, 10, 220. Hughes , Ian Simpson (Obituary), 307. Hutton , Violet Rosemary Strachan (Obituary), 311.
383
I IEEE, 14. Implementing the Promise of Stem Cells in Science and Medicine, 122. Inside Surgery from Without: Therapeutic Interventions from Images, 186. International Programme, 12, 37. Bilateral Exchanges, 271; Events, 274; Open Programme Exchanges, 273; NNFC Joint Project, 274; Relations with Sister Academies, 276; Visits, 275. Investments, 73. Islam and Democracy, 10, 236, 247. J Jack, Sir David, 13, 267. James Scott Prize Lecture, 267. Johnson, Diane, 10, 220. Johnstone, George Scott (Obituary), 316. K Keith Medal, 267. King, John William Beaufoy (Obituary), 320. L Languages in Scotland : Whats the problem?, 225, 247. Laurie, Graeme, 14, 267. Lectures: Antarctic Ice Sheets and Climate Change, 10, 203; Biodiversity, Poverty and Sustainability for the 21st Century, 201; Cognitive Assistive Technology: An
Emerging Discipline, 213; Composite Individuality: A Gaian View, 10, 177; DNA Profiling: Its Use in Famous Cases, 195; Forensic Anthropology - the Bare Bones Science, 185; Inside Surgery from Without: Therapeutic Interventions from Images, 10, 186; Picture it if yous will: the Ambitions of Scottish Political Theatre, 210; Prairie Prospect. A Bold Act of Restoration in the Heart of North America, 10, 199; Sign Language Teaching in the Age of Cochlear Implants, 190; Social Justice in Rural Areas, 193; Solidarity in the Enlarged European Union, 10, 204; Towards the Semantic Web: the Return of the Link, 3, 10, 197; The Vikings and Scotland: The Northern World and its Significance for Scotland, 216. Lee, Brian, 238. Lessells Trust, 279. Travel Scholarship, 264. Lightner, Michael, 213. Linacre, Adrian, 195. Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland, 9, 30, 279. Discussion Forum, 229; Personal Research Fellowships, 263; Research Studentship, 264; Support Research Fellowships, 263. M McGregor, Sir Ian (Alexander) (Obituary), 324. McKay, Roland, 122. Magnusson, Magnus, 3, 216; Obituary, 328.
384
Makdougall Brisbane Prize, 14, 267. Mann, Val, 231. Manning, Richard, 199. Margulis, Lynn, 177. Martin, William Barr (Obituary), 333. Maths Masterclasses, 11, 261. Matthews, John Drake (Obituary), 338. Megaw, Basil Richardson Stanley (Obituary), 341. Menter, Sir James (Woodham) (Obituary), 347. Morgan, Henry Gemmell (Obituary), 350 N Nanomedicines of the Future, 219. Natural Disasters Discussion Forums, Earth, Wind, Fire and Water: Earthquakes, 10, 245, Tropical Storms, 10, 238, Tsunami, 10, 220. New Fellows Induction Day 2005, 277. O Obituaries: Sir John (Dutton) Clerk of Penicuik, 286; William Cochran, 290; Morrell Henry Draper, 293; Victor Colin Farmer, 297; Charles Arthur Fewson, 301; James Kerr Grant, 305; Ian Simpson Hughes , 307; Violet Rosemary Strachan Hutton , 311; George Scott Johnstone, 316; John William Beaufoy King, 320; Sir Ian (Alexan-
Index
der) McGregor, 324; Magnus Magnusson, 328; William Barr Martin, 333; John Drake Matthews, 338; Basil Richardson Stanley Megaw, 341; Hans Anton Meidner, 344; Sir James (Woodham) Menter, 347; Henry Gemmell Morgan, 350; John Ross Raeburn, 353; William Devigne RussellHunter, 355; David Cumming Simpson, 358; Harold James Thomas, 363; Samuel James Thomson, 365; Patrick Tollin, 368; Peter Martin Brabazon Walker, 371; Donald Elmslie Robertson Watt, 375. Objectives and activities, 29. ONeill of Bengarve, Baroness Onora, 14. Optical Science in the Fast Lane, 93. Ordinary Meetings, 3. P Padden, Carol, 190. Parker, Marie Claire, 9, 267. Picture it if yous will: the Ambitions of Scottish Political Theatre, 210. PPARC, 9, 279. Prairie Prospect. A Bold Act of Restoration in the Heart of North America, 199. Prize Lectures: Extreme Fluid Dynamics and the Search for a New Engineering Science, 159; Gannochy Trust Innovation Award Lecture, 95; Implementing the Promise of Stem Cells in Science
and Medicine, 122; Optical Science in the Fast Lane, 93; Shakespeare, Jonson, and the Invention of the Author, 10, 107; Television and Culture. Was there ever a Golden Age?, 77; Titan and the Cassini-Huygens Mission, 141. Proceedings A: Mathematics, 35, 247. Publications: Annual Review, 247; Beyond the Human Genome: Deciphering Biology and Disease, 247;Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Society, 1783-2002, 247; Directory & Review of Session, 247;Energy Inquiry Report, 247; Human Nature, 247; Islam and Democracy, 247; Languages in Scotland Whats the Problem?, 247; Proceedings A: Mathematics, 35, 247; ReSourcE, 247; Science Scotland, 35, 247; Stem Cell Research, 247; Transactions: Earth Sciences, 35, 247. R Raeburn, John Ross (Obituary), 353 Raven, Peter, 201. Reese, Jason M, 159. Research Excellence in E-health (SSAC Report), 250. Research Excellence in Medical Imaging (SSAC Report), 251. Research Fellowships Award Ceremony, 32. ReSourcE, 35, 247. Risk mangement, 28.
385
Royal Medals, 13, 267. Royal Society Clifford Paterson Lecture, 93. RSE@Schools (Talk Science Schools Lectures), 11, 259. RSE Roadshows, 11, 259. RSE Staff, 283. Russell-Hunter, William Devigne (Obituary), 355 S Saryusz-Wolski, Jacek, 204.. Science and Society, Steering Group, 6, 30. Science in Parliament, 32. Science Meets Religion, 10, 223. Science Scotland, 35, 247. Scientific Network of Excellence in Energy (SSAC Report), 249. Scottish Science Advisory Committee, 8, 249. Scottish Enterprise, 279. Enterprise Fellowships, 9, 264. Scottish Executive, 279. Personal Research Fellowships, 263; Research Fellowships, Enderby Report on, 33; Support Research Fellowships, 263. Scottish Funding Council, 7. Scottish Parliament Science Information Scheme, 32, 256. Scullion, Adrienne, 210. Shakespeare, Jonson, and the Invention of the Author, 107. Shucksmith, Mark, 193. Sibbett, Wilson, 93, 253.
Sign Language Teaching in the Age of Cochlear Implants, 190. Simpson, David Cumming (Obituary), 358. Social Justice in Rural Areas, 193. Solidarity in the Enlarged European Union, 204. Spence, Robin, 245. Startup Science Masterclasses, 11, 261. Stem Cell Research, 247, 260. Structure, governance and management, 27. Summer Schools, 11, 261. Sweetnam, Pete, 245. T Talk Science Schools Lectures (RSE@Schools), 11, 259. Teaching Fellowships, 265. Television and Culture. Was there ever a Golden Age?, 77. Thomas, Harold James (Obituary), 363. Thomson, Samuel James (Obituary), 365. Titan and the Cassini-Huygens Mission, 141. Tollin, Patrick (Obituary), 368 Towards the Semantic Web: the Return of the Link, 3, 10, 197. Transactions: Earth Sciences, 35, 247. Treasurers Report, 15. Trustees Report to 31 March 2006, 27.
386
Index
V van Huysteen, Wentzel, 223. The Vikings and Scotland: Impact and Influence, 242, 247. The Vikings and Scotland: The Northern World and its Significance for Scotland, 3, 216. W Walker, Peter Martin Brabazon (Obituary), 371. Watt, Donald Elmslie Robertson (Obituary), 375.
Wilkinson, Heather, 233. Wolfson Microelectronics, 14. Y Young Peoples Programme, 11, 37. Annual Inspiration Awards, 262; Christmas Lecture, 259; Discussion Forum, 11, 260; eDiscusion Forum, 261; Maths Masterclasses, 261; Roadshow, 259; Startup science Masterclasses, 261; Summer School, 261.
387

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The Royal Society of Edinburgh Review 2007

Royal Society of Edinburgh

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2005-2006

Cover illustration by Aird McKinstrie. Design by Jennifer Cameron

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2005-2006

PUBLISHED BY THE RSE SCOTLAND FOUNDATION ISSN 1476-4342

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ORDINARY MEETINGS

PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATUTORY GENERAL MEETING

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2005-2006

2006 2,040 835 2,875

2005 2,062 1,154 3,216

471 111 582 (792) (210)

409 137 546 (816) (270)

262 43 140 445 235

240 21 128 389 119

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

150 14 124 28 316 551

15% 12% 212%

12% 10% 144%

4,278 4,660 964 9,902 1,308 11,210

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting

Review of the Session 2005-2006

TRUSTEES REPORT TO 31 MARCH 2006

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Trustees Report to 31 March 2006

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Trustees Report to 31 March 2006

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Trustees Report to 31 March 2006

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Trustees Report to 31 March 2006

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Trustees Report to 31 March 2006

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Trustees Report to 31 March 2006

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Trustees Report to 31 March 2006

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Trustees Report to 31 March 2006

Review of the Session 2005-2006

Trustees Report to 31 March 2006

AUDITORS REPORT AND ACCOUNTS

Review of the Session 2005-2006

(109,753) (664,330) (114,799) (888,882)

(2,944) (25,636) (6,025) (34,605)

(384,627) (2,845,533) (3,236,511)

(476,665) (3,171,092) (3,564,339)