Better World Manchester

News, views and gossip from Science and Engineering at The University of Manchester.

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Climate Summit at The University of Manchester

Tyndall Manchester invite you to a mock UN climate negotiations.

While world leaders are preparing to gather in Paris in December this simulation is a chance for University of Manchester staff to join a mock delegation, learn about global climate, energy and emissions and discuss the issues at stake for each country.

The World Climate Exercise was originally developed by Climate Interactive and MIT (watch this for an overview) and thousands have participated in these events around the world, from primary school classes to major business CEOs. It is regularly used in our School of MACE and Manchester Energy teaching. Underlying your negotiations, of where and when emissions will be cut, is a robust climate model so you will have real time results on the likely consequences.

All university staff are welcome to attend from any department or role, we are all affected by the issues under discussion. If any teaching staff would like to know more about the exercise or help as facilitators, please contact John Broderick in advance.

Book your place on Eventbrite.

... And no. Obama won’t be attending. 

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Yesterday eleven teams from 10 Greater Manchester Schools competed in the finals of the Ultimate Car Challenge funded by LATEST2 and the EPSRC run by the School of Materials.

The teams included students from age 12 to 15 who had designed, engineered and tested their cars over the past few weeks so that they would be ready to compete against their rivals.

The students gave presentations on their cars and how they had come to their current designs, they raced them against the other teams and finally the cars were subject to a number of real-life engineering tests including corrosion, crash and crush tests.

A panel of judges from the University and graduate engineers from Jaguar Landrover oversaw the event and pronounced the team from Levenshulme School as the winner.  They win £250 and a trip to the Jaguar Landrover factory.

As well as the competition, the students attending a talk from Andrew Thomas ‘More Magic then Harry Potter’ and the three graduate engineers from Jaguar Landrover gave a presentation to the students to explain what it is like to work as an engineer, and how they got to be where they are now.

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Jumping into the Manchester Energy Summer School

Nick Parker, a newly recruited Digital Marketing Officer for the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, writes about his perspective on the Manchester Energy Summer School.

 As a new staff member at UoM, and neither a scientist nor engineer by training, I was excited (and a little nervous) to jump into the Manchester Energy Summer School a couple of weeks ago. Having heard that it was one of the major events on this research program’s calendar, I was hoping to get a good sense of what kinds of community, research, and learning environment this kind of event could foster.

The summer school was held over 4 sunny days in early June, in one large, drum-shaped conference room at Chancellors Hotel in Fallowfield. I was allowed to spend one full day sitting in on the lectures and workshops that UoM PhDs were to engage with.

The opening session’s research summaries covered topics ranging from talks by engineers on energy storage (Dr Rob Dryfe) and multi energy systems (Dr Pierluigi Mancarella), to discussion with social scientists on smart cities (Dr Andrew Karvonen) and Living Labs (Dr James Evans). It was interesting to see how the students were making connections between each of these disparate topics in their questions after each session. They would create links between the efficiencies created with better energy systems and the ways in which the systems could be implemented in our urban spaces specifically, and then how our own university campus can be a testing ground for those kinds of systems.

After a break to reflect on these opening sessions, discussion moved to two sessions that demonstrated the ways in which solving energy problems requires research both at the macro level and micro level.  Dr Mike Bowman talked about tracking global energy demand trends, and then Charlie Baker outlined some of the ways that building community energy projects can generate efficiencies home by home. Both of these topics got the students talking about the ways our energy future needs radical solutions for such complex problems.

The largest portion of the day was devoted to an application of some of the ideas that had come up already, in trying to solve very practical problems related to our own University energy footprint. The challenge these groups of PhD students were set seemed (for me, only an interested observer) eye-wateringly complex. This didn't stop any of the students from getting into working on them keenly, and then presenting the solutions they had devised in just a couple of hours to a panel of judges, “Dragon’s Den” style.

I left the students with their challenges eagerly completed, and my challenge began: to try to sum up my day with these students and faculty members, so steeped in their research ideas and buzzing with enthusiasm about confronting the energy challenges we all face. This is not an easy task – even in just one day, I was left with a lot to think about.

As I was leaving that evening, one student I had chatted to earlier on passed me in the lobby. Even after more than 9 hours of the day’s sessions, he said “sorry, I won’t be able to answer your questions for now… I need to get back in there!” and disappeared into the conference room.

Find out more information about this event, including news, research outline videos with students, and interviews at: http://www.energy.manchester.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/summer-school-2015/ 

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Manchester Energy Summer School 2015

Last week Manchester Energy saw the successful conclusion of its second residential summer school for University of Manchester PhD students. Twenty-five students from many different schools (and many different countries) came to the week-long residential summer school, where they attended lectures from faculty and industry professionals based in numerous departments and parts of the energy sector. There were also several interactive energy “challenges”, allowing groups of students who may not have known each other before this event to come together and work in teams to try to overcome some of the most pressing energy challenges, on campus and beyond.

 Professor Ian Cotton, Director of Manchester Energy, stressed that “it’s extremely important to provide this kind of experience to our students working in energy. Since we as a university want to encourage interdisciplinarity, it’s crucial that not only staff but researchers engage with one another. [The Summer School] gives value for those students embarking upon their research, as they reach beyond their niche, contextualise their own projects, and consider the role that their research may play in the energy landscapes of the future. For the University it’s also invaluable to encourage those connections.”

There will be more news and updates, along with interviews with some of the participants of the summer school, coming soon.

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Manchester experts descend on Cheltenham science fest

Leading Manchester scientists will be making headlines at The Times Cheltenham Science Festival this week, one of the biggest events of its kind in the UK.

Professor Brian Cox will join fellow thought leaders Alice Roberts and Adam Rutherford to discuss some of science's biggest challenges.

Palaeontologist Phil Manning is set to reveal his latest dinosaur discovery, while astrophysicist Tim O'Brien from the Jodrell Bank Observatory will be discussing the latest news on the search for alien intelligence.

Immunologist Dan Davis will be talking about the compatibility gene, whilst Dr Aravind Vijayaraghavan, James Baker and Laura Winter will also be on hand to discuss graphene and other wonder materials.

“The University of Manchester will be well represented at Cheltenham this week and our team will showcase a really exciting mix of research and scientific ideas,” said Professor Tim O’Brien, who is an Associate Dean based in the University’s Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences.    

Manchester highlights at Cheltenham include:

Tuesday 2 June 

The Compatibility Gene

Dan Davis traces the story of the tiny cluster of 25,000 genes which disproportionately help define who we are:

http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science/whats-on/2015/the-compatability-gene/

Thursday 4 June 

Graphene: Material of the Modern Age

Aravind Vijayaraghavan and James Baker will explore the real-world uses for graphene and reveal what is currently happening with this ‘wonder material’ in the commercial world

http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science/whats-on/2015/graphene-material-of-the-modern-age/

Friday 5 June 

Searching for Alien Intelligence

Tim O'Brien will describe recent progress being made in the quest for extra-terrestrial intelligence:

http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science/whats-on/2015/searching-for-alien-intelligence/

Dinosaur Hunters 

Take the chance to go on a dinosaur hunt with Phil Manning and his team of intrepid paleontologists:

http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science/whats-on/2015/dinosaur-hunters/

Saturday 6 June 

Brian Cox, Alice Roberts and Adam Rutherford

Brian Cox will be tackling some of the big issues facing science - past, present and future

http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science/whats-on/2015/brian-cox-alice-roberts-and-adam-rutherford/

Sunday 7 June

Dinosaur Wars

Hear about the winners and losers in the ‘dinosaurs wars’ from Phil Manning

http://www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science/whats-on/2015/dinosaur-wars/

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Check out these photos from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering 2nd year Embedded Systems Project... otherwise known as the buggy race! 

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We know!

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Ernest Rutherford (1871–1937) was a physicist and Nobel Prize winner who first split the atom. Here, Paul Govey, Head of Student Communications and Marketing, tells us why Rutherford is his University of Manchester heritage hero

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The University of Manchester and the Santa Fe Institute, with support from the Université Cheikh Anta Diop, won the Energy prize and the first (“Grand”) prize in the Orange Data for Development (D4D) Challenge Senegal for using mobile phone data for electrification planning. The...

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Events and Seminars, w/c 20 April 2015

Tuesday 21 April: MECD Surgeries - CEAS 10.30 to 12noon, C63/64 The Mill + Materials 12noon to 1pm C17 Materials Science Centre and 1.30pm to 2.30pm F6 Sackville Street Building. 

Wednesday 22 April:  Schuster Colloquium: 'Synchronization of Cilia' by Prof. Ray Goldstein - 2.30pm Rutherford Lecture Theatre, Schuster Building

Wednesday 22 April: Tyndal Manchester Seminar  Past and Prospective Developments in Gas Networks in Britain - 4pm  C1 George Begg Building, Manchester. 

Friday 24 April: Dalton Seminar 'Predictive Modelling in Actinide Chemistry’ with Dr. Ping Yang, Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA - 12noon to 1 pm  G54, Chemistry Building

Friday 24 April: MECD Surgeries - EEE 12noon to 2pm D45b Sackville Street Building.

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The show was really interesting. We all enjoyed every minute of it.

Jessica Gilmore, year 8 student at Rivington and Blackrod High School. 

Enjoying these quotes from students who recently enjoyed a ‘Flash Bang’ show from Dr Frank Muir, School of Chemistry. All our schools take part in a range of engagement and outreach activities. Find out more about Outreach at the School of Chemistry.

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The American chemist Melvin Calvin was born on this day in 1911.  After earning his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota, he undertook postdoctoral work at the University of Manchester from 1935 to 1939.  Calvin was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants. 

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Scientists from the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences chase ice particles with NASA’s Global Hawk

The NASA Global Hawk UAS photographed from an Armstrong Flight Research Center chase plane. The Aerosol Ice Interface Spectrometer (AIITS), developed and operated by CAIR, University of Hertfordshire and SEAES, University of Manchester, is the gold instrument hanging from the nearside wing. (Photo courtesy Dave Fratello, NASA).

A cutting-edge science instrument developed by The University of Manchester researchers took to the skies aboard NASA’s Global Hawk research aircraft for the first time.

Read the full article on manchester.ac.uk

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Say Happy Birthday to the youngest ever recipient of a Nobel Prize in Physics!

Born on this day in 1890, William Lawrence Bragg was awarded the Physics Nobel Prize for his services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays in 1915. He was 25.

Born in Australia, he started studying mathematics, chemistry and physics at the University of Adelaide aged just 16, graduating in 1908. When his family moved to the UK, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge and went on to a fellowship. Between the world wars, from 1919 to 1937, he worked at the Victoria University of Manchester as Langworthy Professor of Physics. 

Image credit:

Sir (William) Lawrence Bragg by Walter Stoneman bromide print, January 1943 NPG x164690 © National Portrait Gallery, London

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We have been here five years now and, for me, Jodrell Bank has become a home-from-home, always a real pleasure to come back to the University.

Dara O’Briain, comedian and Stargazing Live presenter. 

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Where did you watch #Eclipse2015? 

While many members of the faculty have been busy at Jodrell Bank preparing for tonight’s Stargazing Live with Dara O Briain and Professor Brian Cox, people have been watching the eclipse across the UK... weather allowing! 

We had a nice crowd on the North Campus, where we discovered the eclipse, despite the cloud cover, was reflected quite clearly in the side of Renold Building. 

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Walter Norman Haworth was born on this day in 1883. In 1906 he gained his first-class honours degree in Chemistry from the University of Manchester. After completing his master’s degree at Manchester, Haworth went on to teach and research at the University of St Andrews, Durham University and the University of Birmingham.  His investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C earned him the 1937 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

This stamp from 1977 honours his discovery.