Conferences, Workshops, and Events

It’s not too late to book tickets for our Osteology workshop in August. The deadline to book is 31st Jul 2015.

When: 8th Sep 2015
Where: University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge

Hot off the press last night, this year’s Tetrapod Zoology Conference (#Tetzoocon) has just been announced. Several NatSCA members attended last year, including myself (here’s the review). It was a great event with lots of interesting talks, ranging in topic from under-appreciated amphibians to future pterosaur literature to speculative zoology – including one by our Paolo. They haven’t announced the speakers this year but they’re sure to be great.

When: 14th Nov 2015
Where: The London Wetland Centre

If you’re in town this evening, come along to the drinks thing at the Horniman Museum in Forest Hill.

And now an appeal to our out-of-town readers: There is some great stuff going on in London almost all the time but I want to hear from you if you have any information regarding natural history related events outside of the London area. Our readers who can’t reach London regularly want to know that these events are. Contact us.

In the News

With applicants rushing to fill the space that Mark Carnall is leaving in the Grant Museum, as he goes off to his new home in Oxford, we thought it would be a good time to tell you about a new email address here at NatSCA Towers. It’s joblistings@natsca.org and, if you have a job that you’d like advertised, this is the best address to send it to.

No news coverage would be complete this week without a hat-tip to Pluto, the little dwarf planet that surprised us all. Although it will take 16 months for all the data to return to Earth, we’ve had some very interesting geological features already, including huge mountain ranges on a par with America’s Rockies; areas with no impact craters, suggesting there may be geological activity resurfacing it (it is unlikely that a large body in the Kuiper belt could be that lucky to avoid impact); and a large reddish brown icecap on Charon nicknamed “Mordor”. We look forward to more information as the data is disseminated. In the meantime, here’s an overview of the changing face of Pluto, by NASA.

In the Blogosphere

The RVC‘s John Hutchinson honours the contributions of R McNeil Alexander in this touching installment of What’s in John’s Freezer.