U3A Science Network

Earlier Meetings

In 2021 the organising team held three short virtual meetings in April, August and October when we were unable to replicate our usual annual physical meeting. Attendance was excellent, so the experience in is being repeated in 2022, u3a’s 40th Anniversary year.

About each event
A science-based learning event with 3 presentations of 45 minutes followed by questions after each presentation, with a break for refreshments and for lunch. The meeting will start at 10:30 (doors open at 10:15) and will end with a short plenary session at 3 o’clock. The meetings are held online using Zoom. They are free to attend, but you need to register using the link to Eventbrite, below.

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u3a Science Network Meeting 27 October 2022

Online via Zoom

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27 October 2022

Presentation details
Body clocks and Circadian Rhythms
A walkthrough the absorbing and evolving subject of body clocks of insects and birds and how the body clocks and circadian rhythms function in humans. Also covered chronotherapy, sleep, jet lag and S.A.D.

Fracking Shale for Gas & Oil
A presentation which summarises the anti-fracking movement’s arguments and shows that these are distorted and misleading. Fracking can be conducted safely with less impact on the environment than some of the ‘green’ solutions.

Smoke, Soot and Steam
An account of the building of, and travelling on, the world’s first underground railway, drawn largely from contemporary accounts, illustrating some of the more humorous aspects.

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April meeting
The first meeting was held on Tuesday 5 April with presentations on:

• the Manhattan Project and the British Bomb: Rhobert Lewis
• the Human Microbiome Part 1: Leigh Edwards
• the Scale of the Universe. David Youll

July meeting
The meeting on 26 July was our Anniversary meeting. We had presentations on

• Blowing Hot and Cold in the 1980s: John Marriage
• The Carbon Imperative: Mike Perry
• Human colonisation of Space: Leigh Edwards

During 2020 many science and technology groups have held their monthly meetings virtually which is great news. So the organising team decided to hold three short virtual meetings in 2021 on Tuesday 20 April, Wednesday 11 August and Thursday 14 October instead of trying to replicate our usual annual physical meeting.

u3a Science Network virtual meeting 14 October 2021

Session timings:

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Our first 2021 Virtual meeting exceeded expectations
The u3a Science Network’s first Virtual meeting exceeded all expectations with over 200 members attending on 20 April 2021.
The meeting was introduced by Mike Hollingsworth, Science Subject Adviser, and over 200 members enjoyed three very different presentations from John Marriage, Mike Trevethick and Mike Gray. Each lasted 45 minutes and was followed by questions which were posted on Chat and presented to the speakers after each of their talks.

-----Darwin – the Geologist
John Marriage introduced us to Charles Darwin the Geologist who became involved with several men who were starting to transform geology from its practical origins in mining and quarrying, to a well organised branch of Natural History.

His trip on the Beagle gave him the opportunity to expand his field experience. Wedded to the idea of a “simple model” of geology, he started to deviate, month by month, from the model he’d been taught by his mentors and was persuaded by a new movement promoting huge timescales and the slow persistent action of processes still visible.

On his return, he then became involved in one or two British geological problems which turned out not to fit with his “simple geology”, and which he explained incorrectly. This experience was a painful shock to his system; he had to admit that he’d been wrong.

His subsequent work on evolution was another “simple” all-encompassing theory which claimed to be capable of explaining everything within its scope. There were other influences too, but having his fingers burnt with geological theory was an important contribution to his well-known reluctance to publish The Origin of Species twenty years later.

-----Covid Vaccines are here - what are they and how do they work?
After a short break, Mike Trevethick spoke about the arrival of COVID vaccines and their efficacy. He started by explaining coronavirus and how our bodies tackle the infection, what Vaccines are, how they work and how you make one.

He showed how Vaccination tricks our body into thinking it is under attack and the need to establish herd immunity by wholesale vaccination. He described 4 ways of making vaccines and talked in more detail about the Pfizer-BioNtech and Oxford-AstraZenica vaccines. Redeployment of the BioNtech &Oxford Technology Platforms Rapid Vaccine development programmes to Covid 19 resulted in the swift development of Clinical Trials for Covid Vaccine to prove that it was safe, would prevent COVID infection and where Covid infections are high, reduce Hospitalisation, severe disease and death.

There was a good immune response in all age groups, showing Antibodies from people vaccinated with Pfizer or AZ bind to and neutralise covid virus. Mike went on to show that data from the real world on the Pfizer and AZ reduced both the risk of infection and of hospitalisation. He also covered the New Covid Mutant in UK and the South African variant.

He brought us right up to date by showing how concerns about Blood Clots on the brain with covid vaccines are clearly outweighed by the risks of COVID. Public Health England (PHE) analysis indicates that the COVID-19 vaccination programme prevented 10,400 deaths in those aged 60 and older in England up to the end of March. Despite the fantastic progress, there’s still more to do: including people under 18, the effects on virus transmission, what happens if the virus mutates and can we mix and match vaccines.

-----Chocolate – what is chocolate?
Mike Gray gave us a potted history of chocolate from Mexico, to Spain and other parts of Europe by 1606. More recent history of chocolate covered developments in the 19th century and the 1890 Legislation introduced in Europe to protect chocolate which was being widely adulterated.

We learned what chocolate is legally, what milk and white chocolate are. On average it takes about 40 cocoa beans to make a 50g bar of 70% dark chocolate = a whole pod! Generally, each tree will produce 1 – 1.5 kg of dried cocoa beans per year with one year's crop from one tree making 18 or 20 bars.

We learned about the location of coffee beans and what they contain, drying the beans and how it’s just the flavour of cocoa beans that varies from place to place. We also discovered how the grinding process had developed, the production of cocoa butter and cocoa powder and how most of Chocolate’s unique characteristics (and foibles) are due to cocoa butter. It melts rapidly in the mouth, why care must be taken with sugar crystals and the impact of low and high viscosity.

Mike took us through the various production and refining stages, conching and the continuous fat phase of chocolate. We learned that chocolate is Non-Newtonian because it has a yield value, what Crystallisation and Polymorphism are, what tempering is and the many causes of Bloom.

Mike ended his fascinating presentation on the science of chocolate by showing the many uses of Chocolate and the varied ways it can be used to make finished products by Moulding, Enrobing, Panning, Extruding, Spinning and Sculpting.

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The Science Network's 2019 Annual Meeting was held from Monday 5 to Thursday 8 August 2019 at Aston University.

Click Southampton University Electric Cars for an introduction to the excellent talk on the personal and national issues around the large scale introduction of all-electric vars.