Perthshire Society of Natural Science
Environment, Nature and Cultural Heritage.
Last Friday evening, Professor Jennifer Smith from the University of Glasgow presented the findings from the Speak for Yersel project – a series of quizzes investigating how use of Scots words (both overt and covert) and grammatical phrasing are distributed around Scotland, both geographically and broadly by class, and explored its interaction with Gaelic in the north-west Highlands.
A video of the evening is available on our YouTube channel:
The fourth evening in our Curious Minds series is the first of three talks on the subject of Recycling.
Dr Kevin Ross from Impact Solutions spoke about various kinds of plastic, how readily they can be recycled, how well they are recycled, the environmental consequences of (not) recycling, the value of plastic products as part of their lifecycles and external factors such as the international trading of waste. Whew!
A video of the evening can be found on our YouTube channel:
Last night’s Curious Minds talk was a cracker!
Professor Alessio Ciulli runs one of the biggest and highest profile research teams in Dundee. He is a world leader in the field of Targeted Protein Degradation – a way to encourage a cell’s natural garbage-disposal mechanisms to remove rogue proteins.
TPD is a breakthrough method that has enabled the development of multiple new drugs for treating some of the most intractable cancers and other diseases. More than 30 drugs are currently in the approval pipeline with many more promised – and many are based on the Ciulli group’s work in Dundee.
A video of the evening is available on our YouTube channel:
For the second talk in our Curious Minds lecture series, Dr Brendan Gabriel from the University of Aberdeen spoke about the effects of circadian rhythms on metabolic disorders especially diabetes, including how disruptions such as shift work affect health.
A video of the evening can be seen on our YouTube channel:
In a great start to our Curious Minds season last night. Professor David Price, from Edinburgh University, delved into the mysteries of early brain development.
He showed us how the early nervous system in a tiny foetus is already divided into functional areas and how a particular gene, PAX6, encourages or inhibits the growth of connections between those areas. And lots of good questions later in our discussion.
A fascinating peek into an enormously complicated subject.
A video of the talk is available on our YouTube channel: PSNS1867
Saturday 11 May 2024 marked the culmination of a two-year joint project with the PSNS & Historic Towns Trust: the production of a Historical Map of Perth including many sites of interest over the last one thousand years.
The Map is available in bookstores (Waterstones) and other outlets including Perth Museum, Perth Art Gallery and the AK Bell Library, and can be ordered online (HTT, AmazonUK).
Speakers at the event were:
John Lewington, former President of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science, gave an introduction
Professor Vanessa Harding, Chair of the Historic Towns Trust, on “Mapping our Shared History”
Theresa Hughes, President of PSNS Archaeology & History Section, on “A Fair Map of Perth”
Dr Mike Robinson, Royal Scottish Geographical Society, on “A Sense of Place”
David Bowler, Director of Alder Archaeology Ltd, on “A Thousand Years in Twenty Minutes – an Overview of Perth”
John Moore, Honorary Secretary of the Historic Towns Trust, gave a vote of thanks.
In the process, we heard how the geological and geographical settings influenced Perth’s location, culture and history.
A video of the event can be viewed on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/k9cX2zt46YE
The Map is available in bookstores (Waterstones) and other outlets including Perth Museum, Perth Art Gallery and the AK Bell Library, and can be ordered online (HTT, AmazonUK).
For the last meeting in this PSNS season, Laura Brown, curator of the collection, gave us a guided tour of the photographs available – somewhere between 1.6 and 1.8 million photos(!), some dating back to the earliest days of photography in the late 1830s.
Unfortunately, due to technical issues, a video of the evening will not be available. However, the live link at which the collection can be viewed is: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/collections/
Professor Mark Harris, director of the Ian Ramsey Centre at the University of Oxford, is both a physicist by training and an ordained Anglican priest. He spoke about the ways the relationship between science and religion and theology can be seen – from outright conflict (which is bigger than the other?) through independence to a dialogue and more.
The video of his talk is available on Youtube:
The moment we hear someone talk, their accent and dialect influence the mental image we form of that person’s national, social, economic and educational background.
Dr Sadie Ryan is a sociolinguist at the University of Glasgow with a keen interest in the relationships between accents and identity. She spoke particularly about the relationships between Scots and English.
See the video of the lecture here: https://youtu.be/1HN-kiJ_-G8
Last night Dr Sarah Chan from the University of Edinburgh spoke on the ethics of running medical trials – do people have the right to refuse to join trials, a moral obligation to join one, or even the right to ask to join a clinical trial?
A video of the lecture is available at https://youtu.be/RHMwp81yGiQ .
For this year’s McAlpine Lecture, Professor James Curran (visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde, amongst many other positions held including former chair of SEPA) spoke to us about the state of climate change.
From problems – CO2 emissions leading to global warming, biodiversity loss, extreme weather events and more – to how our perception of the solutions should change, understanding Sustainable Development of the environment supporting society and the the (circular) economy.
The video can be seen on our Youtube channel:
Even to a casual observer it seems obvious that the noise generated by ships, boats, drilling rigs, sonar and other forms of human activity must be a problem for marine creatures.
Yesterday evening, Dr Luke Rendell, from the University of St Andrews, spoke about the extent and detrimental effects of both natural and man-made noise on marine mammals.
This video is available in high quality on our youtube channel:
Curious Minds will return in the new year.
For the fifth in this series of Curious Minds lectures, Dr Delma Childers (University of Aberdeen) spoke to us about “killer fungi”.
Fungal diseases are an under-appreciated global health threat that are responsible for more than a million deaths per year. Delma is keen to raise public awareness about fungal infections and the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance.
Content Warning:
A couple of the slides have moderate gore. These are preceded by slides with an asterisk in the top-right corner by way of advance warning.
The video can be seen on our youtube channel at
At the Archaeology & History section’s November meeting, Clare Henderson, an archaeologist with the National Trust for Scotland, introduced us to the archipelago of St Kilda, the UK’s only dual UNESCO World Heritage Site.
She explained the settlement of the islands from prehistory to the famous evacuation of 1930.
We studied both surviving archaeology and the written and photographic records that allow us to tell the island’s story.
A recording of the talk can be seen on youtube:
Dr Rob Armstrong (University of St Andrews) gave us a very informative talk about research into battery chemistry – from the history of early NiCd and Li-ion battery designs through LFP and on to sodium-based chemistry options, with a view to what’s best for EV cars, recyclable for home storage and usable as part of grid infrastructure.
View the video of the evening here: