News
Festival recordings now online
Morning sessions can now be viewed online via YouTube and iTunes. The links direct links to these sites can be found by clicking HERE
Darwin Festival Interviews
Listen now or down load podcasts from the Naked Scientists Web site. Video recordings of the morning sessions and additional interviews and pod casts to follow. Watch this space!
Darwin Festival pod casts from the Fitzwilliam Museum
Six Darwin Festival presenters kindly agreed to make pod casts on the Endless Forms Exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum. You can hear the reflections and observations of Sir Paul Nurse, Professor Philip Kitcher, Sir Peter Crane, Lord Robert May, Professor Randy Nesse and Professor John Brooke by following this link: http://www.darwinendlessforms.org/podcasts/#darwinfest
Images of Change Finalists and Exhibition
.jpg "Cambridge Guided Bus; Photograph: Luke Cave")
After the public voting was closed and the votes counted, the judging panel made the final cut, using structure, atmosphere, lighting, colour, content and context as criteria for making the final choice as to which photographs would go through to the Darwin Festival Fringe exhibition.
The exhibition can now be seen in the main dining hall of the University Centre, and if you are not able to see the real McCoy, you can see the Images of Change winning photographs on the Cambridge News Online website.
The Darwin Festival would like to thank Cambridge News and Cambridge News Online, Cambridge University Photography and Illustration Service, Cambridge University Centre Riverside Restaurant, Digital Camera Magazine, Heffers (Cambridge) and Jessops (Cambridge) for their support of the competition and the superb prizes they donated.
Darwin Festival Fringe
A local round up of the Festival Fringe can be found here. Images from the streets to follow shortly.
Evolving Words
Booking NOW! The Junction July 9th, 20:00
01223 511511/www.junction.co.uk
Not to be missed! Young aspiring writers and performers present their reflection on Darwin's impact on society today.
The Darwin Biopharma Debate
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"This house believes that a greater share of future therapeutic breakthroughs will evolve from biologic research than from small molecule research."
MedImmune, the biologics business of AstraZeneca and one of the proud sponsors of the Darwin 2009 Festival is hosting The Darwin Biopharma Debate on Monday 6th July at 6 pm at the Cambridge Union Society in Cambridge.
This event is a unique opportunity to link Darwin’s ideas on evolution to a debate that continues within the biopharmaceutical industry - whether future breakthroughs will most likely be made through drugs based on protein-based biologic compounds or small chemical molecules. Through this debate, MedImmune are keen to engage in discussion with scientists with varied experience and perspectives within the biopharmaceutical industry. Speakers include Dr. Bill Haseltine, Dr. Melanie Lee, Dr. Kevin Johnson and Prof. Paul Workman, and the debate is chaired by Dr. Andy Richards. Prof. Sir Greg Winter will deliver the closing remarks. This is an invitation-only event, and will be attended by biotechnology and pharmaceutical leaders.
www.medimmune.com
The Cambridge Darwin Festival invites you to attend a Special Celebration Lecture
The Cambridge Darwin Festival, in collaboration with the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (CfEL) and La Caixa, cordially invites you to attend a free special celebration lecture at Judge Business School on 3rdJuly 2009
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change” Charles Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882)
This quote encapsulates a key Darwinian principle that can be applied successfully not only to the biological but also to the business world. In particular, it can help to explain the special role ofentrepreneurs and their approach to risk taking behaviour which, for good or ill, sets them apart from others. The lecture will refer to research published late last year in Nature in which it is assertedthat 'hot' decision-making - involving the evaluation of reward and punishment - is essential to the entrepreneurial process and may be possible to teach.
Plus: Special video link up with audience in Barcelona, Spain, supported by La Caixa
Please RSVP to
shelley.gregory-jones@phgfoundation.org
by 26th June
Agenda:
6:30pm Welcome
6:35pm Introduction
Introduction to the overall picture of entrepreneurship by Dr Shailendra Vyakarnam, Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning
Followed by Prof Barbara Sahakian FMedSci, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, presenting an explanation of research recently undertaken to better understand risk taking and decision making among entrepreneurs
7:00pm Question and Answer session
Members of the audience in Cambridge and Barcelona will be able to ask questions and interact with the guest speaker(s)
7:30pm Networking and refreshments in JBS Common Room
8:00pm Close
Ground-breaking Cambridge exhibition on Darwin and the arts opens today
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Robert Farren, Duria Antiquior (An Earlier Dorset), ca. 1850, The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.
Nearly 200 works of art and historic scientific objects from around the world go on display today at The Fitzwilliam Museum, as the exhibition Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and theVisual Arts opens to the public.
Called “a major achievement” by the New York Times, Endless Forms explores the fascinating relationship between the revolutionary theories of Charles Darwin and late nineteenth-century art. With many exhibits on public display in the UK for the first time, the exhibition unites world-renowned masterpieces by artists such as Monet, Degas, Cézanne and Landseer with works by lesser-known artists such as Bruno Liljefors and Félicien Rops, and contrasts paintings, drawings, sculpture and caricatures with a wealth of scientific material, from taxidermy, teaching diagrams and anthropological photographs to fossils, minerals and skulls, and rarely-seen original Darwin material from collections and archives around Cambridge.
16 June to 4 October 2009: for more information and details of workshops and events surrounding Endless Forms, visit www.darwinendlessforms.org
Festival Facts and Figures
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Festival Facts and Figures
2.5 tonnes water, 160 bottles Prosecco, 0.5 tonnes of strawberries and more than a basket full of eggs. Over 1000 people registered. 7 events sold out. Tickets still available for mornings in the overspill and most afternoon sessions. Tickets still available for Terry Pratchett and Jack Cohen on July 7th, Ian McEwan and AS Byatt also on July 7th, Suan Gritton, Iain Burnside and Ruth Padel on July 10th. Book now!
100+ volunteers enlisted. We still need a few more to serve those strawberries! Volunteers sign up here!
Your Vote Counts
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Our Images of Change photography competition drew in over a hundred submissions! So thank you to all those who sent in a photograph or two. The judging panel had a very difficult task shortlisting down to 25 and there are now 25 photographs on the Cambridge News Online website waiting for you to Vote for YOUR Favourite image.
The winning photographers will be invited to a prize-giving ceremony at the University Centre where their photographs will be on exhibition throughout the week of the Festival.
The Darwin Festival would like to thank: Cambridge News, Cambridge University Centre, Cambridge Photography and Illustration Service, Heffers, Jessops and Digital Camera Magazine for the prizes they have donated which include:
:: A day with a Cambridge University photographer, covering Congregation Day on July 18.
:: A tour of Cambridge News, including a look at their printing press.
:: Dinner for two at the Riverside Cafe.
:: A year’s free subscription to Digital Camera Magazine.
:: A £100 gift voucher for Heffers.
:: Two photo gift voucher packs from Jessops.
Darwin exhibition podcasts: now online
Visit www.darwinendlessforms.org/podcasts/ to see the first episode of The Fitzwilliam Museum's series of Darwin podcasts, launching today. In this episode Professor Jim Secord explores the 19th century's fascination with images of prehistoric Earth, and discusses Darwin's own early passion for geology.
Accompanying the exhibition Endless Forms: Charles Darwin, Natural Science and the Visual Arts (opens 16 June 09), these podcasts feature interviews with prominent scientists, historians, writers and Darwin specialists from Cambridge University and beyond, investigating topics as diverse as Darwin's student life, images of our ancestors, monkeys and the missing link, Darwin and female sexuality, and modern-day creationism. For more information on the exhibition, see www.darwinendlessforms.org
Darwin in the Field
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This two day conference will take place in Cambridge straight after the Darwin Festival on Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th July 2009. It will allow participants to explore different aspects of Darwin as a collector and an observer of the natural world. The programme of 12 speakers will illuminate the ways in which Charles Darwin used the various collections he made and the notebooks he kept to try to understand the World around him.
Further details are here:
http://www.sedgwickmuseum.org/about/news/090518_darwin_conference.html
Ruth Padel, named Oxford Poet Professor
Ruth Padel who is speaking in the afternoonfocus session Darwin on Stage and Darwin in Poetry on Wednesday July 8th, has been named Oxford Poet Professor. Ruth is also appearing on Friday July 10th at West Road Concert Hall in a special event, Life Laughs Onward: Darwin Music and Poetry. This event also features leading soprano, Susan Gritton and pianist, Iain Burnside. Tickets can be purchased for both events via the Festival registration and booking page.
Darwin in Cambridge
Darwin in Cambridge
a book by John van Wyhe
This is an excellent, well-illustrated and carefully researched book on many aspects of Charles Darwin's life while he was student here in Cambridge. Much new, previously unpublished, information is revealed and offers a much richer story of Darwin's intellectually formative years.
Available at Christ's College Porters' Lodge, The Sedgwick Museum Shop and the Fitzwilliam Museum Shop.
Price £5.00 (75 pages, and colour)
Images of Change - Deadline Extension
.jpg "Images Of Change - picture by Christopher Keate")
We are pleased to announce camera-owners have an extra weekend in which to catch those instances of change through the digital lens.
If you've not had time to get out with your camera yet, now's your chance. The deadline for submissions to Cambridge News Online for the Images of Change photography competition has now been extended from Tuesday 19 May to Sunday 31 May. This gives you the summer May bank holiday weekend to really get serious and take that winning photograph.
We have some cool prizes donated by local and national businesses and don't forget, the winning photographs will be printed and mounted for a two-week-long exhibition at the University Centre.
So get your camera out and get that photograph submitted.
Why aren't the social sciences Darwinian
The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) is hosting the Why aren't the social sciences Darwinian? conference from Thursday, 14 May to Saturday, 16 May
On Thursday 14 May, 17.00-18.00, Michael Tomasello from the Max Planck Institute will give the opening keynote lecture, The human adaptation for culture.
The lecture is open to the public and registration is not necessary. It will take place at the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge.
Further information about the lecture and the conference please visit CRASSH.
Stiff Competition?
.jpg "Images of Change - photograph by Alan Pototsky")
Calling all camera owners.
Show and share how you see Change.
Capture that image with your lens.
With so much change happening immediately around you, how will you remember how it was before?
Take a look at how others see Change.
International Cafe Scientifique April 28 2009
Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge, CB2 1QH.
This event is suitable for a general audience. It is free of charge, no booking is required.
Refreshments will be provided.
Please join us for another transworld discussion. Randal Keynes, Darwin's great great grandson will give a talk entitled Memories of the Beagle and Science at Home. The talk will be followed by a discussion facilitated by Quentin Cooper, presenter of Material World, Radio 4. The audience in Cambridge will be joined by one in Chile by video conference link.
Festival Fringe
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Do YOU fit the description of any of the following:
Carnival performer, walkabout magician, street entertainer, parade band/musician, individual performer or a group of performers?
If the answer is YES then the Darwin 2009 Festival Fringe would like to hear from you.
We are looking for a diverse range of street entertainers to participate in a big-bang Darwin 2009 Festival Fringe opening parade in Cambridge on the 5th July, and individuals and groups with a 30-45 minute act that is suitable or can be adapted to an outdoors performance space to be part of our exciting and one-off Festival Fringe. Ideally your act will be Darwin-related or have an evolution, change, development theme to it.
All performers/entertainers will be able to entertain the public with lively, stimulating and safe activities/spectacles/theatre regardless of weather conditions.
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This is a great opportunity for performers to air new work, work-in-progress, excerpts and adaptations in the informal but wonderfully picturesque outdoors in the middle of Cambridge City Centre, during its busy tourist season.
The Festival Fringe runs from Sunday 5-Friday 10 July, kicking off at 12:30 and finishing around 16:00 each day.
Please email a brief summary of your/your group background, practice and experience together with a short synopsis of your act and/or show to the Darwin 2009 Fringe Festival Manager at darwin@cambridge.org with Darwin 2009 Festival Fringein the subject box.
Deadline June 1st. No entries will be accepted after this deadline.
Photos: by kind permission of City Centre Management, Cambridge City Council
top right - Kenneth Lightfoot
bottom left - Umdumo Wesizwe
Images of Change
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To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of his Origin of Species in an even broader perspective with an even wider audience, the Darwin 2009 Festival has joined forces with Cambridge News Online and Cambridge News to invite mid Anglia's budding photographers, to taker a closer look at their environment, their world, and capture the essence of Change through the lens. The winning entries from the competition, Images of Change, will be featured in an exhibition which will run from 25 June to 13 July at the University Centre with an award ceremony during the Festival (5-10 July), and they will also be featured on the Cambridge News Online website and in all Cambridge News publications.
There are two categories for entries - adults (18 and over), and young people (under-18s) - and when the judges have shortlisted the best ones, they will be posted on the Cambridge News website, so that readers can vote for the ones they like best.
Entries for the competition are open now - so start clicking away. The deadline for entries has been extended to May 31st.
Welcome to the Charles Darwin & Evolution website
A group of students, mainly undergraduates from Christ's College, have created and recently launched this website about Charles Darwin and Evolution. The content includes articles on Darwin's life, evolution (how Darwin developed his idea, supporting evidence and case studies) and the impact and applications of evolutionary theory. Resources for teachers which will be available soon.
Visit the website.
School Group Bookings
Online booking for school groups will be available week commencing 16 February.
Group numbers per school are currently capped at 10 to allow as many schools as possible the opportunity to attend this momentous event.
There is a special Schools' Group Booking form for which teachers need to email the Festival Director at mg129@cam.ac.uk and request the link. If schools would like to book in more than 10, please provide details of exact numbers, including staff, and ages of students.
All tickets for the morning sessions are for the overflow venue.
Repeat bookings or bookings in excess of 10 people per school group, unless prior agreement has been received from the Festival Director, will be cancelled.
Prices per person are:
Full day - £12
Half day - £6
Refreshments, programme and Festival bag are not included. School groups are expected to bring their own refreshments. The teacher in charge of the group booking will receive notes for the session(s) they are attending prior to the event so that copies can be made for the students in advance.
Advertising in the Darwin 2009 Souvenir Programme
Why not send your business's message around the world in the Darwin 2009 Festival Souvenir Programme and/or via the Festival bag.
Businesses will be able to buy advertising space in the Festival's Souvenir Prorgramme which will be given to all participants attending the day events, and it will be sold at all evening events. The Souvenir Programme offers businesses a much wider spread and a longevity that neither daily, weekly, monthly nor quarterly publications are able to offer. It will be taken back to all corners of the globe, and read and used by a broad spectrum of people, for a wide range of reasons, over a much longer span of time.
Alternatively or in addition, why not have a company leaflet inserted in the Festival bag which all day-session attendees, 700+, will receive when they register.
Information and booking/payment form will be available soon from the website's Registration & Booking page.
Exhibition space at the Darwin 2009 Festival
Exhibtion space in the foyer of the main Darwin 2009 Festival venue - West Road Concert Hall - will soon be available for organisations and individuals to hire during the week of this high-profile, international and prestigious event. We are expecting over 700 people per day to be passing through the exhibition area during the Festival, providing exhbitors with a target captive audience of leading academics, experts, researchers, entrepreneurs; students from 16+ and upwards; teachers and members of the public wanting to celebrate and know more about Darwin's impact on NOW and the future!
Information and booking/payment form will be available soon from the website's Registration and Booking paage.
It's Darwin's Birthday!
February 10th 2009, 6pm...well almost Darwin's birthday.
The Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, Fitzwilliam St.
The event is free. Refreshments will be provided.
Dr Colin Russell will give a short talk entitled The evolution of influenza viruses: seasonal flu and vacines. The talk will be followed by an informal discussion facilitated by Dr Chris Smith from the Naked Scientists radio show. The audience in Cambridge will be joined by one in Bulgaria via a video confernence link.
Colin Russell is actively involved in influenza vaccine strain selection and pandemic preparedness at the World Health Organisation. His work has been featured in New Scientist, National Geographic and the New York Times.
Chris Smith is a doctor and virologist. He set up the Naked Scientists radio show, web site and pod casts in his 'spare time'. He makes weekly appearances on ABC Radio National, Australia and on BBC Radio Five Live.
This event is a collaboration with the British Council Darwin Now programme.
Coming up in February 2009
Murrary Edwards College Film Festival
Friday 13th February 8pm: Flock of Dodos(PG) followed by Q&A with director Randy Olson
Saturday 14th February 3pm: Panel discussion on evolution and intelligent design.
Saturday 14th February 8pm: Inherit the Wind (U)
Free admission
The Voyage of Charles Darwin
Saturday 21st February 2:30pm - 3:30pm
To celebrate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday, the Sedgwick Museum presents the first performance of this one-man show by Geoff Hales. Suitable for adults and children ages 12 and up.
Admission is free of charge, but to guarantee places please email your request (including number of adults, number of children and children's ages) to fnea06@esc.cam.ac.uk . Places may be available on the day for last-minute bookings.
Launch of the 800th anniversary
The year long programme of events commences with bell ringing across the city centre.
Bookings Open Sunday 1st February 2009
For those who have been patiently waiting to book a day(s) and/or an individual morning or afternoon session(s) at the Darwin 2009 Festival, the wait will soon be finally over!
Online registration and booking for individual days and sessions will go live to the public on Sunday 1st February 2009.
The full-day rate is £60; this covers the morning and afternoon session, morning and afternoon tea/coffee and lunch.
The half-day rate is £35; this covers a morning or afternoon session and the appropriate tea/coffee refreshment.
Schools wishing to bring groups of up to 10 students to a full day or a session should register their interest/intent by completing the form.
If you are wanting to purchase full-week tickets, you are urged to do so before 1st February.
Transworld Discussion on Evolution
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There were not enough seats to go round
People flocked to hear Robert Foley's talk entitled Human Evolution, Past Present and Future. The audience in Cambridge was joined by one in Johannesburg by a live video link. People from both sides of the world asked about behaviour, climate, migration as well as other social and cultural issues.
This event was supported by the British Council Darwin Now programme http://www.britishcouncil.org/science-darwin.htm. The event forms part of the Darwin 2009 Festival and The Cambridge Festival of Ideas http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/communications/community/ideasfestival/
Play audio:
Darwin Young Poets at the Sedgwick Museum
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Another Darwin 2009 event took place on Saturday October 25th and involved performances of poetry written by a group of 14-16 year olds. The young poets spent two days in the Earth Science department where they attended presentations and talks focussing on Darwin the Geologist. In addition they attended intensive creative writing and performance workshops with London based poet, Jacob Sam La Rose. The event was a great success and plans are in place to keep the project running over the next year.
Next up is a talk by Rob Foley, director of the Leverhulme Centre for Evolutionary Studies, Fitzwilliam St. on October 30th at 7pm. The talk, entitled Human Evolution, Past, Present and Future, will be followed by a transworld discussion with audiences in Durban and Cape Town. This event is a collaboration between the Darwin 2009 Festival and the British Council Darwin Now programme.
Both of these events form part of the Cambridge Festival of Ideas.
Myriad Public Relations enlisted to help with PR and publicity
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Botanic Garden director John Parker (left) shows Andrew Aldridge and Mark Weaving of Myriad PR the differences in leaf form between two variants of beech tree
The Darwin 2009 Festival Organising committee has appointed Myriad Public Relations to help publicise and promote our wide programme of events.
The Ely-based agency will provide PR support for the festival as well as the many and varied Darwin-inspired events that Cambridge plays host to throughout 2009. It will also handle press enquiries.
Myriad was founded in 1989 and boasts a wide range of national and international bluechip clients, as well as working with companies and institutions across the East of England.
For all media enquiries relating to the festival, please email Andrew Aldridge at andrew.aldridge@myriadpr.com or telephone +44 (0) 1353 669939