New MRes in Animal Behaviour at Newcastle University

The Centre for Behaviour and Evolution, Newcastle University, announces a new Masters programme in Animal Behaviour starting September 2010. This is a one-year programme providing a broad training in contemporary behavioural research. Students complete a selection of taught modules and a major independent project under the supervision of a member of the Centre.

For further details, check out www.ncl.ac.uk.

SciTalk: Connecting Scientists and Writers

Most of us will have been irritated at times by the grossly inaccurate depictions of scientists in novels that leap off the shelves of airport bookstalls - but it's up to us as scientists to do something about it, and take control of our own image in fiction.

SciTalk is a project to help fiction-writers meet with scientists. Its principal aim is to make possible personal contact between scientists and writers - playwrights, poets and novelists - one-to-one and face-to-face. To facilitate these contacts, a database and web site have been set up by novelist and former scientist Ann Lingard and physicist and information scientist Peter Normington, with NESTA (UK) support.

If you are a scientist who is intrigued by the idea of talking to a writer about what you do, how you do it, and what drives you on, then please register with SciTalk, and let writers know what you have to offer. You should be prepared to meet, and to show the writer where you work, so that he or she can experience the images, sounds (and smells) and learn the jargon, that are so important in lending credibility and a 'sense of place' to fiction.

SciTalk is all about enthusiasm and communication - and the fun and challenge of questioning others, and explaining what you do. Writers and scientists can both suffer from stereotypical images. If SciTalk helps fiction-writers to enjoy using science and to include scientists as believable characters - and helps scientists learn how writers work and what they mean by 'research' - then the project will have achieved success.

For further details contact: enquiries@scitalk.org.uk, or visit the web page at www.scitalk.org.uk. Supported by NESTA - the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, UK.

"I'm all for writers and scientists talking to one another. I've benefited a great deal from talking to - actually, much more from listening to - experts in various fields, and anything that helps put us all in touch with one another is excellent. Congratulations on coming up with such a good idea, and all power to it!"
Philip Pullman, novelist

"This is a great initiative. It will allow writers to get to know scientists as real human beings, and so portray scientific work in a fresh and vivid way. Just as importantly, it will give scientists an insight into both the curiosity and the concerns of non-scientists about work in the laboratory. It will be particularly valuable if it can open doors to scientists who are normally hidden from view."
Sir John Sulston, Nobel Laureate, FRS, and former Director of the Sanger Centre

"This is a great initiative of the kind that science education desperately needs ...It is vital to stoke the imaginations of writers -- and, through them, readers -- to understand the beauty and the massive impact of science on everyday life."
Professor Sir Harry Kroto, Nobel Laureate for his work on buckminster-fullerene

Italian Society for Evolutionary Biology

We are pleased to announce the birth of the Italian Society for Evolutionary Biology. The new society aims to encourage the teaching of evolutionary theory in all Italian schools and universities, and to defend it from the recent attacks of creationist movements. The society also aims to stimulate research in evolutionary biology by encouraging collaborations among Italian evolutionary biologists in Italy and abroad, and between Italian researchers and their foreign colleagues.

Membership of the society is open to everyone interested in evolutionary biology. For queries regarding membership, please contact the society's secretary Francesco Scalfari (scalfari@uni-astiss.it). Further information about the society is available at the temporary web site at:
http://web.unife.it/progetti/genetica/CongBiolEvol/.

Wolf Trust seeks contributors

Do you want your own wolves? I run the Wolf Trust, a charity for the understanding of wolves promoting a wolf reintroduction to the Scottish Highlands. We need land in the Scottish Highlands to open a Wolf Centre, complete with tame wolves, to pursue our aims. We need just a few acres and are raising £100,000. Can you contribute significantly in some way, e.g. land or money? Be our partner in the Trust!

More information available at our 150 page web site: http://www.wolftrust.org.uk/entrepreneurs.html, or contact Ben Panaman via email: info@wolftrust.org.uk.

Theoretical Primatology Project

You are invited to join the Theoretical Primatology Project (TPP), whose purpose is to advance and to disseminate knowledge of theoretical primatology, non-mathematical and, especially, mathematical, and other topics related to evolutionary primatology in order to advance the conceptual unification of primatology and the other biological sciences. TPP conceives its purpose broadly to cover research utilizing mathematical, including graphical and comparative, methods, formal logic, or computer simulation. Membership is free. Advantages of membership include: association and identification with other scientists interested in theory; quarterly receipt of the TPP Newsletter; and receipt of occasional research updates announcing publications or events of particular note. For further details, please see www.robertwilliams.org/tpp.