The dodgiest ever bicycle ride

Hello friends! It’s very much back to school this week, and all the clever people are returning to lecture halls across the land to expand minds. 🧠 

Subjects of talks this week include how to get on with urban otters, the importance of data science and AI literacy, and one of the first programmable computers.

We also have nesting ospreys, some lunar comedy from Apollo 16, and a 1943 bike ride that became an annual celebration.

What will you discover this week?

This week’s kicks

(Note: Prices for events exclude booking fees where they apply.)

Monday 15 April

🪺 Check in on a pair of ospreys. Blue CJ7 and Blue 022 (yep, those really are their names) have returned to their nest in Poole Harbour, and at the time of send are preparing to lay the first of two to three eggs this year. (Last year, the first egg came on 21 April, going on to hatch on 29 May.)

✈️ Ospreys come to the UK around March, many having spent autumn and winter in west Africa. They build their nests, known as eyries, in high trees or cliffs near water, and will return to the same nest each year.

📺 Stay tuned into the livestream to watch this expectant couple maintain their nest, occasionally flying in with a freshly caught fish, and for the comments: “Nice bit of nestoration there.”

😰 Can’t wait for the hatch? An osprey named Telyn laid her first egg hours before the send of this newsletter. Tune into her progress, and the occasional picture-in-picture action of her partner Idris, in this livestream by the Dyfi Osprey Project.

Tuesday 16 April

⚕️Adapting to life in the liver: An immune cell perspective, virtual event held by UCL, 17.00, free: Dr Laura Pallett discusses how factors including location and environment affect the function of immune cells in the liver.

🎛️ MEOM: Ukraine’s Iron Curtain computer, its pioneers, and their legacy, virtual event held by The National Museum of Computing, 18.30, £2.50: Yurii Yushchenko and Oleksandr Bezrukavyi discuss MEOM (also known as MESM), one of Europe’s first programmable stored-program computers, and its influence on computer architecture.

Wednesday 17 April

🦦 The return of the smooth-coated otter to Singapore, virtual event held by the Linnean Society, 12.30, free: Professor Sivasothi N tells the story of smooth-coated otters’ return to Singapore after a decades-long absence, and the ongoing efforts to allow them to live safely and peacefully alongside city folk.

📼 Watch a family of otters run their Singapore neighbourhood – stopping traffic, enjoying the local cuisine and being totally unfazed by the city’s canine inhabitants – in this clip from BBC Earth.

Thursday 18 April

🛰️ An update on the James Webb Telescope, virtual event held by the Institute of Physics, 19.30, free: Sophie Allan takes a look at some of the most stunning images from the biggest space telescope ever made and explains the science behind them.

🎮 Build your own satellite and decide what space phenomena to study in this game by NASA. Because the best kind of fun is educational.

🌔 🦁 The Moon nudges a lion. At around 11pm, if you’re still up and out, look high in the southern sky to see the Moon nestling into the spring constellation Leo.

👀 Urban dwellers should be able to pick out its brightest two stars: Regulus, at the lion’s ‘chest’, and Denebola, at its ‘tail’. Those treated to darker skies will be able to make out the backwards question mark of Leo’s head.

Friday 19 April

🚁 Throwback, 2021: The first powered, controlled flight on another planet. After landing on Mars just a couple of months before, NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter completed its first flight – quite the feat given Mars’ atmosphere is so thin (1% the thickness of Earth’s), and oh, and did I mention that it flew itself?

🫡 It was carrying a small swatch of fabric from the wings of the Wright Brothers’ Flyer 1 – the first heavier-than-air aircraft to achieve powered flight – which flew in 1903.

⛔ Ingenuity’s mission ended in January when it damaged its rotors during an emergency landing. Over its lifetime, it had flown 72 times, and 14 times further than expected. Watch its first historic flight as seen from its mission partner, the Perseverance rover.

Saturday 20 April

💾 Do data deceive or inform?, hybrid event held by the Royal Institution, 19.00, from £5: Emma McCoy, professor of statistics at the London School of Economics, sheds light on the importance of data science and AI literacy as the world becomes increasingly digital.

Sunday 21 April

🚀 Throwback, 1972: Apollo 16 lands on the Moon. Watch astronaut Charles Duke hammer a core tube into the lunar surface (presumably to collect a sample), drop the hammer, and the situation that unfolds as he tries to retrieve it.

We need answers

Last week I asked:

The answer is the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD.

Hofmann first synthesised LSD back in 1938, but it was only after accidentally absorbing the substance through his skin on that day in 1943 when he discovered that duuuude the world is so small…

Three days later, he tried a larger dose before taking a sketchy bike ride home, an event recognised as the first ever intentional acid trip and celebrated each year on Bicycle Day.

Until next week...

US patent 3,541,541, titled an “X-Y position indicator for a display system”, covers what common object?

Answer comes next week. See you then! x