Is there life on Europa?

Hello, friends!

Buckling under a deadline today so I’m keeping it super brief. Let’s go!

🍿 online lectures and talks 🐧

Tuesday 1 October

CERN70 official ceremony: inspiring the future, online event by CERN, 13.30, free: Everyone’s favourite nuclear research facility turned 70 yesterday – tune in tomorrow afternoon for this look back at its greatest hits and vision for the future.

NASA Science Live: Could Jupiter’s moon Europa support life?, online event by NASA, 20.00, free: Join NASA’s experts discuss the agency’s Europa Clipper mission, which will peer under the ocean moon’s icy crust. You can also ask your questions, such as: is there going to be life under there, and if we find there is, how will we, like, *cope* with us not being the only ones any more? (Also, what would the ice taste like?)

Wednesday 2 October

Urban fluid dynamics for sustainable and healthy cities, hybrid event by Imperial College, 17.30, free: Professor Maarten van Reeuwijk discusses the importance of air movement in cities – which plays a role in air quality, thermal comfort and sustainability – in keeping us urbanites healthier and our cities more energy efficient. In his inaugural lecture, van Reeuwijk demonstrates how high-res simulations of outdoor environments can help us understand urban air flow, and eventually deliver cities that work better.

Do microbes have immune systems?, hybrid event by Gresham College, 18.00, free: Professor Robin May is pretty up on his microbes, which is a good thing for us as he’s the Chief Scientific Adviser at the Food Standards Agency. In this lecture he invites us to peer into the Petri dish to discover the diverse immune mechanisms that bacteria, amoebae, nematodes and other microbes use to defend themselves against viruses and each other.

Women’s bodies and work, hybrid event by the Wellcome Collection, 19.00, free: This panel discussion, inspired by classicist Helen King’s book Immaculate Forms, considers the complicated history of women and their bodies in the context of the workplace. Panellists King, doctor and activist Annabel Sowemino and visual artist Emma Smith share their research and lived experience in relation to topics including black women’s bodies, reproductive health and birth trauma.

Friday 4 October

Moulds, mushrooms, and medicines: our lifelong relationship with fungi, online event by the Linnean Society, 18.00, free: As the air cools and it all gets a bit more moist, it’s only natural to start getting a craving for the mycological (no? Just me?). In this talk, mycologist Nicholas Money celebrates the beautiful, if complicated, relationship between human and fungus, touching on the gut microbiome, fungal toxins and magic mushrooms. He shoots, he spores.

🔭 in a sky near you… 🪐

At 6pm on Saturday (5 October), look south west, just above the horizon, to see if you can make out Venus hanging above an extremely fine waxing crescent Moon. (In case you’ve still got Venus to mark on your planet bingo card. (Hey, I should make those.))

👀 closer to Earth 🍄

With all this wet, see if you can find some giant puffballs while you’re out. These mottled white orbs, which can grow to the size of footballs (and beyond!), grow in woodland edges and grass verges, and each can pump out trillions (check out biology getting all astronomical) of spores.

💫 we need answers

Last week, I asked:

The answer is… diabetes. Diabetes’ full name is diabetes mellitus, with diabetes being the Greek for ‘siphon’ (or ‘to pass through’), and mellitus being the Latin for ‘sweet’. I checked, and there are a *lot* of stories of ye olde doctors quaffing the yellow stuff, which I might relate next week when it’s all a bit less deadliney. Thanks for bearing with me.

See you next week! x