Past Events & Lectures

Cafe Scientifique and Cafe Humanities

 Past Lectures 

Spring 2009

2009 Lucy Cranwell Lecture

Lessons from the Coastal Wetlands of Great Barrier Island 
John Ogden

Associate Professor (Forest Ecology)
School of Geography and Environmental Science
University of Auckland

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 7pm
Auckland Museum Auditorium
In association with the Auckland Botanical Society

The wetlands of New Zealand represent a series of unique ecosystems and also act as repositories of information about the past. Associate Professor John Ogden from the University of Auckland will talk about the vital processes involved in shifting a landscape from marine to coastal wetland and then to alluvial plain with special reference to Kaitoke swamp and Whangapoua Estuary on Great Barrier Island. Plant colonisation will be illustrated and historical changes on the wetlands described using palynology and the final discussion will focus on the environmental effects of drainage and describe the need to recognise the role of wetland systems in coastal hydrology and carbon sequestration.

John Ogden’s research specialises in forest dynamics and dendrochronology (the dating of past events by looking at tree rings), but with strong interests in wetlands. He was awarded a DSc from the University of Wales (where he did his PhD) and is a fellow of The Royal Society of New Zealand.  John has now spent 20 years working on the wetlands of Great Barrier Island. 

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Winter 2009

2009 RSNZ Leonard Cockayne Memorial Lecture:

A DNA Story of New Zealand Plants
Professor Peter Lockhart FRSNZ

Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution Institute of Molecular Biosciences
Massey University, Palmerston North
Wednesday, July 8
7pm
Auckland Museum Auditorium
The fossil records of plants and their pollen have long been recognised as a kind of black box recorder or diary for the evolutionary history of New Zealand. Its interpretation has been corroborated only recently through reading the stories in DNA. This voice was unknown to Leonard Cockayne, who lamented when writing his famous story of New Zealand plants that "Perhaps, ..could they speak, we might learn.." He would be amazed at what we can learn from studying the genes and genomes of living plants. Peter Lockhart’s talk will outline some of the recent discoveries and describe how new sequencing technologies are being used to further our understanding of the nature and future of New Zealand plant species.

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2009 Royal Society of New Zealand Rutherford Lecture

Reminiscences of a Lifetime in Fibrous Proteins
Professor David Parry FRSNZ
Massey University, Palmerston North

Wednesday, June 10

Most of the human body is made up of water so what keeps this medium in place and gives us our overall form and shape? Why does light enter our eyes and allow us to see what we are doing and where we are going? Why are we covered in hair? The presentation will be framed in terms of the people and events that have shaped Professor Parry’s personal life and scientific career. It will provide an unusual opportunity and insight into what makes a scientist “tick”.

The Rutherford Medal is the highest award instituted by the Royal Society of New Zealand at the request of the Government to recognise exceptional contributions to any field of science, mathematics, social science, or technology. The 2008 Rutherford Medal was awarded to Distinguished Professor David Parry CNZM FRSNZ, Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North in recognition of his world-leading studies on fibrous proteins.  

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Autumn 2009

Black Hole Horizons 

Dr Fulvio Melia
Professor of Physics and Astronomy
University of Arizona

Wednesday, May 20

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy and Professor Fulvio Melia is the keynote speaker at the 2009 Royal Astronomical Conference in Wellington.  Professor Melia works on the astrophysics of cosmic phenomena at high energies, including supermassive black holes, relativistic particle acceleration, and the nature of the cosmological space-time. He is especially known for work on the Galactic center, developing a theoretical understanding of the central supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A*. More recently, he has started to explore the properties of the cosmological space-time, focusing on the significance of our cosmic horizon. A key question he is addressing with this analysis concerns the nature of dark energy”.

His latest publication Cracking the Einstein Code is due for release this year and is the story of how New Zealand astrophysicist and mathematician Roy Kerr and his fellow general relativists finally solved Einstein’s previously unfathomable equations of general relativity.

Sponsored by: The Embassy of the United States of America; Physics Department, University of Auckland; Auckland Astronomical Society.

Summer 2008

2008 Royal Society of New Zealand Distinguished Speaker

Professor C Mary Rutherford Fowler

Earth Sciences Department,
Royal Holloway, University of London

“Rutherford in the 21st Century”

Thursday 20 November

MARY FOWLER is Professor of Geophysics in the Earth Sciences Department at Royal Holloway, University of London which she led from 2002 to 2008.  She is from a scientific family: her father Peter Fowler was Royal Society Research Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol, his father was Ralph Fowler, the Plummer Professor of Theoretical Physics at Cambridge, who was married to Eileen, Ernest Rutherford’s only child.  In this lecture Professor Mary Fowler, Rutherford's great-granddaughter, assesses his legacy.  The discoveries made by Ernest Rutherford and his colleagues played a major part in shaping the 20th century.  The impact was far beyond science and not only in the high politics of war and power - the new understanding of the atom underpins much of what we now do in our daily life.

Spring 2008

Ancient NZ Moth

BOTANY

2008 Lucy Cranwell Lecture
In association with the Auckland Botanical Society

 The Origin of New Zealand’s Flora: How Much Do We Really Know?

Wednesday, 1 October

Dr George Gibbs
Scientist and Author

As the distinguished historical biogeographer Gareth Nelson once wrote ‘explain New Zealand and the rest of the world falls into place’ (Nelson, 1975).  Despite the efforts directed towards this question, science is still far from a satisfactory answer.  The suggestion from some geologists that perhaps there was no emergent land here 23 million years ago has stimulated fresh interest in the question of origins.  Our plants tend to support the ‘drowning’ hypothesis, but many of our characteristic animals do not.  Is there a consensus in sight? 

MARINE CONSERVATION

The New Zealand IPY-CAML voyage to the Ross Sea, Antarctica

Tuesday, 23 September

Dr Stuart Hanchet
NIWA, Nelson

On 31 January 2008 New Zealand commenced one of the largest ever marine research voyages into the Ross Sea region in support of the International Polar Year Census of Antarctic Marine Life (IPY-CAML). The 50 day voyage on NIWA’s research vessel Tangaroa involved an extensive survey of marine organisms from viruses to blue whales in depths from the surface down to 3500 metre.  The NIWA research vessel, the Tangaroa, recently returned from an eight-week voyage to the Antarctic.  Twenty-three national and international scientists were part of the on-board team.  Samples of living organisms from the sea floor to the sea surface have been collected and images captured down to 4000m, including in areas previously unexplored.  This talk will give provide an opportunity to hear first-hand about the voyage and some of the preliminary findings.  It will be illustrated by still and video footage of images never screened before.

GEOLOGY 

2008 Geological Society Hochstetter Lecture

Sponsored by the Geological Society of New Zealand

Tuesday, 16 September

Learning from Lahars: New Insights from the March and September Flows at Ruapehu

Dr Vern Manville
GNS Science (Wairakei Research Centre).

The Hochstetter Lecturer is chosen each year by the Geological Society of New Zealand and must present recently completed and largely unpublished findings. This year’s speaker, Dr Vern Manville has been with GNS for 12 years, arriving the week of the onset of the 1995 Ruapehu eruption.  He will speak about last years lahars at Ruapehu, which had been brewing for over 10 years giving scientists enough warning to install a huge array of monitoring instruments.  Findings are already informing improvements in systems for detecting and mitigating against future lahar hazards at Ruapehu, and overseas.

CONSERVATION WEEK

RSNZ 2008 Charles Fleming Lecture
In association with the RSNZ

Wednesday, 10 September

Science for Conservation

Professor Mick Clout
Centre for Biodiversity and Biosecurity
University of Auckland

Invasive alien species are now considered to be one of the most serious threats to natural ecosystems and native species worldwide, and in isolated archipelagos such as New Zealand, the threat is particularly serious.  Active conservation and direct intervention are urgently required.  This talk will use a series of examples to illustrate how ecological science can help with the practical business of conservation.

Winter 2008

Grave Secrets of the Dinosaurs

Sunday, August 3rd, 2pm

Dr  Phillip Lars Manning
Lecturer in Palaeontology & Research  Fellow
School of Earth, Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences
The  Manchester Museum
University of Manchester

Dr Manning is an author and has also made documentaries with the BBC, National Geographic (Dino-Autopsy this past Christmas) and Discovery Channels.  This was a family lecture, investigating the story of a 65-million-year-old hadrosaur mummy discovered in the Hell Creek Badlands of North Dakota in 1999, and the NASA technology used to understand its secrets.

Autumn 2008

The Smithsonian in 1865 

Darcy Nicholas

 Place in the Museum Space: The Smithsonian Museum and NZ Cultural Institutions

 May, 2008
 Professor Sally Gregory Kohlstedt,
University of Minnesota
and Darcy Nicholas,
General Manager of Community Services for Porirua City Council
Chaired by Assoc. Professor Linda Tyler
Director of the Centre for New Zealand Art Research and Discovery
Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland

In a shared lecture facilitated by Associate Professor Linda Tyler, the influence of cultural institutions on historic and contemporary culture will be explored.

Professor Gregory Kohlstedt, visited New Zealand as a Fulbright Fellow in the History Department at the University of Auckland to co-teach a course with Associate Professor Ruth Barton.  The second part of the lecture was delivered by Darcy Nicholas, General Manager of Community Services for Porirua City Council, and responsible for the development of the Pataka Museum in Porirua.

 Consumption and Happiness - In Association with the RSNZ

Professor Sir Brian Heap CBE ScD FRS
St Edmund’s College, Cambridge, UK 

April, 2008
This was a rare opportunity to hear from a leading European academic and policy advisor as he visits New Zealand.  A biologist, whose main current research interest is in the area of sustainable consumption and production and environmental policy, Professor Sir Brian Heap, works with the British Government’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.  He also chairs a group of European academics working on the future of energy in Europe, including studies on managing energy use and demand, with long term research projects on the generation of power using nuclear fusion.

In this lecture, he addressed the problem of unsustainable patterns of consumption and production; the Western drive to consume despite the relatively low impact such consumption has been shown to have on individual well-being and happiness.  

 Guido Reni   (1575-1642)
St Sebastian  c.1618.
oil on canvas, 167 by 127.6 cm
Mackelvie Trust Collection
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Gift of James Tannock Mackelvie, 1882

 Painting for the Papacy in 16th and 17th Century Rome and the Mackelvie Collection

Mary Kisler, Mackelvie Curator of International Art, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
April, 2008


Mary Kisler has been the Mackelvie Curator of International Art at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki since 1998. Touching on the careers of Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, particular attention was given to Guido Reni's, "Saint Sebastian", part of the Mackelvie Trust Collection at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki, which has been the subject of extensive research by Mary.

 Summer 2007/2008

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 Metazoa - Art and Technology: Where New Worlds Meet

Presentation by Angela Main 
March , 2008
Angela Main's work Metazoa was installed at the Museum and is a game of evolution, where 500 million years is distilled into less than seven minutes.  Participants are required to physically move and engage with the on-screen character their bodies are mobilizing and also with each other as they move through seven evolutionary stages. 

PANEL DISCUSSION 

Being a New Zealander

In association with the RSNZ and the Council for the Humanities

February, 2008

The Council for the Humanities awards two Humanities Awards each year to winners of their writing competition for Year 12 and 13 secondary school students. In 2007 the topic was “Being a New Zealander”. As the New Year begins, the Institute invited a group of thinkers/writers to discuss this concept further. The panel discussion was held in association the RSNZ who sponsored Jo Randerson’s appearance.

Panelists were: James Griffin, Rod Oram, Jo Randerson, Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal, Tamasailau Suaalii-Sauni and Gilbert Wong (panelist and facilitator).

 Spring 2007

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Beyond the farm and the theme park

In association with the RSNZ

Professor Paul Callaghan FRS, FRSNZ the Royal Society of New Zealand Distinguished Speaker 
November, 2008

Converting most of our forest into greenhouse gas has given us an abundance of grass and a thriving dairy industry. Yet through good fortune and some wise heads, we have, notwithstanding attempts to subdue it, sufficient residual natural environment to claim the label "clean and green". In association with the Royal Society of New Zealand, the Auckland Museum Institute and Auckland Museum.

Click to go to www.hotscience.co.nz  for a video recording of the lecture.

Darwin and Medicine

Prof Peter Gluckman FRS
Director of the Liggins Institute
Professor of Paediatric and Perinatal Biology University of Auckland
November, 2007

The research activity undertaken by Prof Gluckman and colleagues at The University of Auckland’s Liggins Institute is based around the concept that environmental effects during foetal life influence adult health. He has recently published Mismatch - Why our World No Longer Fits Our Bodies.

Evolution Wars: Science and Religion in Darwin's Century

Assoc. Prof. John Stenhouse Department of History, University of Otago
October, 2007

Many believe that Darwin's Origin of Species triggered all-out warfare between science and religion. By revisiting some of the key players, incidents and issues, this lecture endeavours to show what is wrong with this traditional 'science-versus-religion' interpretation, illustrating the value of the newer, contextual approaches to the history of science-and-religion by reference to the evolution debates in New Zealand.

Darwinian Biogeography: Has it stood the test of time?

Dr George Gibbs, Senior Research Associate School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University
October, 2007

The burgeoning science of historical biogeography, which has taken over where Darwin left off, has lifted New Zealand into the limelight as the most challenging place in the world to explain. Dr Gibbs was the Montana Book Awards 2007 Environment Finalist for Ghosts of Gondwana: The History of Life in New Zealand.

The Mathematics of Evolution

Prof Ian Stewart FRS, Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick, UK

October, 2007

Darwin’s theory of evolution is widely recognised as one of the key ideas in biology. It is less well known that evolution has also inspired a number of developments in mathematics, through attempts to model the evolutionary process and to understand some of its more puzzling features. The lecture focused on the problem of the evolution of new species---or, as Darwin put it, "The Origin of Species".

Click on image to view Lecture notes 

ANTARCTIC REPORT 2007

 South Pole to North Cape - Antarctica's Influence on New Zealand's and the World's Oceans

Prof. Lionel Carter, FRSNZ, Marine Geology, Victoria University

Sept 2007   

Using imagery and animations, we will explore how Antarctica shapes the world’s oceans and climate, emphasizing its influence on the New Zealand region. 

Biography Through Bookplates - Every Picture Tells a Story

Ian Thwaites, Former Auckland Museum Librarian and Author

September, 2007

Former Auckland Museum Librarian Ian Thwaites is also a bookplate expert and ex-Libris Society member.  Ian Thwaites will give a lecture on bookplates to coincide with the Pictorial Gallery Bookplate exhibition. 

 Winter 2007

Science in Society: The Use and Misuse of Technology

Professor Lord Robert Winston, University of Auckland Hood Fellow 2007
August 2007

Robert Winston believes that the future of any society depends on its use of scientific knowledge. Public engagement with science therefore, is vital. It is largely scientific understanding that has led to the development of modern technologies which have the potential to change the way we live in this world. These technologies are opening the way for huge improvements in our health, our food supplies and our capacity to generate wealth. Misused, however, they could change the very fabric of life by taking us past natural boundaries and leading to irreversible change.

Whale Tales of the South Pacific and the Bahamas

Nan Daeschler Hauser, President and Director of the Centre for Cetacean Research and Conservation
Principal Investigator of the Cook Islands Whale Research Project
Director of the Cook Islands Whale Education Centre
August, 2007

Nan Hauser works in Rarotonga where she has undertaken studies on the biology, behaviour, and ecology of a variety of cetaceans for the past 10 years. She was a key player in the creation of a 2 million square kilometer whale sanctuary in the waters of the Cook Islands. This was a family lecture.

RSNZ Leonard Cockayne Lecture: Birds in Paradise 

The Role of Birds in Shaping New Zealand’s Terrestrial Biodiversity
Dr William G. Lee, Landcare Research, Dunedin
August, 2007 (Conservation Week)

The native birds of New Zealand are highly unusual in several respects. They have dominated terrestrial ecosystems for millions of years in the near absence of mammals, and have evolved some extraordinary life-history features.

The Lucy Cranwell Lecture for 2007: Thomas Frederick Cheeseman

Ewen K Cameron, Curator of Botany, Auckland Museum 
August, 2007
Sponsored by the Auckland Botanical Society and Auckland Museum

Ewen Cameron manages the Museum herbarium and specialises in the northern New Zealand vascular flora. He discussed Cheeseman's many botanical accomplishments.

 Autumn 2007

Propaganda: Then and Now

Nicky Hager, Author

May, 2007

The WB Sutch propaganda poster exhibition Towards the Precipice is a collection of Spanish, German, British and Soviet posters from the period 1935 to 1942. To coincide with this exhibition, Nicky Hager,author of The Hollow Men: A Study in the Politics of Deception discussed the characteristics of propaganda and its origins, and provided examples of modern day propaganda that have had an effect on New Zealand society.Read entire notes

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Members' Saturday

Behind the Scenes - the Natural History Collections
Diversity and Variation – Understanding Evolutionary Pathways

Saturday 27 October, 2007
10.30am Registration
Session times: 11am, 12pm and 1.30pm (Lunch at 12.45pm)
The workshops are free, but if members would like to include a catered lunch the cost will be $15 per person.

What is a species? How are collections important? Using New Zealand examples and spending time with Curators in their own collection areas, the focus was evolutionary diversity and variation.

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 Past Field Trips

Otuataua Stonefields Members Field Trip

Sunday, October 19
Otuataua Stonefields Historic Reserve is an important archaeological site where one can see clearly how people used to live and interact with their environment.  Apart from signs of successive human habitation, visitors can also explore aspects of the volcanic history of the area and see examples of the native cucumber and the last remnants of Auckland's forests of titoki and kanuka.  Auckland Museum Curator Botany, Ewen Cameron, discovered the native cucumber (mawhai) there in 1991 and will lead the field trip with geologist Bruce Hayward, principal scientist, Geomarine Research.

 Institute Field Trip to Motutapu

Sunday 16 March 2008
Members enjoyed the opportunity to join the Motutapu volunteers and help on this far reaching conservation project. 

Flinders Ranges: Geology, History, Flora & Fauna Tour, South Australia 2008

September 1 - 12, 2008

This field trip is now underway, with members beginning their tour on September 1st.  We look forward to hearing about this and seeing some more stunning images when they return.

Past Previews

Preview Wonderland: Mystery of the Orchid

Saturday, July 4th, 2009

Family members enjoyed a special opening of Wonderland with a children's activity.
 

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South Pole to North Cape - Antarctica's Influence on New Zealand's and the World's Oceans