Imagining alternative futures | new book from Tim Corballis

Our Future is in the Air is the latest novel by Wellington author and Science in Society lecturer Dr Tim Corballis. The novel explores an alternative history of the 1970s, triggered by time-travel technology.  Lorraine Taylor talked to Tim about about his new book, his work and the ability of science fiction to ask the […]

Welcome back to Café Scientifique

After a year’s break the Wellington meeting of Café Scientifique has started with two successful events in July and August. Jesse Bering, a Dunedin based American evolutionary psychologist, in Wellington to talk to students of CREW352: Creative Science Writing, packed out VK’s Comedy Bar in Dixon Street with his favourite research topics: sex, death and […]

Dispatches from 2016

It’s July! Over half way through 2016, and it’s been a busy time.  Rebecca has launched a new book Dispatches from Continent Seven and Rhian has grown her engagement team for the Deep South National Science Challenge. BOOK LAUNCH Rebecca’s new book Dispatches from Continent Seven: An Anthology of Antarctic Science was launched in March […]

New ‘Antarctica Online’ Course

Following Rebecca and Cliff’s successful trip to Antarctica in December 2014, the Science in Society team have been working hard to put together a new fully online course called ‘Antarctica Online’. The course features lectures that were filmed on the ice and examines contemporary Antarctic scientific research, placing it in a wider scientific, historical, social and […]

HeLa play: Henrietta Lacks comes to New Zealand

The University of Otago, Wellington, in partnership with the Science in Context group at Victoria University of Wellington, the British Council of New Zealand and Made in Scotland, is delighted to be hosting and sponsoring a theatrical performance of HeLa, an internationally award-winning one person play currently being toured through New Zealand. Coming all the […]

Art, Science, and Theatre: three events coming up

Rebecca and I are excited to be involved with three upcoming events that explore the relationship between art and science, and public engagement with science. On Saturday, October 11th, we’re both taking part in Breaking Ice: art-science symposium, part of NZ IceFest in Christchurch. In this one day public symposium, 15 leading artists, scientists and […]

“The secrets of life, the universe and everything”

Earlier this year (March 2014) Rebecca chaired An evening with Marcus Chown, one of the New Zealand Listener Late Sessions at the NZ Festival. The event promotion promised Marcus would reveal the “secrets of life, the universe and everything – in just one hour”. A tall order! Marcus was great – an astrophysicist, writer of […]