Month: April 2022

Working Towards Sustainable Science Practices: The Sustainable Research Symposium

Leave a reply Jonny Hankins

Last year I wrote about the Green Labs project in the Netherlands, and as a follow up I am going to attend their upcoming Sustainable Research symposium.

The Sustainable Research Symposium 2022 will be held on May 19th between 9am – 3pm CET at the Princess Maxima Center, Utrecht Science Park in the Netherlands and can be followed online.

The symposium is a unique free symposium about sustainable research which can be followed in person or virtually. It was organized for the first time in 2021 and this year the honour falls to Green Labs. More details in my post from last year:

A Look at the Green Labs NL Project

The program covers topics such as innovative ideas to increase sustainability in research, sustainability criteria in research funding, environmentally responsible conferencing and more!

Time table:

08:50 – Welcome and introduction
09:00 – Session 1: Current state of sustainability in science & future outlook

  • 09:00 – Nikoline Borgermann – Ava Sustain
  • 09:20 – Sustainable European Laboratories network (SELs)
  • 09:35 – Hannah Johnson – Green Labs Netherlands
  • 09:50 – Klimaatgesprekken 
  • 10:10 – Marlène Bartes – European Commission, MSCA Green Charter

10:30 – Coffee break
11:00 – Session 2: Innovative ideas to increase sustainability in research or industry

  • 11:00 – PAN Biotech
  • 11:15 – Loic Lannelongue – University of Cambridge, UK
  • 11:30 – Jan Heidelberger – Max Planck School Matter to Life, Heidelberg, Germany
  • 11:45 – UNI-ECO
  • 12:00 – Daniela Farina – LEAF implementation

12:15 – Pitch your idea

Short pitches of ideas how to increase sustainability in science selected from submitted abstracts

12:30 – Lunch and poster session

Poster presentations selected from submitted abstracts

13:45 – Session 3: Panel discussion: How to make scientific conferences more sustainable?

Jeroen Dobbelaere – Max Perutz Labs, Vienna, Austria
Viktoria Lamprinaki – Company of Biologists

14:45 – Closing
15:00 – Networking event

Registration is free for both the in-person and online participation. Further details are available through the symposium website.

See you there!

Holograms (Pepper’s Ghost) in Politics

Leave a reply Jonny Hankins

Pepper’s Ghost

I know it wasn’t really a hologram but the use of some old technology called Pepper’s Ghost, but that is a mere technicality I feel. This week, and not for the first time in his political career, French Presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon conducted 12 simultaneous political rallies using what the press describe as hologram technology.

Mélenchon employed an optical illusion known as “Pepper’s Ghost,” where a 2D image is projected onto a thin film or pane of glass to give the impression that the speaker is actually present, the same technology used when Tupac Shakur (who was already dead) joined Snoop Dogg on stage more than 10 years ago.

There have been lots of concerts since then, Roy Orbison, for the rock and rollers, Whitney Houston for pop lovers and Maria Calla touring with a full orchestra for the opera lover in you. But the use of this technology has also raised some questions. Although the owners of the estates of these dead stars might agree to allow such a concert, it remains impossible to ask the artist themselves if they agree with this form of exploitation.

Politics

Which brings me back into the political arena. A politician can conduct a rally in as many cities as they would like, projecting an image and sound and have an interactive event, but they could also host guest conversations if they liked. A conversation with Winston Churchill? A short scripted introduction from Gandhi? What other uses might come to mind? And what might the implications be for the democratic process?

The availability of new techniques easily makes (the illusion of) 3D possible, and readers might like to look up Cheoptics or Musion Eyeliner to get some ideas of what is commercially available today. Easily transportable systems designed for touring are available, so I am not suggesting something that would be logistically difficult to do.

It seems a small step to move from using your own candidate to introducing iconic historical political figures on stage, but not an unproblematic one.