The Royal Society of Tasmania

The advancement of knowledge

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Evaluation of Climate Indices for Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Tasmanian Viticulture – Dr Andrew Pirie – 22 June 2014

Dr Andrew Pirie
MSc. Agr., PhD., Proprietor, Apogee Vineyard

will present

Evaluation of Climate Indices for Assessing Climate Change Impacts on Tasmanian Viticulture

in the Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk at 2.00 pm Sunday 22nd June 2014
Admission: $5 General Public, $3 Friends of the Museum, $2 Students
Free for members of The Royal Society of Tasmania

To assist us with the organization of this event
RSVP by Thursday 19th June 2014:
Email bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au or telephone 6323 3798

The world’s viticultural regions occupy a relatively narrow band of climates. This suggests that economic production from grapevines is relatively sensitive to regional climatic variation. Accordingly, climate change impacts on the world’s wine–producing areas are likely to be substantial. Growing season temperature (GST) is one index used for describing the temperature regime of wine regions and will be used to judge climate-change impacts on Tasmanian viticulture. Should there be 2.5 degrees Celsius of average global warming by 2050 years, a change in vine cultivars will be needed to maintain high standards of wine quality.

Dr Andrew Pirie qualified with MScAgr and PhD from the Department of Agronomy and Horticultural Science at the University of Sydney. His major academic interest has been vine physiological responses to the environment. Tasmania emerged from these studies as a potential high quality wine producing area in 1973, and in 1974 he and his brother David established Pipers Brook Vineyard in northern Tasmania, one of the first major plantations of the modern era of viticulture in Tasmania. Since then he has been CEO of Tamar Ridge Estates and a Research Associate at the University of Tasmania.

Vaccination: its Benefits, Risks and Problems of Community Acceptance – Dr Katie Flanagan – 25 May 2014

Dr Katie Flanagan,Head of Infectious Diseases Services, LGH, Senior Lecturer, Dept. of Immunology, Monash University will present

Vaccination, its Benefits, Risks and Problems of Community Acceptance

in the Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk
2.00 pm Sunday 25th May 2014
Admission: $5 General Public, $3 Friends of the Museum, $2 Students
Free for members of The Royal Society of Tasmania

To assist us with the organization of this event
RSVP by Thursday 22nd May 2014:
Email bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au or telephone 6323 3798

Dr Flanagan will briefly discuss the history of vaccination and describe how vaccines work. She will go on to describe epidemiological and scientific evidence for the benefits of vaccination, including their effects on immunity to other infections. She will describe risk in terms of adverse reactions to vaccines, including some of the more controversial issues that have been widely advertised in the media, some leading to a decrease in vaccine uptake. This will lead to a discussion regarding community acceptance of vaccination, some of the reasons for vaccine refusal, and the effects this is having on disease incidence throughout the world. Hopefully this talk will dispel some of the myths held by the general public, and provide the evidence base for modern day vaccination practices.

Dr Katie Flanagan, BA(Hons) MBBS DTM&H MA PhD CCST FRCP FRACP, leads the Infectious Diseases Service at Launceston General Hospital in Tasmania, and is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Dept of Immunology at Monash University in Melbourne. She obtained a degree in Physiological Sciences from Oxford University in 1988, and her MBBS from the University of London in 1992. She is a UK and Australia accredited Infectious Diseases Physician. She did a PhD in malaria immunology based at Oxford University (1997 – 2000). She was previously Head of Infant Immunology Research at the MRC Laboratories in The Gambia from 2005-11 where she conducted multiple

The Tasmanian Aborigines and the Constitution of Modern Human Behaviour – Associate Professor Richard Cosgrove – 27 April 2014

Assoc. Prof. Richard Cosgrove will present  ‘The Tasmanian Aborigines and the Constitution of Modern Human Behaviour.’

in the Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk – 2.00 pm Sunday 27th April 2014
Admission: $5 General Public, $3 Friends of the Museum, $2 Students
Free for members of the Royal Society of Tasmania

To assist us with the organization of this event
please RSVP by Thursday 24th April 2014:
Email bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au or telephone 6323 3798

Research has shown that for the past 40,000 years, the Tasmanian Aborigines used a flaked stone technology similar to European Neanderthals, who lived between c.300,000 to 30,000 years ago. Paradoxically, the people who first crossed by boat from South East Asia to Sahul, the early land mass of New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania, were anatomically and behaviourally modern. They possessed a hafted stone axe technology, ocean going watercraft, practised art, caught deep sea fish, and had ceremonial burials. In this regard, Australia and Tasmania are unique, as there is no correlation between the appearance of these modern behaviours, and the material cultural ‘package’ used in Europe to identify the point at which such behaviours emerged. The purpose of this presentation it to briefly discuss the archaeological variability from Sahul in a global context, and to discuss the Tasmanian Aboriginal people’s response to the changing ice age environments.

Assoc. Prof. Richard Cosgrove gained a BA from the Australian National University, followed by a PhD. on Tasmanian Aboriginal archaeology in 1992, focusing on the comparative palaeoecology and ice age landscapes occupied by Aboriginal people and their habitation sites of Southwest and Southeast Tasmania. He has research and teaching experience in human behavioural ecology, rock art studies, palaeoecology, zooarchaeology, stone artefact analysis and hunter-gatherer archaeology. His field work and research has included both national and international sites in England, China, Jordan and France. He has advised the Tasmanian forest industry, ICOMOS, the World Heritage Centre, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Lands and Sea Council, and has worked closely with both Aboriginal communities and Environmental Protection agencies on indigenous cultural heritage management.

The Sciences were Never at War: Edward Jenner, FRS, English Cowpox, and the Vaccination of Napoleonic France – Professor Michael Bennett – 23 March 2014

Prof. Michael Bennett, Professor of History, UTAS will present  The Sciences were Never at War: Edward Jenner, FRS, English cowpox, and the vaccination of Napoleonic France

in the Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk
2.00 pm Sunday 23rd March 2014
Admission: $5 General Public, $3 Friends of the Museum, $2 Students
Free for members of The Royal Society of Tasmania

To assist us with the organization of this event
RSVP by Thursday 20th March 2014:
Email bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au or telephone 6323 3798

In 1798 Edward Jenner, FRS, published his findings showing the inoculation of cowpox provided immunity to smallpox. While the practice was still in its infancy in England, reports and samples of English cowpox “vaccine” were disseminated around the world. This talk considers the introduction of vaccination in Napoleonic France; a remarkable achievement in that Britain and France were at war, and the event involved a London physician, travelling on a special passport, bringing samples to Paris. In 1801 a French address to the Marquis Cornwallis at Amiens praised this action, declaring, “The friends of science never interrupt their fraternal intercourse; and while their governments wield the thunder of war, to decide their political contests, men of letters always remain in peace”.

Michael Bennett is Professor of History at the University of Tasmania and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. The author of four books on late medieval and early modern England, he has published papers on European, Australian and Tasmanian history. His most recent project is the early global spread of vaccination, circa 1798-1815. He is currently completing a book on The War against Smallpox to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2015.
Professor Bennett will highlight the role of international collaboration in the global spread of vaccination during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon himself was a great supporter of vaccination, and an admirer of Jenner.

The Politics of Insanity – Dr Eric Ratcliff – 23 February 2014

Dr Eric Ratcliff will present The Politics of Insanity.

in the Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk
2.00 pm Sunday 23rd February 2014
Admission: $5 General Public, $3 Friends of the Museum, $2 Students
Free for members of the Royal Society of Tasmania

To assist us with the organization of this event
RSVP by Thursday 20th February 2014:
Email bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au or telephone 6323 3798

Controversies within the profession of psychiatry have re-entered the public domain, locally with the impending proclamation of a new Mental Health Act in Tasmania, and globally with the publication last year of DSM-5, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association. When mankind gives a name to anything, it tends to fix and change perceptions of it, and these may have unintended consequences. The address will consider issues surrounding diagnosis in psychiatry, including the effects of developing an influential document. It will also consider the place of medications in the treatment of mental disorders, and public and professional concerns surrounding the marketing of these by powerful pharmaceutical companies increasingly driven by commercial rather than ethical motivations.

Dr Ratcliff was born in Launceston and educated at Launceston High School, the University of Tasmania and the University of Queensland, where he graduated in medicine in 1964.
He has been engaged in the practice of psychiatry since 1967, and became a Member of the ANZ College of Psychiatrists in 1976 and a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists in 1981. He worked in public practice in Tasmania and Victoria, becoming clinical director of the mental health service based in Launceston before moving in 1985 to private practice in general adult and forensic psychiatry.
He has served as a member of General Council of the RANZCP for a total of 15 years, and chaired its committees concerned with appropriate practice and professional ethics for eight years. He was awarded the College Medal of Honour in 2006.
He has not been able to find time to retire, but in his spare time he is an architectural historian, and his major work, a history of building and architecture in Tasmania from Aboriginal times to 1914, is to published later this

Fish Health and Seafood (National Science Week special event) – 11 August 2013

The RST Northern Chapter has organized a special event for National Science Week to highlight work currently being carried out by scientists in Tasmania.

Fish Health and Seafood

Fish Health and Seafood will presented by three speakers from the National Centre for Marine Conservation and Resource Sustainability, University of Tasmania, Launceston in the:

Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk at 2pm Sunday 11 August 2013

RSVP bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au

see attachment below for further details

RST NatSciWk Lecture

Childhood Obesity – Professor Alison Venn – 25 August 2013

Childhood Obesity (TBC)

Presentation by Professor Alison Venn
QVMAG – Inveresk
Sunday, 25th August 2013    Commencing 2.00 pm until

Royal Society of Tasmania – 2013 Launceston Lecture Series

 Professor Alison Venn, BSc Hons PhD

Deputy Director; Associate Director – Research

Menzies Research Institute, Tasmania

will present

Cardiovascular Disease and type 2 Diabetes – links to childhood overweight and obesity.

 

in the Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk

 2.00 pm Sunday August 25th 2013

Admission: $5 General Public, $3 Friends of the Museum, $2 Students

Free for members of the Royal Society of Tasmania

 

To assist us with the organization of this event

RSVP by Thursday 22nd August 2013:

Email bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au or telephone 6323 3798

Cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes are common and costly health problems in Australia. Adult risk factors are well understood but the contribution made by childhood factors is uncertain. The Childhood Determinants of Adult Health (CDAH) study, led by the Menzies Research Institute Tasmania, is a follow-up study over nearly three decades of 8,500 children from 109 schools nation-wide. It is helping to define, for the first time, the key contributions of childhood overweight and obesity to adult disease.

Professor Alison Venn completed her PhD in immunology at the National Institute for Medical Research in the UK. Following postdoctoral research in malaria immunology at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, she trained as an epidemiologist and spent ten years researching women’s reproductive health at La Trobe University. Since joining the Menzies Research Institute in 2000 she has broadened her research interests to cover the causes and prevention of chronic disease. Her particular focus is on how lifestyle (smoking, physical activity, diet, alcohol consumption) and obesity in childhood and early adulthood affect the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes later in life.

The Promise of Personalised Medicine: Hope or Hype – Professor Don Chalmers – 28 July 2013

The Promise of Personalised Medicine. – hope or hype

Presentation by Professor Don Chalmers

QVMAG – Inveresk
2:00 pm Sunday, 28th July 2013.
Admission: $5 General Public, $3 Friends of the Museum, $2 Students
Free for members of the Royal Society of Tasmania
To assist us with the organization of this event RSVP by Thursday 25 July : Email bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au or telephone 6323 3798

 

Brief Abstract of the Talk

Francis Collins – one of the chief architects of the Human Genome Project and now director of the National Institutes of Health in the USA – in his book Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine – presents a more hopeful vision of the future of medicine compared with the disorder of our current health-care system. This vision is of personalised medicine where most people have their whole genome sequenced (WGS) and their results integrated with their personal decisions about diet, lifestyle, healthcare and treatments.

In the pharmaceutical area, personalised medicine aims, based on an individual’s genetic profile, to develop new drugs, to better match drugs to the individual patient and to minimise adverse drug reactions for individual patients. In genetic testing, there is an increasing range of direct–to-customer (DTC) tests available, which have raised concerns amongst other national regulatory authorities. A PHG Foundation Research Report in 2008 concluded that a failure to improve clinical evaluation of genetic tests will undermine the development of personalised medicine.

This address will discuss the hopes and hype in personalised medicine and whether the future of personalised medicine may depend on developing new ethical and legal standards to ensure public trust and confidence in personalised medicine.

About the Speaker

Professor Don Chalmers is Dean of the Law School and Distinguished Professor at the University of Tasmania. He is Director of the Centre for Law and Genetics and Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.

Professor Chalmers is Chair of the Gene Technology Ethics and Community Consultative Committee and Deputy – Chair of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Licensing Committee.

He is a member of the international Human Genome Organization Ethics Committee and of the International Cancer Genome Consortium.

Professor Chalmers was chair of the NHMRC Australian Health Ethics Committee from 1994-2000 and is the author of many publications related to gene research and bioethics.

Subtidal Habitats and Inhabitants of the Tamar Estuary – Mr David Maynard – 23 June 2013

Presentation by Mr David Maynard

QVMAG – Inveresk

Sunday, 23rd June 2013 Commencing 2.00 pm until

This lecture is presented with the generous support of QVMAG

 

About the Speaker

David Maynard has been Curator of Natural Sciences at the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery since 2012. His research interest is temperate marine biodiversity. Prior to this he lectured for 13 years on fisheries and marine environment related topics at the Australian Maritime College. David has a passion for cataloguing fish and marine invertebrates and does so through underwater photography. In 2010 David co-authored an exhibition and book Beneath the Tamar More Than Silt with AMC colleague Dr Troy Gaston.

 

Brief Abstract of the Talk

The Tamar River estuary is unique in many ways. It is Australia’s longest navigable waterway, receiving freshwater from nearly 1/5th of Tasmania’s landmass. This freshwater meets an estimated 300,000,000 cubic metres of salt water entering the system twice a day on the incoming tides. The estuary, Tamar Valley and the broader catchment supports diverse activities including heavy industry, shipping, agriculture and forestry, wineries, aquaculture, tourism, and population centres and includes significant protected areas, reserves and wetlands. All these contribute significant economic and social benefits to our region. However the Tamar River estuary has some image problems. Many in the community only recognise the estuary for the unsightly mud flats exposed in the upper reaches which impact on the aesthetics and amenity of the river. Below the surface of the Tamar is another world. This lecture presents a visual snapshot of the habitats and inhabitants that reside just below the Tamar’s surface waters that remain invisible to the broader community.