EMCR Pathways issue 2

The Australian Early- and Mid-Career Researcher Forum of the Australian Academy of Science serves as the voice of the country's future scientific and research leaders. We currently reach over 3,300 individuals and are seeking to broaden and increase our engagement with Australian EMCRs to better represent their views, needs and vision to decision-makers within the government, Members of Parliament and key funding agencies.

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2014 Frontiers of Science – The edges of astronomy

On December 2-4, I attended the 2014 Australian Academy of Science’s Frontiers of Science meeting: ‘The edges of astronomy’. It was an extremely interesting and slightly overwhelming few days, with the focus being on the links between astronomy and the ‘outside world’.

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‘Boosting the commercial returns from research’ discussion paper: the EMCR Forum’s response

Some of history’s biggest and best ideas have come from the very young. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone at 18, George Westinghouse the rotary steam engine at 19, and Australia’s Lawrence Bragg won the Nobel Prize for Physics at the age of 25.

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Getting an Indonesian perspective on science and early-career issues

Political relations with Indonesia, one of Australia’s nearest neighbours, have recently been reported to be at an all-time low. Happily, a recent day spent in Canberra shows that scientific relations between our two nations are on a far stronger footing.

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Science in Australia Gender Equity Workshop

The first Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) workshop was hosted by the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra, on November 25 and 26.

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2014 Australian Postdoctoral Reference Survey

The second Australian Postdoctoral Reference Survey is now open and will run to 31 January 2015.

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Science excellence recognised in Academy awards

In November the Australian Academy of Science announced the winners of some of Australia’s most prestigious science awards.

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Science Pathways 2015—Effective science communication for EMCRs, Adelaide, 23-24 April

Save the dates! The EMCR Forum’s national meeting, Science Pathways 2015—Effective science communication for EMCRs, will be held at ‘The Braggs’ Lecture Theatre, University of Adelaide, on 23-24 April 2015.

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• Autism expert features in new Brain Box
• Science at the Shine Dome: opportunities for EMCRs
• Top 5 under 40
• Victorian Platform Technologies Network – help for grant applications
• Science meets policymakers

The seeker after truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the job of the man who investigates the writings of scientist, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham (born c. 965 in Basra – died c. 1039 in Cairo), in ‘Doubts Concerning Ptolemy’

Al-Hassan Ibn al-Haytham, latinized as Alhazen, was a mathematician, astronomer, physicist and philosopher from Basra (in modern day Iraq) who made significant contributions to the principles of optics, astronomy, mathematics, meteorology, visual perception and the scientific method, which he is often credited with inventing.

He is one of the fathers of modern science and has been described as “The First Scientist”.

UNESCO has declared 2015 the International Year of Light and will be celebrating Ibn Al-Haytham's achievements in optics, mathematics and astronomy, and his importance in laying the foundations of the present day scientific experimental method, through an international campaign titled 1001 Inventions and the World of Ibn Al-Haytham. The campaign will be unveiled at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on 19 January 2015.