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During Science Week Ireland 2011 some extraordinary elements took to the streets of Dublin to let people know about the “Chemistry of Life” – the theme of this year’s Science Week…

When 16-year-old Alexander Amini won a first prize at the 2011 EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS) he was the latest in a long line of Irish winners. Irish contestants of the BT Young Scientist (BTYS) Exhibition have a remarkable record of going on to win in Europe.

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A free public lecture will take place in the Mahony Hall,  The Helix, DCU on Thursday 14th April at 7pm, by cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. Entitled ‘Exploring the final frontier: Fifty Years on’ the lecture will mark the 50th anniversary of the first manned spaceflight by Yuri Gargarin, while Kornienko will also discuss the six months he spent living on the International Space Station. The event is being organised by the Russian Alliance, The Russian Embassy, The Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies and Dublin City University.

Tickets are available by emailing cosmonaut2011@gmail.com and stating the number of tickets required and the names of those attending. Children over 12 years are also welcome. Places are limited so will be allocated on a first come basis only.

For more information http://www.dcu.ie/president/finalfrontier.shtml

The Fulbright Commission has opened the application process for the Fulbright International Science and Technology Awards for 2012-2013. To date, four successful Irish candidates have been awarded PhD funding worth $1.2 million at US institutions such as MIT and Brown University since the Irish Commission started advertising the Award in 2007.

Irish candidates currently enrolled in the US, or heading over in September 2011 include, Jacqueline Hynes enrolled on a PhD in Neuroscience at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island; Ronan McGovern enrolled on a PhD in Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Elizabeth Sullivan enrolling this year on a PhD in maternal nutrition, materno-foetal nutrition and infant feeding; and Ellen Roche also enrolling this year on a PhD in medical device design.

The Fulbright International Science & Technology Awards is the US Government’s most prestigious and valuable scholarship. There are 40 PhDs available to students around the world to study/research in the US. Individually they are worth $300,000 for students in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) disciplines. The process opens 2 years in advance for undergraduates hoping to do a PhD in the US for 2012-2013.

For details on the application process, visit www.fulbright.ie.  The application deadline is midday, Wednesday 18th May.

Engineers Week kicked off on the 15th of February to celebrate the wonders of engineering.

The aim of the week is to create positive awareness and spark enthusiasm about the engineering profession to people of various ages with little or no engineering background. Events are taking place all over the country, check out the full programme. You can also follow the latest news on www.twitter.com/EngineerIreland and track stories using the #engweek2011 hashtag. Read more about the week, and how you can get invloved at http://www.engineersweek.ie.

Ever thought of trying to contact ET? At this year’s BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition you might just get the chance to do so. Students, their teachers and members of the general public will have the opportunity to send a message and a picture of themselves to a planet outside our solar system, using a live linkup to a radio telescope operated by Cork Institute of Technology at their science centre in Blackrock Castle Observatory, Cork.

To send your own message pay a visit to stand 42 at the BT Young Scientist exhibition.

Dublin will be the European City of Science in 2012, (official website)
and will host the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF) from the 12-16 July, 2012. The event will bring together scientists and public policy offcials to discuss the best of European science and to address all of the major global challenges, including Energy, Climate Change, Food and Health. Here’s a video of what to expect.

Just spotted on SocialMedia.net that the guys at 091 Labs hosted a Hackquarium using Sugru at their hackerspace in Galway yesterday.

Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh, the inventor of Sugru, spoke as part of this year’s Science Week lecture series and we will have the video up soon. In the meantime check out the 091 Labs video which shows highlights from their workshop.

Science Gallery’s latest exhibition lets you see the latest in green technology and sustainable design and gives you the tools to invest in the projects that you think have the greatest potential to save the planet. There’s just over two weeks left to catch the exhibition, check out the trailer below. It’s open Tuesday-Friday between 12-8pm and Saturday-Sunday 12-6pm until December 17th.

As part of Science Week, Astronomy Ireland will be giving a public lecture entitled ‘Pulsars’ on Monday 8 November 2010 at 8:00pm. Dr Andy Shearer, Centre for Astronomy, NUI Galway, will discuss pulsars and how they are formed. Tickets to the event cost €7. More information can be found on the Astronomy Ireland website. The lecture takes place in the Fitzgerald Building, Trinity College Dublin.

In the autumn of 1967, a PhD student from Northern Ireland called Jocelyn Bell was listening to radio waves from deep space. Among the noise something stood out: a highly-regular series of clicks. This continuous beat echoed through space and arrived at Earth, and nothing like it had ever been heard before. In fact, it was believed that the noise was created by an extraterrestrial beacon built by an intelligent civilisation, and thus the phrase “little green men” was born. Over 40 years later, many more of these objects have been discovered, and although we now know that the source of these clicks are exotic dead stars called pulsars, we still do not know how they work.

A listing of all Astronomy Ireland’s events during Science Week are listed on their website.