1.
Fellow of the Royal Society
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As of 2016, there are around 1600 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members. Fellowship of the Royal Society has been described by The Guardian newspaper as “the equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar” with several institutions celebrating their announcement each year. Up to 60 new Fellows, honorary and foreign members are elected annually usually in May, each candidate is considered on their merits and can be proposed from any sector of the scientific community. Fellows are elected for life on the basis of excellence in science and are entitled to use the post-nominal letters FRS, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society and Category, Female Fellows of the Royal Society. Every year, Fellows elect up to ten new Foreign Members, like Fellows, Foreign Members are elected for life through peer review on the basis of excellence in science. As of 2016 there are around 165 Foreign Members, who are entitled to use the post-nominal ForMemRS, see Category, Foreign Members of the Royal Society. Honorary Fellows include Bill Bryson, Melvyn Bragg, Robin Saxby, David Sainsbury, Baron Sainsbury of Turville, Honorary Fellows are entitled to use the post nominal letters HonFRS. Others including John Maddox, Patrick Moore and Lisa Jardine were elected as honorary fellows, statute 12 is a legacy mechanism for electing members before official honorary membership existed in 1997. Fellows elected under statute 12 include David Attenborough and John Palmer, prime Ministers of the United Kingdom such as Margaret Thatcher, Neville Chamberlain, H. H. Asquith were elected under statute 12, see Category, Fellows of the Royal Society. The Council of the Royal Society can recommend members of the British Royal Family for election as Royal Fellows of the Royal Society. As of 2016 there are five royal fellows, Charles, Prince of Wales, Anne, Princess Royal, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Andrew, Duke of York. Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth II is not a Royal Fellow, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh was elected under statute 12, not as a Royal Fellow. The election of new fellows is announced annually in May, after their nomination, each candidate for Fellowship or Foreign Membership is nominated by two Fellows of the Royal Society, who sign a certificate of proposal. Previously, nominations required at least five fellows to support each nomination by the proposer, the certificate of election includes a statement of the principal grounds on which the proposal is being made. There is no limit on the number of nominations each year. In 2015, there were 654 candidates for election as Fellows and 106 candidates for Foreign Membership. The final list of up to 52 Fellowship candidates and up to 10 Foreign Membership candidates is confirmed by the Council in April, a candidate is elected if he or she secures two-thirds of votes of those Fellows present and voting. A further maximum of six can be ‘Honorary’, ‘General’ or ‘Royal’ Fellows, nominations for Fellowship are peer reviewed by sectional committees, each with fifteen members and a chair
2.
Lewes
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Lewes /ˈluːᵻs/ is the county town of the administrative county of East Sussex, in England, and historically all of Sussex. It is a parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a point and as a market town. The town was the site of the Battle of Lewes in 1264, the town has landmarks including Lewes Castle and a 15th-century bookshop. At the 2001 census it had a population of 15,988, Archaeological evidence points to prehistoric dwellers in the area. Scholars think that the Roman settlement of Mutuantonis was here, as quantities of artefacts have been discovered in the area, the Saxons built a castle, having first constructed its motte as a defensive point over the river, they gave the town its name. After the Norman invasion, William the Conqueror rewarded William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, with the Rape of Lewes, a swathe of land along the River Ouse from the coast to the Surrey boundary. He built Lewes Castle on the Saxon site, and he and his wife, Gundred also founded the Priory of St Pancras, Lewes was the site of a mint during the Late Anglo-Saxon period and thereafter a mint during the early years after the Norman invasion. In 1148 the town was granted a charter by King Stephen, the town became a port with docks along the Ouse River. The town was the site of the Battle of Lewes between the forces of Henry III and Simon de Montfort in the Second Barons War in 1264, the battle took place in fields now just west of Landport. At the time of the Marian Persecutions of 1555–1557, Lewes was the site of the execution of seventeen Protestant martyrs and this structure is now the Town Hall. A memorial to the martyrs was unveiled on Cliffe Hill in 1901, through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Lewes developed as the county town of East Sussex, expanding beyond the line of the town wall. It was a port and developed related iron, brewing. In 1846 the town became a junction, with lines constructed from the north, south. The development of Newhaven ended Lewess period as a major port, during the Crimean War, some 300 Finns serving in the Russian army captured at Bomarsund were imprisoned at Lewes. Lewes became a borough in 1881, the name Lewes is also the name of the parliamentary constituency and the local district council as well as Lewes Town Council. Lewes is also where the East Sussex County Council has its main offices, Lewes District Council is administered from offices in Southover House on Southover Road. Lewes Town Council is based in the Town Hall on Lewes High Street, for many years, Lewes was dominated by the Conservatives, both at local and national levels
3.
Eton College
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Eton College /iːtən/ is an English independent boarding school for boys in Eton, Berkshire, near Windsor. It educates more than 1,300 pupils, aged 13 to 18 years and it was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as The Kings College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor, making it the 18th oldest Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference school. Eton is one of the seven public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868. Eton has educated 19 British prime ministers and generations of the aristocracy and has referred to as the chief nurse of Englands statesmen. The school is headed by a Provost and Fellows, who appoint the Head Master and it contains 25 boys houses, each headed by a housemaster, selected from the more senior members of the teaching staff, which numbers some 155. Almost all of the pupils go on to universities, about a third of them to Oxford or Cambridge. The Head Master is a member of the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference, Eton has a long list of distinguished former pupils. David Cameron was the 19th British prime minister to have attended the school, about 20% of pupils at Eton receive financial support, through a range of bursaries and scholarships. In early 2014, this figure had risen to 263 pupils receiving the equivalent of around 60% of school fee assistance, Eton has been described as the most famous public school in the world, and been referred to as the chief nurse of Englands statesmen. The Good Schools Guide called the school the number one public school, adding that The teaching. The school is a member of the G20 Schools Group, Eton today is a larger school than it has been for much of its history. In 1678, there were 207 boys, in the late 18th century, there were about 300, while today, the total has risen to over 1,300. Eton College was founded by King Henry VI as a charity school to free education to 70 poor boys who would then go on to Kings College, Cambridge. Henry took Winchester College as his model, visiting on many occasions, borrowing its Statutes and removing its Headmaster, when Henry VI founded the school, he granted it a large number of endowments, including much valuable land. He persuaded the then Pope, Eugene IV, to grant him a privilege unparalleled anywhere in England, the school also came into possession of one of Englands Apocalypse manuscripts. Legend has it that Edwards mistress, Jane Shore, intervened on the schools behalf and she was able to save a good part of the school, although the royal bequest and the number of staff were much reduced. Construction of the chapel, originally intended to be slightly over twice as long, only the Quire of the intended building was completed. Etons first Headmaster, William Waynflete, founder of Magdalen College, Oxford and previously Head Master of Winchester College, as the school suffered reduced income while still under construction, the completion and further development of the school has since depended to some extent on wealthy benefactors
4.
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. With around 600 undergraduates,300 graduates, and over 180 fellows, by combined student numbers, it is second to Homerton College, Cambridge. Members of Trinity have won 32 Nobel Prizes out of the 91 won by members of Cambridge University, five Fields Medals in mathematics were won by members of the college and one Abel Prize was won. Other royal family members have studied there without obtaining degrees, including King Edward VII, King George VI, along with Christs, Jesus, Kings and St Johns colleges, it has also provided several of the well known members of the Apostles, an intellectual secret society. In 1848, Trinity hosted the meeting at which Cambridge undergraduates representing private schools such as Westminster drew up the first formal rules of football, Trinitys sister college in Oxford is Christ Church. Like that college, Trinity has been linked with Westminster School since the schools re-foundation in 1560, the college was founded by Henry VIII in 1546, from the merger of two existing colleges, Michaelhouse, and Kings Hall. At the time, Henry had been seizing church lands from abbeys, the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, being both religious institutions and quite rich, expected to be next in line. The King duly passed an Act of Parliament that allowed him to any college he wished. The universities used their contacts to plead with his sixth wife, the Queen persuaded her husband not to close them down, but to create a new college. The king did not want to use royal funds, so he combined two colleges and seven hostels to form Trinity. Contrary to popular belief, the lands granted by Henry VIII were not on their own sufficient to ensure Trinitys eventual rise. In its infancy Trinity had owed a great deal to its college of St Johns. Its first four Masters were educated at St Johns, and it took until around 1575 for the two colleges application numbers to draw even, a position in which they have remained since the Civil War. Bentley himself was notorious for the construction of a hugely expensive staircase in the Masters Lodge, most of the Trinitys major buildings date from the 16th and 17th centuries. Thomas Nevile, who became Master of Trinity in 1593, rebuilt and this work included the enlargement and completion of Great Court, and the construction of Neviles Court between Great Court and the river Cam. Neviles Court was completed in the late 17th century when the Wren Library, in the 20th century, Trinity College, St Johns College and Kings College were for decades the main recruiting grounds for the Cambridge Apostles, an elite, intellectual secret society. In 2011, the John Templeton Foundation awarded Trinity Colleges Master, Trinity is the richest Oxbridge college, with a landholding alone worth £800 million. Trinity is sometimes suggested to be the second, third or fourth wealthiest landowner in the UK – after the Crown Estate, the National Trust, in 2005, Trinitys annual rental income from its properties was reported to be in excess of £20 million
5.
University College London
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University College London is a public research university in London, England, and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It is the largest postgraduate institution in the UK by enrollment and is regarded as one of the worlds leading research universities. UCL also makes the claims of being the third-oldest university in England. In 1836 UCL became one of the two founding colleges of the University of London, which was granted a charter in the same year. UCL has its campus in the Bloomsbury area of central London, with a number of institutes and teaching hospitals elsewhere in central London. UCL is organised into 11 constituent faculties, within there are over 100 departments, institutes. In 2015/16, UCL had around 38,300 students and 12,000 staff and had an income of £1.36 billion. UCL ranks highly in national and international league tables and its graduates rank among the most employable in the world, UCL academics discovered five of the naturally occurring noble gases, co-discovered hormones, invented the vacuum tube, and made several foundational advances in modern statistics. There are at least 29 Nobel Prize winners and 3 Fields medalists amongst UCLs alumni and current, UCL was founded on 11 February 1826 under the name London University, as an alternative to the Anglican universities of Oxford and Cambridge. London Universitys first Warden was Leonard Horner, who was the first scientist to head a British university and this suggests that while his ideas may have been influential, he himself was less so. In 1827, the Chair of Political Economy at London University was created, with John Ramsay McCulloch as the first incumbent, in 1828 the university became the first in England to offer English as a subject and the teaching of Classics and medicine began. In 1830, London University founded the London University School, which would later become University College School, in 1833, the university appointed Alexander Maconochie, Secretary to the Royal Geographical Society, as the first professor of geography in the UK. In 1834, University College Hospital opened as a hospital for the universitys medical school. In 1836, London University was incorporated by charter under the name University College. The Slade School of Fine Art was founded as part of University College in 1871, in 1878, the University of London gained a supplemental charter making it the first British university to be allowed to award degrees to women. The same year, UCL admitted women to the faculties of Arts and Law and of Science, although women remained barred from the faculties of Engineering and of Medicine. Armstrong College, an institution of Newcastle University, also allowed women to enter from its foundation in 1871. Women were finally admitted to medical studies during the First World War in 1917, in 1898, Sir William Ramsay discovered the elements krypton, neon and xenon whilst professor of chemistry at UCL
6.
Signalling theory
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Within evolutionary biology, signalling theory is a body of theoretical work examining communication between individuals, both within species and across species. The central question is when organisms with conflicting interests, such as in sexual selection, mathematical models describe how signalling can contribute to an evolutionarily stable strategy. Signals are given in such as mate selection by females. Signals thus evolve because they modify the behaviour of the receiver to benefit the signaller, signals may be honest, conveying information which usefully increases the fitness of the receiver, or dishonest. An individual can cheat by giving a dishonest signal, which might briefly benefit that signaller, amotz Zahavi suggested that cheating could be controlled by the handicap principle, where the best horse in a handicap race is the one carrying the largest handicap weight. According to Zahavis theory, signallers such as male peacocks have tails that are genuinely handicaps, the system is evolutionarily stable as the large showy tails are honest signals. Biologists have attempted to verify the handicap principle, but with inconsistent results, the evolutionary equilibrium depends sensitively on the balance of costs and benefits. When animals choose mates, traits such as signalling are subject to evolutionary pressure, for example, the male gray tree frog, Hyla versicolor, produces a call to attract females. Once a female chooses a mate, this selects for a style of male calling. The signal can be the call itself, the intensity of a call, its style, its repetition rate. Various hypotheses seek to explain why females would select for one call over the other, signallers have sometimes evolved multiple sexual ornaments, and receivers have sometimes evolved multiple trait preferences. In biology, signals are traits, including structures and behaviours, traits or actions that benefit the receiver exclusively are called cues. When an alert bird deliberately gives a call to a stalking predator and the predator gives up the hunt. When a foraging bird inadvertently makes a sound in the leaves that attracts predators and increases the risk of predation. Signalling systems are shaped by mutual interests between signallers and receivers, when the predator gives up, the signaller can get back to other tasks such as feeding. Once the stalking predator is detected, the prey and receiving predator thus have a mutual interest in terminating the hunt. Within species, mutual interests increase with kinship, kinship is central to models of signalling between relatives, for instance when broods of nestling birds beg and compete for food from their parents. The term honesty in communication is controversial because in non-technical usage it implies intent
7.
Copley Medal
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The Copley Medal is a scientific award given by the Royal Society, London, for outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science. It alternates between the physical and the biological sciences, the medal was created following a donation of £100 to be used for carrying out experiments by Sir Godfrey Copley, for which the interest on the amount was used for several years. A second donation of £1666 13s, 4d. was made by Sir Joseph William Copley in 1881, and the interest from that amount is used to pay for the medal. The medal in its current format is made of silver gilt, since its inception, it has been awarded to many notable scientists, including 52 winners of the Nobel Prize,17 in Physics,21 in Physiology or Medicine, and 14 in Chemistry. John Theophilus Desaguliers has won the medal the most often, winning in 1734,1736 and 1741, in 1976, Dorothy Hodgkin became the first and as of 2015 the only female recipient
8.
Crafoord Prize
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The Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord. According to the Academy, these disciplines are chosen so as to complement those for which the Nobel Prizes are awarded, only one award is given each year, according to a rotating scheme – astronomy and mathematics, then geosciences, then biosciences. A Crafoord Prize in polyarthritis is only awarded when a committee decides that substantial progress in the field has been made. The prize money, which as of 2015 is 6,000,000 kr, is intended to further research by the laureate. The inaugural laureates, Vladimir Arnold and Louis Nirenberg, were cited by the Academy for their work in the field of differential equations. The first woman to be awarded the prize was astronomer Andrea Ghez in 2012, a Nirenberg was born in Canada. B Grothendieck was born in Germany, but spent most of his life in France and was legally stateless, C Shing-Tung Yau was born in China. D Dziewonski was born in Poland, E Kontsevich was born in Russia. F Eliashberg was born in Russia, the Kyoto Prize Prizes named after people Official website
9.
Linnean Society of London
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The Linnean Society of London is a society dedicated to the study of, and the dissemination of information concerning, natural history and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collections and publishes academic journals and books on plant, the society also awards a number of prestigious medals and prizes for achievement. A product of the 18th century enlightenment, the society is important as the venue for the first public presentation of the Theory of Evolution. The patron of the society is Queen Elizabeth II, the Linnean Society was founded in 1788 by botanist Sir James Edward Smith. The society derives its name from the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy and he was known as Carl von Linné after his ennoblement, hence the spelling Linnean, rather than Linnaean. The society had a number of minor name variations before it gained its Royal Charter on 26 March 1802, in 1802, as a newly incorporated society, it comprised 228 fellows. It is the oldest extant natural history society in the world, throughout its history the society has been a non-political and non-sectarian institution, existing solely for the furtherance of natural history. The society has numbered many prominent scientists amongst its fellows, one such was the botanist Robert Brown, who was president, he named the cell nucleus and discovered Brownian motion. In 1854 Charles Darwin was elected a fellow, he is undoubtedly the most illustrious scientist ever to appear on the rolls of the society. Another famous fellow was biologist Thomas Huxley, who gained the nickname Darwins bulldog for his defence of evolution. At this meeting a joint presentation of papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace was made, sponsored by Joseph Hooker, in 1904 the society experienced the novelty of electing women fellows, this followed a number of years of campaigning by the botanist Marian Farquharson. Whilst the societys council was reluctant to admit women, the fellows were much less so, among the first to benefit from this were, Lilian J. Veley, a microbiologist and Annie Lorrain Smith, a lichenologist and mycologist, both formally admitted on 19 January 1905. Also amongst the first women to be elected in 1904 was the paleobotanist, the societys connection with evolution remained strong into the 20th century. Sir Edward Poulton, who was president 1912-1916, was a defender of natural selection and was the first biologist to recognise the importance of frequency-dependent selection. The first female president of the society was Irene Manton, who pioneered the use of electron microscopy. Her work revealed the structure of the flagellum and cilia, which are central to systems of cellular motility. Recent years have seen an increased interest within the society in issues of biodiversity conservation and this was highlighted by the inception in 2015 of an annual award, the John Spedan Lewis Medal, specifically honouring persons making significant and innovative contributions to conservation. Fellowship requires nomination by at least one fellow, and election by a minimum of two thirds of those electors voting, fellows may employ the post-nominal letters FLS
10.
University of Sussex
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The University of Sussex is a public research university situated in Falmer, near Brighton in Sussex. The university received its Royal Charter in August 1961, and was a member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities promoting excellence in research. Sussex counts three Nobel Prize winners,14 Fellows of the Royal Society, six Fellows of the British Academy, in the latest rankings, the university was placed 62nd in Europe and 140th in the world by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2015–16. The Guardian University Guide 2016 placed Sussex 19th in the United Kingdom, the 2015 Academic Ranking of World Universities placed the university within the top 18-21 in the United Kingdom and in the top 151-200 internationally. The University was established as a company in 1959, with a Royal Charter being granted on 16 August 1961, the Universitys organisation broke new ground in seeing the campus divided into Schools of Study, with students able to benefit from a multidisciplinary teaching environment. Sussex came to be identified with student radicalism, in 1973 a mob of students physically prevented United States government adviser Samuel P. Huntington from giving a speech on campus, due to his involvement in the Vietnam War. In an attempt to appeal to an audience, the university chose in 2004 to cease using its coat of arms. The then Vice-Chancellor of the University described the new identity as the starting point for what will be a fresh look. It is based on the vision and values, themselves a statement of what it aspires to be, pioneering, creative, international, excellent. Sussex has been noted to have an attractive location, the university is situated in undulating parkland on the edge of Brighton, and the campus architecture itself has been praised. The campus is surrounded by the South Downs National Park, but relatively close to Brighton, Hove, the campus, designed by Sir Basil Spence, is in the village of Falmer, next to its railway station, and accessed by car from the A27 road. It is situated close to the South Downs, which influenced Spences design of the campus, the campus is self-contained with facilities and shops. Spences designs were appreciated in the community, with many of the buildings on the Universitys campus winning awards. The gatehouse-inspired Falmer House won a medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects. Another campus building, The Meeting House, won the Civic Trust award in 1969, Sussex laid claim to being the only English university located entirely within a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is now surrounded by the newly founded South Downs National Park. The Gardner Arts Centre, another of Basil Spences designs, was opened in 1969 as the first university campus arts centre. It had a 480-seat purpose built theatre, an art gallery and studio space and was regularly used for theatre
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