Programme for 2026

• 8th Jan: Tony Hurst "Risk" and "Nuclear submarines"
• 12th Feb: Stuart Ratcliffe, "Clinical Trials"
• 12th March: Peter Goodhew "Bricks"
• 9th April: Jessica Liu and Mark Roughley "The rise of the post mortem avatar" (Member comments below)
• 14th May:
• 11th June "Brain/sleep"
• 9th July:
• 13th August: no meeting - possible visit
• 10th September:
• 8th October: Sue Haughton "Crispr"
• 12th November:
• December - Christmas lunch

Members who attended the April meeting on avatars made the following comments about the presentation by FaceLab personnel:

Really good talk yesterday - Steve, Diana and I didn't stop discussing it all the way home. And thank for the list of references. (Dennis Holman)

The talk was very interesting and they are doing really good work and hopefully will get funding to continue. (Roger Todd)

Thank you for organising such an interesting, informative, and useful talk yesterday about post-mortem avatars. It was good to see the pace of development of avatars and be made aware that the pace is accelerating. But more importantly, talks like this can influence the public debate about the moral, ethical and legal positions of using avatars. This is just one part of the picture when considering the impact of artificial intelligence technology on society.

We can say we are retired, and it will not affect us. But most of us have families and they will have to deal with the shock of these changes. Perhaps we should get to know more about what is coming for their sakes.

I do hope that Facelab are able to continue their public engagement work. They also need funding to keep their hardware and software up to date as well as their skill set. To maintain credibility and an authoritative voice it is important that their examples and work are up to date. (Rod Hyde)

I came to this talk with an interest in archaeology, which is where I'd first seen facial reconstruction, originally with Clay and 'match sticks'. I had then seen a news item about a body (found near a lake in the Peak District?) being identified from facial reconstruction. I found the presentation(s) fascinating and, being a kinetic learner, I loved the hands-on display. I was interested in how superficial identifications are made based on hair style and colour and how and why these were circumvented in reconstruction work.

There was a later 'trend' in archaeology programmes to use 'simple' technology to wrap a stereo typical face around an old skull. I never found those so engaging and was interested to learn from talking to Mark, that, in some circles, that practice continues. The presenters were very approachable and (as I am hearing impaired) I appreciated their efforts to subtitle the presentation.

I was also interested to learn of the use of technology to create accurate mouth and tongue movements. I also lip-read and had noticed the previous inaccuracies.

All this and a shout-out to David Crystal for Anglo-Saxon pronunciation! (Sally Starborg)

Science, by Jeff Howard and Sue Foy - a report published in Chester Times, April 2026
So far this year, we have had talks on ‘Assessing Risk in the Nuclear Power Industry’ and a look at Nuclear Submarines, both by Tony Hurst; representative from St Pancras Clinical Research came to talk to us about ‘Why We Should Join Clinical Trials for New Drugs’ (they specialise in dementia prevention drugs), and Bob Ashton followed this with a review of a book by Carlo Rovelli. In March, Peter Goodhew gave us his thoughts on Bricks – something we all see every day, but give little thought to. This month, on 9th April, we are very excited to have Dr Jessica Liu and Mark Roughley of Face Lab from Liverpool John Moores University coming to talk to us.

Some of you will remember an excellent Tuesday talk by Caroline Wilkinson, head of Face Lab, on reconstructing the face of Richard III from the remains that were dug up in a Leicester ar park. This next talk, from some of her colleagues, will be taking this a little further, ‘The Rise of the Post Mortem Avatar - reimagining faces from the past’ is about how we can now not only create faces, but also voices and movement. Scary stuff! Later this year we hope to have talks on either Bats or Beavers; Wirral Wildlife; CRISPR gene editing; and Perfusing the Brain – how does blood flow through your brain, why do we want to know how it works, and why does it matter?

There will be no meeting in August, but we have organised two visits to the Enfinium plant on Deeside, and booking of places for these will open shortly – car sharing to be organised. So if you want to know how recycling is carried out locally, this is your opportunity to find out. We also have a couple of short talks and book reviews to scatter in there somewhere, and are hoping to organise a second outing that will be associated with wildlife.

Science group numbers have increased significantly recently, but we still have room for more! Cost has been held at £12 for the year, an absolute bargain at only £1 per meeting. Currently we have 70-ish paid up members, but the room we hire can hold up to Meetings are at 2pm on every second Thursday of the month, at St Mary’s Handbridge Centre. You can get in touch with us via science@chesteru3a.org.uk about this year’s programme, or just turn up! All are welcome.

Main speakers for 2025 were

• 9th Jan: Vincent Hatton "Fermi and his Associates"
• 14th Feb: Lyndon Howson "Hedgehogs"
• 13th March: Roger Todd "The Avro Vulcan" and Laraine Beavis "Artificial Hearts"
• 10th April: David Jarvis "Genesis" and Jeff Howard "Aristarchus and the Moon"
• 8th May: Theo Papadopoulos "Organic Solar Cells" and Peter Goodhew "Not the End of the World"
• 12th June: Bob Ashton "Refrigeration and Heat Pumps: A Cautionary Tale in Technology Development" and "Biofuels: Sustainable or Greenwash?"
• 10th July: Sue Foy "Memory"
• August: No meeting; visits to Toyota
• 11th Sept: Steve Moore "Notable Medics"
• 9th October: Sue Houghton "Forensic DNA" and Roger Todd "Permister"
• 13th November: Denis Holman "A Pot-pourri of Christmas Science" and Sue/Jeff "Planning of Programme for next year"
• 11th December Christmas lunch

And if you want to get an idea of the sort of talks we have had recently, here are the previous two years:

• 2024 programme
• 2023 programme