Theme summary So wrote Charles Darwin in the conclusion to his On the Origin of Species (first edition, 1859): a work of far-reaching significance for an understanding of what it means to be human. If Darwin’s theories were initially ‘difficult to...
Theme summary Modelling, is a practice that has become a vital part of research and development in almost every sphere of modern life. Climate models, incorporating very complex equations of atmospheric and sea surface processes are used for weather and climate...
Theme summary What, if anything, is distinctive about being human? This question inspired a Renaissance that made ‘man’ (not God) the measure of things. It has prompted many cultures to set people above animals, along with the desire to rank some...
Theme summary About 1,460 teratonnes of water covers 71% of the Earth’s surface, mostly in oceans and other large water bodies, with 1.6% of water below ground in aquifers and 0.001% in the air as vapor, clouds and precipitation. Water pervades the arts and the...
Theme summary From 2010-2012, the two IAS themes were on the subject of ‘Futures’. In the first year (2010-11), IAS Fellows and Durham academics discussed the problems of predicting and responding to future challenges in government, science and culture....
Theme summary We live in an age acutely conscious of time: its passing and acceleration, its measurement and regulation, its evolutionary dynamic, its future promise, its own timing. Through this consciousness seems to run a thread of compulsion – a compulsion...
Theme summary “Every light is a shade, compared to the higher lights, till you come to the sun; and every shade is a light, compared to the deeper shades, till you come to the night.” John Ruskin, 1879 Light plays a central role in the physics of the...
Theme summary Throughout our lives we are all immersed in multiple processes, participating in social, intellectual, biological and material flows of events. Emergence – the appearance of novelty – occurs in all of the systems we inhabit, at local, global and cosmic...
Theme summary The IAS’s choice of the theme Evidence is intended to generate a dialogue between disciplines, and between academics and research users, about the role of evidence in academic enquiry, policy and everyday life. This dialogue will explore how evidence is...
Theme summary Scale can be interpreted spatially, temporally or conceptually. It refers both to things measured and how measurement is done. This research theme is predicated on the idea that seeking common aspects to the study of scale and its effects has the...
