Congress in Retrospect

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 509, 25 March 1949, Page 15

Congress in Retrospect

— ee ALTHOUGH the Seventh Pacific Science Congress is over and the delegates from overseas have returned home, we have not heard the last of it or of them. During the Congress sessions Professor G. M. Shrum, President of the Canadian Association for Adult Education, and leader of the Canadian Delegation, emphasised that "public relations are all-important." To assist in the job of public relations, officers of the NZBS attended the Congress gnd arranged for one speaker from each branch of science represented to record his impressions of the work done in his division. These will be heard shortly in a series of talks from the four Main National Stations. ‘Each speaker was asked briefly to outline the nature of his ‘work, and the scope of the Congress discussions in that field, and suggest what significance these might have for the people of the Pacific. Professor Shrum’s view was not an isolated one, for the willingness of visiting delegates to help was remarkable, in view of the pressure of Congress business, letters home and local sight-seeing. Among the contributors to this series of talks are some world-famous scientists. Dr. K. F. Meyer, Director of the George William Hegoper Foundation for Medical Research (University of California), speaks for the division of Public Health; Sir Geoffrey Taylor, a Research Professor of the Royal Society, working at Cambridge University, discusses advances in the science of meteorology (he was present at the explosion of the first atom bomb in New Mexico); Dr. Charles E. Kellogg, chief of the division of Soil Survey in the U.S, Department of Agriculture, and a world authority on soil conservation, speaks on soil resources; and Dr. E. G. Bowen, chief of the division of radiophysics, C.S.LR.,

Sydney, who worked with the pioneers of radar, has something to say about the development of astrophysics. Other sciences dealt with include forestry, agriculture, geology, vulcanology, seismology, botany, oceanography, geophysics, nutrition and social sciences. Coming nearer home, Dr. Ernest Beaglehole, who holds the chair of Psychology at Victoria University College, Wellington, contributes a talk on anthropology, while an overseas visitor, Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy, of New York, has something to say about New Zealand. Dr. Murphy has made several visits to this ‘country, and his observations in the field of zoology-particularly of oceanic birds — have attracted considerable attention. These talks will be programmed under the general title The Scientist Can Help and will begin from the YA stations on the following dates: 3YA, Friday, March 25, 7.15' p.m.; 4YA, Tuesday, March 29, 7.0 p.m.; 1YA, Wednesday, March 30, 9.30 p.m.; 2YA, Monday, May 2, 7.15.p,m J