Charlie Arbuthnot (Chair)
Charlie Arbuthnot worked in investment banking in the City from 1978 until 2008. During this time, he opened up various new markets including the market for private finance for housing associations and advised Her Majesty’s Government on introducing private finance to the social housing sector. In 2008, he left to set up his own business and became a self-employed financial advisor to housing associations. This has allowed him to focus on a wider remit covering both financial advice to housing associations and strategic advice around building community and inter-connecting relevant stakeholders with a view to community transformation. Charlie also sat on the main board of The Housing Finance Corporation (2008-2018) and was the Chair of THFC s Credit Committee (2014-2018). His pro bono roles include work with the London Borough of Wandsworth on faith and community, hate crime and elderly outreach, mentoring various individuals and several small emerging bu
Last modified on Sun 28 Feb 2021 23.36 EST
The neuroscientist Michael Land, who has died aged 78 from respiratory disease, was the Marco Polo of the visual sciences. He visited exotic parts of the animal kingdom, and showed that almost every way humans have discovered to bend, reflect, shape and image light with mirrors and lenses is also used by some creature’s eye.
His research revealed the many different ways in which animals see their own versions of reality, often to find members of the opposite sex. His 1976 discovery that prawns focus light not by lenses, but with a structure of mirror-lined boxes, helped lead to the discovery of a method to focus X-rays, and in the 1990s he developed a simple device to track humans’ gaze as they move their eyes while doing everyday tasks.
From the prospect of women landing on the moon, to Covid-19, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Rent Strikes and Freedom of Speech, 2020 certainly held a lot in store for Cambridge. Here,
Varsity Senior News Editors, past and present, summarise some of the key moments which shaped the previous year for our University and community.
January – A promising start
Simon Lock
As hard as it may be to believe now, 2020 began brimming with positive news for Cambridge. Two of the University’s former students, Kayla Barron and Dr Jenni Sidey-Gibbons, graduated from NASA’s Artemis programme. This put them firmly on the path to becoming the first women on the moon, expected to land in 2024.
Following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement of a national lockdown on Monday night (04/01), which took effect from midnight last night (05/01), the colleges and the University have issued further warnings to students regarding returns and teaching in Lent term.
Johnson’s announcement stated that schools and universities should provide teaching for students online until the end of the February half term, and that only university students studying practical or health-centred courses should receive in-person teaching. The restrictions on social contact, travel and public services are broadly the same as the first lockdown in March 2020.
Vice-Chancellor Stephen Toope, in an email sent to all students yesterday (05/01), told students that those “who travel to Cambridge will have to stay here for the duration of the national lockdown.”
James Burke has a prediction, and it is just a little mind bending. Imagine all the people in the world had a machine in their home that would produce anything and everything needed to live, crafted largely from air, water and dirt, Burke asks. It is going to be either paradise or Armageddon, says the Londonderry-born author and television presenter.
It will happen in the lifetime of people who are living today is his prediction, arguing it will entirely upend the way society operates and warning the world needs to start readying itself now.
If this all sounds like mad science fiction, it is worth remembering Burke has some form and experience as an expert and futurist, the theory is sound, and scientists in various parts of the world are way beyond the conceptual stage of using nanotechnology to control atoms to make substances and build structures.