Membership

Annual General Meeting (AGM)

The one hundred and fourth AGM of SAMS will be held on Friday 7th December 2018 from 3.15 pm at SAMS.

Download the SAMS 2018 AGM pack

Annual Newth Lecture:

The 29th annual Newth Lecture will be presented on Friday 7th December 2018 at 16.30 at SAMS. Our speaker will be Stephen Hall, CEO of the Society for Underwater Technology:

Blue Future: how new technology is going to change our relationship with the global ocean.

Humanity has accessed ocean resources since earliest times, gathering food and minerals, trading, raiding and spreading culture and wealth, and benefitting from her as a protective moat around islands large and small. However in many ways we’ve still behaved as hunter-gatherers, and barely begun to manage the ocean as we have the land, for better or worse, for centuries.

New technologies, better understanding of our impact on the global ocean and her ecosystems, and new societal drivers are going to rapidly change how we interact with the ocean, enabling us to transform into sustainable ocean resource managers, & responsible users of the bounties of the deep for access to energy, raw materials, security and commerce. There is always the risk that some nations and corporations will use technology to plunder in unsustainable ways, and we must prepare for that outcome too.

There are some emerging wildcards, like true artificial intelligence for robotic systems, quantum computing and self-repair that will change how our machines work; and the advent of meat production from stem cells that would radically change the economics of wild-caught fisheries, to the benefit of the ocean as a whole.

I’ll discuss the emerging technologies, sensors and joined-up thinking that enable us to face the forthcoming United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development as an exciting prospect that will give scientists, policy makers and the public an opportunity to consider anew how we work with, and protect, the global ocean.

Since 1990, SAMS holds an annual lecture to commemorate former SAMS President and Glasgow University Professor of Zoology, David Richmond Newth FIBiol FRSE. 

Who was Professor David Newth?

David Newth had a distinguished scientific career at the interface between biology and medicine.

Initially David was at University College, London, and the Middlesex Hospital School. From 1965 to 1981 he was Regius Professor of Zoology at the University of Glasgow. He was a most urbane individual, excellent company and a wonderful raconteur.

In his six years of office, David Newth steered the Association with a strong and sure hand. Thereafter he served as a Vice-President until his death on 5 June 1988 at the age of 66.

The late Professor Alasdair D. McIntyre (SAMS President 1988-1993, SAMS Vice President 1993-2009) described David thus:

"David Newth was a distinguished scientist, a fair-minded and effective administrator, a man who was both strong and gentle in his approach to the challenges of his professional life. He did not flinch from difficult decisions yet took them with an understanding that inflicted least hurt. He was both an idealist and pragmatist and both of these aspects of his personality I saw displayed when he was a member of the Nature Conservancy Council. If David's spirit could be reincarnated in animal form then, given his love of cats, I imagine it as a tiger, applying the right amount of strength and energy appropriate to the occasion – but having enough in reserve to cope with the unexpected. And it was good to watch him in action. He served our Association with great distinction and with a sense of tradition in which he took a pride."

List of past Newth lectures

• >2017 Professor Colin Moffat (Head of Marine Scotland Science): A day at the seaside, a life with our seas. View here....
• >2016 Professor John Spicer (Plymouth University): Plankton of the sea and of the mind. When Hardy met Garstang
• >2015 Professor Jane Francis (British Antarctic Survey): When the polar regions were green - fossil plants reveal the climate history of the Arctic and Antarctica
• >2014 Dr Patricio Bernal (International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile): Oceanography and Ocean Policy: What are the links
• >2013 Professor Geoffrey Boulton (SAMS President): The Open Science Imperative and its Implications for Oceanography
• >2012 Professor Lora Fleming (Director, European Centre for Environment and Human Health at the Royal Cornwall Hospital): Oceans and human health: A new area of interdisciplinary science 
• >2011 Professor Gideon Henderson (University of Oxford): Ironing the Ocean: the critical role of metals for ocean ecosystems and the global carbon cycle
• >2010 Dr Paul Tett (SAMS): Modelling for Science and Policy: From Loch Striven to the European Court of Justice
• >2009 Professor Toby Sherwin (SAMS): Charting the circulation of the North Atlantic: the legacy of David Ellett
• >2008 Professor Laurence Mee (Director of SAMS): "Quo vadis mare nostrum? Systems science for sustainable seas
• >2007 Professor Tom Crowley (Director of SAGES, University of Edinburgh): A geologist's perspective on global warming and energy options
• >2006 Professor Julian Dowdeswell (Director: Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge): Ice and environmental change
• >2005 Professor Michel Kaiser (Bangor University): Can't see the fishermen for the fish: net benefits demand a wider perspective
• >2004 Professor Chris German (SOC): Hydrothermal exploration can lead you a long way: Oases for life in distant oceans
• >2003 Dr Phil Williamson (NERC/UEA): Is marine management a myth?
• >2002 Dr Joanna Oliver (ECMB): Biotechnology meets the sea – a recipe for success
• >2001 Professor Peter Wadhams (SPRI): Convective chimneys in the Greenland Sea
• >2000 Professor Graham Shimmield (SAMS): Marine Science Plan for Europe: Issues to be addressed
• >1999 Professor John Harwood (SMRU): Marine mammals in the 21 st century: will habitat loss be a problem?
• >1998 Professor John S Gray (University of Oslo): The oil and gas industry and the North Sea environment. Lessons from Norway?
• >1997 Professor Harry Elderfield (University of Cambridge): Sea floor hot springs and ocean aquifers
• >1996 Professor John HS Blaxter (SAMS Honorary Fellow): Enhancing marine fish stocks
• >1995 Professor Steve A Thorpe (SOC): Marine dispersion: from parsnips to oil and yellow plastic ducks
• >1994 Sir Graham Hills (former Principal, University of Strathclyde): The University of the Highlands and Islands: A university of the future.
• >1993 Dr Eileen Buttle (NERC): The government white paper on science, engineering and technology: The challenge to Scottish marine science
• >1992 Professor George M Dunnet (University of Aberdeen): Scottish Natural Heritage and the marine environment
• >1991 Dr John H Steele (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution): Are we marine organisms?
• >1990 Professor Sir Frederick Holliday: Conserving conservation