We are very lucky to have the Summer Sundae Weekender - Leicester’s biggest music festival - right on our doorstep.

The event, which runs from August 17 to 19, will feature big names Public Image Limited, Katy B and Adam Ant, but will also be a great chance to hear some first-class musical talent from our own alumni and staff.

Singer-songwriter Elizabeth Cornish, a Leicester graduate who currently works in our Student Support and Development Service, is playing Summer Sundae for the second year in a row. She will perform at the Watering Hole Stage on the Friday night as well as at the Crumblin' Cookie for the Fringe Thursday evening.

Elizabeth, 23, has been a fixture on Leicester's music scene since she came here to start her BA in American Studies in 2007. Her folk-tinged show originally consisted of just her and her guitar, but has recently grown to include a three-piece backing band. Last year she won the city's Acoustic Original Bands Showcase, gaining a place at the weekend festival. She is currently recording an album for release next year, look out for news on this on her Facebook page. 

Before coming to University, Elizabeth lived in many places around the world, including Pennsylvania, USA where she first started writing songs aged 12, and Basel, Switzerland, where she began performing her own songs live aged 16.  Elizabeth spent the third year of her degree studying abroad at Colorado State University in the United States, and took an internship with the Student Welfare Service after graduating.

Her band includes bass player and physics graduate Jason Smith and guitarist Mark Riley Cardwell, an English graduate who now does freelance writing for the University.

The Simpletones, L-R: Nik Robinson, Nick Shepherd, Simon Lubkowski, Pete Freeman and Ian White.

Stick around until Sunday though and you’ll get the chance to see the Simpletones, featuring the Department of Genetics’ Dr Pete Freeman. This five part male voice  a’capella vocal group specialises in barbershop and a’capella arrangements of modern songs, with an occasional twist of doo-wop.

The Simpletones have been making a name for themselves around Leicester with appearances at the Clarendon Park Christmas fair and the Walkers Stadium Christmas event, where they performed to fans and also to the directors of Leicester City Football Club. This year, locals may well have spotted them at the Jubilee celebrations in the Knighton Hall gardens and the Clarendon Park Summer Fair as well as a session on BBC Radio Leicester’s Tony Wadsworth show.

As one of the winners of the Leicester Original Bands Showcase Unplugged competition, they won the opportunity to play at the Summer Sundae Weekender on the Sunday at 10.30am in the Watering Hole Tent. If you don’t get the chance to catch Pete with the Simpletones on the day, you can also see them at the regular open mic night at the Craddock Arms pub in Knighton on the second Wednesday of each month.

The week leading up to the festival will see a host of Leicester's local talent performing in venues across the City Centre, in the Leicester Fringe Festival organised by Stephen Jones in the Development and Alumni Relations Office - more than enough to keep you entertained this August, whatever your taste!

In the new study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, involving 20,000 patients assessed for alcohol problems by medical staff, all clinicians struggled to detect alcohol problems whether or not patients volunteered information regarding their drinking.

Assessing for alcohol problems in patients using a short questionnaire is recommended by the UK Primary Care Service Framework and NICE but not widely implemented by clinicians. Dr Mitchell says that the study highlights the challenge of clinical identification of alcohol problems by medical staff in busy clinical environments.

• University press release

•  Clinical recognition and recording of alcohol disorders by clinicians in primary and secondary care: meta-analysis in British Journal of Psychiatry

The Mars Science Laboratory mission, landing NASA’s most advanced planetary rover called Curiosity, is deploying the most powerful suite of instruments yet sent to the Red Planet.

Dr John Bridges of the University’s Space Research Centre is one of 2 UK Participating Scientists on the mission, and leads a team from the University of Leicester, the Open University and CNRS France. 

Dr Bridges will be at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California to witness the landing and start work on subsequent science operations.  He will be talking from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to a free public event at the National Space Centre during the landing time.

He will also be among the first people to study images returned after landing, to determine the conditions associated with the presence of water and assess the past Habitability of Mars for microbial life. The team will focus on determining the conditions associated with the presence of water in past epochs at the landing site.

The rover is scheduled to land at 6.31am UK time on Monday 6 August, beside a Martian mountain within Gale Crater called Mt. Sharp, to begin two years of unprecedented scientific detective work. You can watch Curiosity make its final landing via NASA's video feed.

Dr Bridges will be keeping a blog diary of his work on the project, so check this regularly to keep track of the latest developments from Mars.

• University press release

Led by puppet-maker and performer Sue Pyecroft, the two-day course is aimed at children aged 7-12 and is run in conjunction with the Spark Children's Arts Festival. It runs from 10.00am to 3.00pm on Thursday 9 and Friday 10 August and costs £25 for both days. You can book a place by calling the Spark Festival on 0116 261 6893.

Later in the year, Embrace Arts and the Spark Festival will launch the Spark Children's Puppet Company, with experience puppeteers teaching youngsters new skills in creating and operating puppets. These sessions will run on Saturday mornings, 9.30am-11.30am, from 27 October to 1 December. The cost for all six sessions is £30.

For more information on the Children's Puppet Company, please contact Mariane Pape, 0116 252 2455, mp422@le.ac.uk.

The evening will be hosted by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Robert Burgess, and the Rt Revd Tim Stephens, whose position as Bishop of Leicester makes him a Member of the House of Lords.

The event runs from 6.30pm to 8.30pm and costs £30 per person, with wine and canapés available all evening. For an additional £5 per person, you can join a 45-minute guided tour of the historic building (before or after the reception), viewing fabulous original artworks and areas of the Palace of Westminster that the public doesn’t normally get to see.

The closing date for bookings is Tuesday 28 August, but places for this exclusive event are limited and are selling fast so book your place now.

Each year the HEA recognises excellence in teaching and support for learning by awarding up to 55 National Teaching Fellowships. The 2012 National Teaching Fellows include Professor Jon Scott from our Department of Cell Physiology and Pharmacology and Professor Gráinne Conole from our Beyond Distance Research Alliance.

This is the first time that Leicester has received two National Teaching Fellowships in the same year. Each Fellowship comes with an award of £10,000 towards the recipient’s professional development. The scheme is funded by the UK’s four Higher Education Funding Councils.

Gráinne Conole is Professor of Learning Innovation in the BDRA where she researches the use, integration and evaluation of ICT and e-learning and its impact on organisational change. She blogs about learning innovations at www.e4innovation.com, and her new book Designing for Learning in an Open World is scheduled for publication by Springer in September.

Jon Scott is Professor of Bioscience Education and Academic Director of our College of Medicine, Biological Sciences and Psychology. His research into teaching and learning focuses on the development of web-based teaching, alongside educating students about plagiarism and using plagiarism detection software. In 2011 he was named Bioscience Teacher of the Year.

The new National Teaching Fellows will officially receive their awards at a ceremony in London on 10 October.

• University press release

Previous National Teaching Fellowships awarded to the University of Leicester

• Derek Raine, Department of Physics and Astronomy, 2004
• Chris Willmott, Department of Biochemistry, 2005
• Gillian Salmon*, BDRA, 2006
• Liz Anderson, Department of Medical and Social Care Education, 2007
• Annette Cashmore, Department of Genetics, 2008
• Rose Griffiths, School of Education, 2009
• Sue Dymoke, School of Education, 2011

*Now at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne

Zeeshan Uppal and Faraaz Kaskar, who recently graduated from the University’s School of Management and Department of Mathematics respectively, were so determined to make themselves noticed by the City’s top finance employers that they decided to show firsthand how employable they were. They have stood in Canary Wharf and Paternoster Square with placards reading “Economics graduates - who will employ us?” with their telephone numbers, while handing out copies of their CVs to professionals on their way to and from work.

Within three days they started receiving calls and emails from prospective employers and abandoned their placards to focus on preparing for interviews.

Faraaz hopes to go into Asset Management while Zeeshan hopes to gain employment in Financial/Investment Consultancy. They chose Paternoster Square and Canary Wharf due to the high footfall and high concentration of top financial firms and gained permission before taking their signs into the area.

• University Press Release

Dr Samiul Mostafa of our Department of Cardiovascular Sciences has led a study that reveals that South Asians (people of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lanka origin) have higher levels of blood sugar than white Europeans independent of risk factors that influence sugar levels.

According to the study South Asians had higher levels of three measures of blood sugar: HbA1c (a measure of blood sugar over three months), fasting plasma glucose, and two-hour plasma glucose which are all used for diagnosis of Type 2 Diabetes. Importantly, these higher levels of sugar markers in South Asians were not accounted for by differences in risk factors that influence diabetes, suggesting they were independently higher.

The study of 4,688 white Europeans and 1,352 South Asians has been published in Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

• University Press Release
• Independent Effect of Ethnicity on Glycemia in South Asians and White Europeans in Diabetes Care
  

Leicester’s presence in the FIA ‘Space Zone’ was courtesy of the International Space Innovation Centre stand, where four academics from our Department of Physics and Astronomy promoted the University’s research and business opportunities including the G-STEP and Space Ideas Hub projects.

Leicester delegates also took part in the FIA’s Space Day Conference, the Space Growth Agenda meeting and the National Space Academy’s careers event.

There are ten spaces available on each day, with personal assistance provided by the City Council’s Disabled Children’s Services. A hoist and changing table facilities will be available, and there will be plenty of breaks throughout the day. Embrace Arts is, of course, full accessible*. You can either bring your own lunch or buy food from the Arts Bar café.

The four days of creative fun are:

• Thursday 16 August – Play Circus!, with Angus Mcleod
• Friday 17 August – Jilly the Jellyfish, with Bamboozle Theatre
• Thursday 23 August – Sound, Movement and Visual Discoveries, with Salamanda Tandem
• Friday 24 August – Turned on its Head Dance, with Liz Clark and Oksana Tyminska

The cost is just £5 per child per day. For further details of each event, download the Short Arts Breaks leaflet (PDF). To book or find out more, please contact Marianne Pape, Education and Outreach Officer, on 01202 2522455, mp422@le.ac.uk

On Friday 3 August, Embrace Arts has an Open Morning (9.30am-12.00pm) for parents and carers of disabled children interested in viewing the venue and finding out more about the Short Arts Breaks. Contact Marianne Pape to reserve your place.

*The building was originally called the Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts.

As part of this project, a free one-day conference is being held this week for anyone with an interest in the topic. There will be guest speakers from faith groups, English Heritage, the City Council and the University and a chance to debate the role of faith buildings in the city.

The conference takes place at St Martin’s House, next to Leicester Cathedral, from 9.30am to 4.00pm on Thursday 26 July 2012. Attendance is free; lunch and refreshments will be served.

For further details and to book a place, please contact Heather Lomas, office@heatherlomas.co.uk or 0116 270 0386.

Continuum

Last day of four-day role-playing games convention.

• John Foster Hall, More information

Thursday 26 July 2012

Open Day

• More information

Faith and Place Conference

Updates and discussion relating to the Mapping Faith and Place project

• St Martin's House (next to Leicester Cathedral), 10.00am, free, More information

Friday 27 July 2012

Open Day

• More information

Ongoing exhibitions

Create

Paintings, drawings, mixed media work, sculptures, jewellery, textiles, written word and videos by people who have taken part in the creative learning programme at Embrace Arts.

• Embrace Arts, 9-27 July 2012, More information

Sculpture in the Garden: Interesting Times

Annual exhibition of modern sculpture

• Botanic Garden, 1 July - 28 October 2012, More information

Personnel from The Rifles injured on Operation Herrick will be able to move on to study archaeology at the University of Leicester thanks to the programme. Staff from our School of Archaeology and Ancient History have had close links and working relationships with both project leaders and soldiers during the programme.

‘Operation Nightingale’ won a British Archaeological Award in recognition of its innovative use of archaeological work to boost the recovery and career prospects of military personnel injured in Afghanistan. The soldiers have been working on Bronze Age and Anglo-Saxon deposits at Barrow Clump where they have excavated Saxon grave goods, the remains of a sixth century Anglo-Saxon female and the remains of an Anglo-Saxon male, who was buried with a bronze shield.

The BAA remarked that the trustees were unanimous that Operation Nightingale was a project worthy of special recognition. The project was directed by the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and involved partners including English Heritage, Wessex Archaeology and the Army’s survey unit, 135 Geographical Squadron.

• University Press Release
  

By joining Horizon's 'Centre of Excellence' program, Leicester will have access to the company's GENESIS genome editing technology which uses recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) vectors containing single-stranded homologous DNA. The rAAV vectors stimulate a process called Homologous Recombination in human cells and allow genes to be accurately modified in the DNA of human cells.

University researchers will use the GENESIS technology to investigate the genetic factors behind cardiovascular disease. Horizon distributes its technology to academic bodies in return for an exclusive license to any new cell lines developed (although intellectual property rights remain with the University).

The company is working toward developing 2,500 cell lines as part of its X-MAN project, which stands for 'gene X - Mutant and Normal. These are precisely matched pairs of cell lines, where one harbours a mutation in an endogenous gene, just as it occurs in real patients, while the other is a genetically identical cell line carrying a normal version of that gene which can be used as a control in experiments.

Princess Khaliilah Khalilatul Bolqiah of Brunei was awarded a Bachelor of Engineering with Honours alongside hundreds of fellow students from the College of Science and Engineering and their families. Princess Khaliilah studied in the iconic, award winning, Grade 2-star Listed Engineering Building, designed by Sir James Stirling and James Gowan, a landmark in modern British architecture.

Also present for this occasion were her parents HRH Prince Mohamed Bolkiah and HRH Princess Zariah. Princess Khaliilah’s father is brother to Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, the first Prime Minister of Brunei, and holds the office of foreign minister.

Though the Princess is the first royal to graduate from the University, Leicester has hosted royalty on several occasions; most notably, Her Majesty the Queen officially opened our Percy Gee Building in 1958 and our David Wilson Library in 2008.

• University Press Release