Events listed here are open to everyone. Whether you want to listen to a lecture, learn a new skill, take in a concert or an exhibition, see a play staged by Oxford University students or attend one of our sporting events, there's always something going on.

    Events are subject to change; please contact the organizer for full details.

    Qu Leilei: A Chinese Artist in Britain

    30 November 2017 to 15 April 2018

Contemporary Chinese artist Qu Leilei (born in 1951), now based in London, was a founding member of the creative ‘Stars Group' in the late 1970s, and immigrated to England in 1985. This exhibition shows his progression from calligraphic (书法的) art to an exploration of a new vocabulary of ink language mixing lively brushwork with western technique.

    The Brexit (脱欧) sword hanging over our universities

    29 November 2017

    Lord Bilimoria CBE，the Founder and Chairman of Cobra Beer and President of the University of Birmingham, will talk about Brexit, its influence on our universities, their academics and students as well as the future of international students in the UK.

    Oxford Botanic Garden Christmas Fair

    2-3 December 2017

    Escape the crowds and step inside a wonderland of hand-picked gifts, tasty food and family entertainment. Look through for extra-special Christmas presents at over 30 stands in the heated large tent. Pause for a glass of sweet hot wine and some delicious food, then follow the Alice in Wonderland path around the walled garden before stopping for tea with the Mad Hatter.

    The Art of Partying: A Feast for the Eyes!

    13 December 2017

    From Greek designs and Biblical weddings to Renaissance works and the celebratory styles of the twentieth-century painters, this lecture will examine the popular description of parties in the history of Western Art at the Ashmolean Museum.

    The Summer Science Exhibition（展览）is held every year to celebrate the cutting edge of UK science. With more than twenty exhibits of hands-on science and technology and a series of encouraging talks and activities, there's something for everyone. All of our events are free and no booking is required. School groups should let our organizers know ahead of time. Meet the scientists, discover the exciting research and technology they work on and have fun with great hands-on activities.

Opening hours

    The exhibition will be open from Monday, July 2, to Sunday, July 8, 2018. More detailed opening hours will be published here in May 2018.

    Please wait in line to enter the building and pass through security（安全）, particularly during the weekend. If you are planning to attend a talk, please make sure that you leave enough time.

Food and drink

    Take a break at our café which offers a selection of hot dishes, salads, sandwiches, cakes and some soft drinks on the ground floor.

The café is open throughout the exhibition and closes 30 minutes before closing time each day.

    Wheelchair users please speak to a worker if you would like to buy food from the café.

Contact

    If you have any questions before your visit, please keep in touch with us on 020 7451 2242 or at exhibition@royalsociety.org. For schools or colleges, visit our school and college page, or contact education@royalsociety.org.

    Next time you're planning to go out for a relaxing walk with your MP3 player, be sure to check the weather forecast first. Summer is the prime time for lightning strikes, a fact that Jason Bunch, a teen from Castle Rock, Colo, learned in a hard way. A couple of summers ago, he was mowing (割草) grass while listening to some Metallica on his iPod. Although there wasn't any rain falling on Bunch, he did hear distant thunder. Bunch was then struck by lightning, which seemed to travel through his music player, blowing out his eardrums and leaving him with burns where the device and its power lines were close to his body.

    Devices such as MP3 players don't attract lightning, says Dr. Mary Ann Cooper, an emergency room physician at the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago. However, they may change the pathway that lightning's energy follows in the human body. Lightning that might have passed rather harmlessly over the skin may react differently to the metal of these devices and cause damage.

    Rather than leaving your tunes at home, your best bet is watching out for lightning before it hits. Though people have been injured while using MP3 players in storms, Cooper says, “The devices' main task is keeping you from paying attention to thunder and the sky.” If you're caught in a storm, seek shelter.

    Boomerang children who return to live with their parents after university can be good for families, leading to closer, more supportive relationships and increased contact between the generations, a study has found.

    The findings disagree with the research published earlier this year showing that returning adult children trigger a significant worsening in their parents' quality of life and wellbeing.

    The young adults taking part in the study were "more positive than might have been expected" about moving back home – the shame is reduced as so many of their friends are in the same position, and they acknowledged the benefits of their parents' financial and emotional support. Daughters were happier than sons, often getting back easily to teenage patterns of behavior, the study found.

    Parents on the whole were more uncertain, expressing concern about how they can arrange and manage it if their children continue to live with them. But they acknowledged that things were different for graduates today, who leave university with huge debts and fewer job opportunities.

    The families participated in the study were middle-class and were more likely to view the achievement of adult independence for their children as a "family project". Parents accepted that their children needed support as university students and then as graduates returning home, as they tried to find jobs paying enough to enable them to move out or even afford their own house.

    "However," the study says, "many parents and a little over half the graduates report day-to-day tensions (矛盾) about the prospects of achieving adult independence, which in a few extreme situations came close to conflict".

    Areas of disagreement included housework, money and social life. While parents were willing to help, they also wanted different relationships from those they had with their own parents, and continuing to support their adult children allowed them to remain close.

    Visit the Newseum During "Museum Day"！

    Museum Day is an annual celebration of boundless curiosity hosted by Smithsonian magazine. Participating museums and cultural institutions across the country provide free entry to anyone presenting a Museum Day ticket. The Museum Day ticket provides free admission for two people.

    Here is some information about a popular museum — the Newseum.

    EVENT DETAILS

    Registration: free tickets will be available for the public to download on December 15 via the link: https://www.smithsonianmag. com/museumday/museum-day-2018/.

    Advanced registration is requested so that the museum sites know how many people to expect. If you don't register beforehand you may still be admitted the day of the event, but no guarantee for admission. All are welcome to attend including children and groups.

    Meeting Point #1: From 7:45 – 8:00 some volunteers will be in the Starbucks at 325 7th St NW before walking 2 blocks to the Newseum.

    Meeting Point #2: Outside the Newseum's Pennsylvania Avenue entrance. The Newseum opens at 9:00 am. However, as this is an extremely popular event we highly recommend arriving as early as possible, by 8:15 if you can, to bypass the masses that will show up later in the day.

    Meeting Point #3: Once the museum opens we recommend immediately heading to the 6th floor to avoid the masses since most people start on the 1st floor. On the 6th floor, the Hank Greenspun Terrace, which overlooks Pennsylvania Avenue and the U. S. Capitol, has one of the best views in Washington, DC. After that you can proceed through the museum's exhibits starting on the 6th floor and working our way down. The Newseum is open until 5:00 pm and guests are free to arrive and depart whenever they like.

    God has a way of allowing us to be in the right place at the right time.

    I was walking down a dark street late one evening when I heard screams coming from behind a clump of bushes (灌木). Alarmed, I slowed down to listen and soon realized that what I was hearing was the unmistakable sounds of a struggle: mad fighting and tearing of clothes.

    Only yards from where I stood a girl was being attacked. Should I get involved? I was worried about my own safety, and regretted having suddenly decided to take a new route home that night. What if I became another victim? Shouldn't I just run to the nearest phone and call the police?

    The girl's cries were growing weaker. I knew I had to act at once. How could I walk away from this? I finally made up my mind. I could not turn my back on the fate of this unknown girl, even if it meant risking my own life.

    I am not a brave man, nor am I physically strong. I didn't know where I got the courage and strength, but once I had decided to help the girl, I became strangely different. I ran behind the bushes and pulled the attacker off the girl. Struggling, we fell to the ground, where we wrestled for a few minutes until the attacker jumped up and escaped.

    Out of breath, I stood up and approached the girl, who was behind a tree, sobbing. Not wanting to frighten her further, I at first spoke to her from a distance. "It's okay," I said softly. "The man has run away. You're safe now." There was a long pause and then I heard the words, spoken in wonder, in amazement. "Dad, is that you?" And then, from behind the tree, out stepped my youngest daughter, Katherine.