CAPS is the new conference for UK & Ireland students of physics, astronomy and related subjects, to gather, meet, discuss and share. It will be held at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland from Friday 17 to Sunday 19 June 2011.

It gives students the opportunity to present a short lecture about their project work or area of interest, includes a guest lecture by Prof. Miles Padgett, head of the optics group at the University of Glasgow and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a student debate on a current hot topic and social events in the evenings.

Representatives from student societies are particularly encouraged to attend, as this is an excellent opportunity to meet other society representatives, forge links, exchange experiences and get new ideas for your society. The conference incorporates the annual Student Society Awards for student societies in the areas of physics and astronomy within the UK and Ireland. Selected societies will give short presentations on Saturday in a bid to win one of the awards presented later that evening.

Find out more at www.caps2011.info.

Students from outside the British Isles are very welcome to join.

The first issue of jIAPS in 2011 is online, and can be downloaded on this website (high quality, 25 MB, low quality, 3 MB) or read here. We welcome four new editors to the jIAPS team this year, and you can find out about them, as well as the IAPS EC, in this issue. We also announce the winner of the jIAPS writing contest, Stephanie Walton, for her article “The Physical State”, on the idea of a stereotypical physicist. You can also read about the uses of Youtube, the Golden Ratio, quantum computing, a climate summer school at the University of Malta, and read a poem about holographic microscopy.

If you would like to write for jIAPS, contact the editors at jiaps@iaps.info, as we are always looking for contributions.

The jIAPS editors

Don’t forget, that the registration for the XXVI. International Conference of Physics Students in Budapest, Hungary opens February 15th. To register please visit the webpage of the conference at icps2011.mafihe.hu.

The Netherlands Foundation for Research in Astronomy (ASTRON) and the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) announce the availability of a limited number of grants for their 2011 Summer Research Programme. The Programme enables astronomy students (graduate or advanced under-graduate) to spend the summer (10-12 weeks) at the Dwingeloo Observatory, conducting astronomical research under the supervision of ASTRON and JIVE staff members. Possible topics of study include radio galaxies and quasars, aspects of observational cosmology, continuum and line emission/absorption from normal and starbust galaxies, faint radio sources, pulsars, molecular clouds, cosmic magnetism, as well as working with LOFAR data. The actual project the successful candidate will work on will be defined after arrangement with the local supervisor.

Deadline on February 1st, 2011.

More information here.

During the summer months of 2011 HGS-HIRe and GSI organise a Summer Student Program which is offered to a limited number of students in physics or related natural science disciplines from Europe or GSI/FAIR partner countries.

GSI, the German research center for heavy-ion physics, is one of the world’s leading accelerator laboratories for basic research with accelerated ions. In cooperation with an international research community the existing accelerator complex will be significantly extended by a new Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR). The center provides unique research opportunities for investigations in the fields of hadronic and nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, atomic, laser, and plasma physics, materials science, and biophysics with applications to cancer therapy, new accelerator developments and radiation safety. Detailed information about the program here.

Application deadline is February 15, 2011.

CERN financial support is offered to students in physics and engineering fields who are nationals of countries that are not Member States of CERN. Students will join in the day-to-day work of research teams participating in experiments at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Attendance requires a presence of a eight weeks on site during July and August in order to follow the series of lectures and complete a research work experience. More information here.