Bigger and better is goal for Grand Tour (From York Press)

Bigger and better is goal for Grand Tour

8:06am Friday 31st August 2012 in News By Kate Liptrot, kate.liptrot@thepress.co.uk

A CITY-centre exhibition which has turned York into a giant outdoor gallery has been hailed a great success.

The York Science and Innovation Grand Tour has seen more than 60 stunning images go on display around the city, each a work of art as well as showcasing a piece of pioneering scientific research or innovation connected to York.

The display – which aimed to make people aware of what is happening on their doorsteps as well as generating interest in science – will be brought down next week and a review held into the exhibition with a view to doing something “bigger and better in the future”.

Prof Tony Robards, the former University of York biologist turned innovator behind the exhibition, said: “It has been seen as a great contribution to York’s offerings in a particularly good year for the city.

“It has been part of the 800th anniversary celebrations and has flagged York’s preeminence in science and technology, both in commercial industry and in the research base of the city’s universities.

“We have had a lot of really nice responses from people. We hope to do something bigger and better in the future.”

Among the many images is one of a chocolate crane fly, just one of hundreds of species of flying insect found on an area of land at the Yorkshire Air Museum that has opened as a Nature of Flight conservation area.

The image celebrates the work of the Rev Francis Orpen Morris – the Victorian entomologist and ornithologist who was one of the founders of the Royal Society For The Protection Of Birds, and who wrote definitive books on the moths and butterflies of the British Isles.

Other images show a prosthetic arm in recognition of York College ’s work in teaching local people about science, technology and innovation.

Many have gone on to great things – including Adam Clawson, who did his A-levels at the college from 2001-2003.

He is now studying for his PhD in bioengineering at the University of Brunswick in Canada, where he is working on upper limb prosthetic research. Another shows Aero bar bubbles. Each bar of Nestlé’s Aero has about 20,000 tiny air bubbles in the chocolate, increasing the flavour.