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Meeting probe
University College London (UCL) has launched an internal inquiry after it emerged that a series of controversial conferences on intelligence took place there. The meeting, called the London Conference on Intelligence, has been held annually since at least 2015 and was organized by psychologist and UCL honorary lecturer James Thompson, the university said. Talk topics have included purported disparities in cognitive ability linked to genetics, race and gender, and the cover of the 2016 conference brochure features an early-twentieth-century quote by a US eugenics proponent. UCL said in a statement that it had not approved the events and its officials had not been informed about the meetings' speakers, as they should have been. It is investigating a possible breach of its room-booking process, and said that it is "committed to free speech but also to combatting racism and sexism in all forms". Thompson did not respond to requests for comment. The details of the meetings were reported last week by the London Student newspaper and the UK magazine Private Eye.
FACILITIES
Maths institute
Imperial College London and the French CNRS - Europe's largest basic-science agency - inaugurated a joint mathematics laboratory at the British university's campus on 15 January. The centre, named after French mathematician Abraham de Moivre, is the first CNRS research unit to be established in the United Kingdom, and will give Imperial College mathematicians continued access to French funding after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union in 2019. It builds on a fellowship programme that supports extended stays by French mathematicians at Imperial, and will also sponsor Imperial mathematicians to spend time at French institutions.
PEOPLE
Society head
Former US Department of Energy secretary Steven Chu is the president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the organization announced on 9 January. He succeeds former US Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret Hamburg, who will begin her term as the group's president in February. AAAS leaders spend a year as president-elect, a year as president and a year as chair of the board of directors. Chu is currently a physicist at Stanford University in California and...