EDINBURGH SHERIFF COURT – THURSDAY 16 APRIL from 9am
COURT SUPPORT IN EDINBURGH
Leonardo 5 – Trial
Thursday 16th April 2026 (Day 1, day 2 not yet scheduled)
Edinburgh Sheriff Court & Justice of the Peace Court, 27 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1LB
From 9AM
Please support these 5 SPSC members who, from early morning on 10th December 2024, blockaded Leonardo arms factory in Edinburgh with vehicles, disrupting production for 8 hours.
After arrest, they were treated disgracefully at Livingston and Dunfermline stations, released at 10.00pm without coats in sub-zero temperatures, (confiscated) to make their way home to the Borders without breaking their bail conditions of not entering Edinburgh.
*Two are very bravely self-repping* to ensure they can have their say in court.
PLEASE LET FRIENDS KNOW AND GET A GREAT TURN OUT FOR THESE BRAVE ACTIVISTS BOTH OUTSIDE AND INSIDE THE COURT
Edinburgh Science Festival continues this Easter break and brings more fun for young sci-curious minds at the National Museum of Scotland
Science Festival Favourites, which opened yesterday, is a series of children workshops and shows, an exciting selection of activities which would normally feature at City Art Centre.
Children can Dig Up a Dino! (ages 5+) in a special dig site and discover all about the creatures which ruled the Earth millions of years ago, become a forensic scientist in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (8+), help solve a crime and catch the perpetrator or get their goo on in Splat-tastic! (5+), be creative with chemistry and make their very own slime to take home.
Also part of Science Festival Favourites, the whole family can take part in Mini-Medics: The Body Show (7+), inviting everyone to scrub up, don their masks and join Doctor Watson and Nurse It-Better as they explore the human body and how to keep it healthy. The Rocket Show (7+) makes the rocket science fun and accessible as children explore forces, test materials and prepare for a launch of a rocket fit for space.
Tech Decoded, supported by the Association for Science and Discovery Centres and SeaByte, features free drop-in activities that allow families to explore technology from AI to coding. Visitors will learn how the internet works and have the chance to create their own electrical circuits.
Edinburgh Science Festival continues until 19 April.
National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh 28 June–30 November 2025
Tickets for Monkeys: Our Primate Family are available to book at nms.ac.uk/Monkeys
The biggest exhibition of primate behaviour ever staged returns to the National Museum of Scotland this weekend. From huge gorillas to tiny mouse lemurs, Monkeys: Our Primate Family (28 Jun – 30 Nov 2025) explores the remarkable lives of our closest relatives.
Ahead of the opening on Saturday 28 June, experts at the National Museum of Scotland have been adding the finishing touches to more than 60 spectacular monkey, ape, lemur and loris specimens featured in the exhibition.
Monkeys: Our Primate Family is the first exhibition of its kind, capturing primates acting as they would in the wild. Taxidermy specimens created for the exhibition reveal behaviours rarely seen by humans and demonstrate how primate species have adapted to survive.
Atmospheric lighting and naturalistic displays create a tropical forest experience to explore while encountering some of the rarest and most endangered primate species on earth. Visitors to the exhibition will also learn about ongoing conservation efforts to protect these extraordinary animals and their fragile habitats.
The exhibition first opened at the National Museum of Scotland in 2016 before embarking on an international tour. It returns to Edinburgh for a final time having been seen by over 500,000 visitors in six countries around the world.
Professor Andrew Kitchener, Principal Curator of Vertebrate Biology at National Museums Scotland, said: ““We are all primates, but how much do we really know about our extended family?
“Following a successful global tour, this is the last chance to experience this remarkable exhibition. Monkeys: Our Primate Family provides a unique opportunity to see these fascinating animals up close. Visitors will also learn about the threats facing primates and what we can do to protect them.”
Visitors to Monkeys will discover how primates have evolved and adapted, their unique methods of locomotion, and the tools they have developed to obtain food.
A gibbon swings through the trees while a chimpanzee fishes for termites. The exhibition also reveals the fascinating ways they communicate and their complex social systems. A tarsier is shown using ultrasonic communication and a vervet monkey reveals how its different calls warn about each different predator.
The final section of the exhibition looks at conservation as well as some of the threats humans pose to primates today, including the climate emergency, conflict, and the bush meat trade. It includes endangered primates, such as the Sumatran orangutan and the black-and-white ruffed lemur.
Thanks to the support of players of People’s Postcode Lottery, children can visit Monkeys: Our Primate Family (28 Jun – 30 Nov 2025) for free.
For the first time, the National Museum of Scotland is also offering those on Universal Credit and other named UK benefits discounted exhibition entry.
The exhibition is supported by a programme of public events.
National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh Until 27 April 2025 Free admission
nms.ac.uk/InjectingHope
An exhibition telling the story of the global effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine is open now at the National Museum of Scotland.
Injecting Hope: The Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine explores the scientific principles and adaptation of innovative research behind this extraordinary endeavour. It looks at the UK-wide, behind-the-scenes work that accompanied the vaccines’ rapid development, production, transport and delivery and examines the sheer logistical challenges behind the worldwide rollout.
Revealing the inspiring stories of scientists and innovators collaborating around the globe to find solutions and save lives, the exhibition shows how these people have shaped the world we live in today.
Showcasing more than 80 objects and stories that were collected during the peak of the pandemic, it features artworks, interactives, and personal objects examining everything from the virus itself to the work done behind the scenes by volunteers and researchers to make huge innovations possible.
Highlights include the vial of the first COVID-19 vaccine to be administered worldwide, notebooks used by June Almeida, the Scottish scientist who discovered coronavirus in 1966 and artworks interpreting the story of the pandemic by artists including Luke Jerram, Angela Palmer and Junko Mori.
New content created for the exhibition’s Scottish run explores some of the uniquely Scottish experiences of the pandemic.
Sophie Goggins, Senior Curator of Biomedical Science at National Museums Scotland said: “The development and rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in record time is one of the greatest collaborative human achievements in recent memory.
“This exhibition tells the story of just how this extraordinary feat came to be; from the scientific breakthroughs which led to the creation of the vaccine to the countless individuals who helped to roll it out around the globe.”
Injecting Hope is presented by the Science Museum Group (SMG). It comes to the National Museum of Scotland as part of a national and international tour following its inaugural run at the Science Museum in London.
It forms part of a project with the National Council of Science Museums in India and the Guangdong Science Center in China, which, alongside the Science Museum, opened exhibitions in November 2022.
Injecting Hope builds on the work SMG has undertaken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its COVID-19 collecting project, hosting NHS vaccination centres within its museums and public engagement events and materials.
The Injecting Hope project, including the international tour and UK national tour, has been generously supported by Wellcome. The Huo Family Foundation is kindly supporting the national tour of the exhibition.
National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh 25 January – 27 April 2025 Free admission
An exhibition telling the story of the global effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine will open at the National Museum of Scotland in January.
Injecting Hope: The Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine explores the scientific principles and adaptation of innovative research behind this extraordinary endeavour. It looks at the UK-wide, behind-the-scenes work that accompanied the vaccines’ rapid development, production, transport and delivery and examines the sheer logistical challenges behind the worldwide rollout.
Revealing the inspiring stories of scientists and innovators collaborating around the globe to find solutions and save lives, the exhibition will show how these people have shaped the world we live in today.
Showcasing more than 100 objects and stories that were collected during the peak of the pandemic, it features artworks, interactives, and personal objects examining everything from the virus itself to the work done behind the scenes by volunteers and researchers to make huge innovations possible.
Highlights include the vial of the first COVID-19 vaccine to be administered worldwide, notebooks used by June Almeida, the Scottish scientist who discovered coronavirus in 1966 and artworks interpreting the story of the pandemic by artists including Luke Jerram, Angela Palmer and Junko Mori.
New content created for the exhibition’s Scottish run will explore some of the uniquely Scottish experiences of the pandemic.
Sophie Goggins, Senior Curator of Biomedical Science at National Museums Scotland said: “The development and rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in record time is one of the greatest collaborative human achievements in recent memory.
“This exhibition tells the story of just how this extraordinary feat came to be; from the scientific breakthroughs which led to the creation of the vaccine to the countless individuals who helped to roll it out around the globe.”
Injecting Hope is presented by the Science Museum Group (SMG). It comes to the National Museum of Scotland as part of a national and international tour following its inaugural run at the Science Museum in London.
It forms part of a project with the National Council of Science Museums in India and the Guangdong Science Center in China, which, alongside the Science Museum, opened exhibitions in November 2022.
Injecting Hope builds on the work SMG has undertaken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its COVID-19 collecting project, hosting NHS vaccination centres within its museums and public engagement events and materials.
The Injecting Hope project, including the international tour and UK national tour, has been generously supported by Wellcome. The Huo Family Foundation is kindly supporting the national tour of the exhibition.
A new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland explores Scotland’s critical position on the frontline of the Cold War. Cold War Scotland (13 Jul 2024 – 26 Jan 2025), features dozens of objects on display for the first time, including secret intelligence training documents and a map of central Scotland marked to highlight targets under threat of nuclear attack.
Scotland’s unique geography and topography provided a useful base for NATO military preparations and research during the Cold War, a 40-year nuclear stand-off between the USA and the Soviet Union following the end of the Second World War. Opening this Saturday, 13 June, the exhibition tells the stories of the Scots at the centre of this global conflict.
For the first time visitors will see an Ordnance Survey map of Scotland hand-painted to highlight areas that were expected to be affected in the event of a nuclear attack, particularly major cities, military bases and dockyards.
Created in the 1980s, it is colour coded to indicate the point of explosion and scale of the impact across the central belt and beyond. Atomic power brought jobs and investment to some of the country’s most remote areas, but as global tensions mounted this threat of attack or nuclear disaster became part of everyday life. Cold War Scotland explores both the visible and invisible legacies of the war in Scotland.
The impact of the war still lingers in Scottish politics, culture and memory. Scots played an active role in the global conflict as soldiers, for example, within intelligence services and as part of voluntary civil defences.
2HX4YA3 Britain’s Women Learn Atom Defence — Wearing anti-gas boots and headphones, Pamela Preston of the KVS probes and area with a Geiger monitor for supposed deadly radioactivity. A three-girl team drawn from the Red cross, the Women’s voluntary service and the red cross took part in a demonstration of atomic defence techniques at Winchester. England, Feb 18, The display was given by naval personnel from the Atomic defense school, HMS Phoenix, and was organized by the Hampshire civil defense corps. August 01, 1952. (Photo by Associated Press Photo).
The exhibition also draws on Scotland’s rich history of Cold War-era protest and activism. Firsthand accounts include a young mother who decorated her daughter’s pram with Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) badges.
A rattle made from an old laundry detergent bottle emblazoned with the CND logo was given to them during the Peace Marches of the early 1980s and is on display in the exhibition.
The exhibition also reveals the physical remains of the Cold War; the ruined bases, forgotten bunkers and decommissioned nuclear power stations still evident across the Scottish landscape.
This infrastructure became part of the fabric of local communities, none more so than the US-controlled listening and monitoring station at RAF Edzell in Angus, now commemorated with its own bespoke tartan.
Dr Meredith Greiling, Principal Curator of Technology at National Museums Scotland, said: “From nuclear submarines to lively peace protests and observation stations perpetually monitoring for devastating attack, the Cold War permeated every aspect of life in Scotland for decades.
“This conflict is so often remembered on a global scale, but this thought-provoking exhibition will offer a Scottish perspective of the period, allowing Scots from all walks of life to tell their remarkable stories for the first time.”
Further highlights of the exhibition include artwork from Glasgow’s 1951 Exhibition of Industrial Power and a toy nuclear power station, operated by steam and hot to the touch when played with.
Both these examples highlight the spirit of optimism, progress and modernity associated with atomic energy in postwar Britain. In contrast, a Geiger counter used by farmers in East Ayrshire to test for radiation in sheep following the Chernobyl Disaster illustrates the enduring but unseen impact of the Cold War on Scotland’s landscape.
The exhibition will be supported by a book and programme of events including curator tours and talks. Cold War Scotland is an output of Materialising the Cold War, a collaborative research project between National Museums Scotland and the University of Stirling.
The project explores how the Cold War heritage is represented and how museums can adapt to tell this story in future. Materialising the Cold War is funded by a major grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Cold War Scotland is part of Edinburgh Art Festival, taking place between 9 – 25 August 2024.
Cold War Scotland is part of Edinburgh Art Festival, taking place between 9-25 August 2024.
The world’s largest interactive exhibition of the culture and history of video games opens at the National Museum of Scotland this weekend. Game On brings together over 100 playable games spanning 50 years. It features iconic characters from Space Invaders to Mario and highlights Scotland’s role as a pioneer and world leader in video game development.
Game On presents Scotland as home to some of the most innovative and influential game makers, including Rockstar Games, creators of the Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption series.
Objects from the developer’s archive will be displayed for the first time, including limited edition merchandise and a ‘Key to Liberty City’, awarded to players who completed 100% of Grand Theft Auto IV within one week of the game’s release in 2008. Only 500 were ever made.
“Scotland has played an instrumental part in the evolution of video games as a medium,” said Jennifer Kolbe, Head of Publishing at Rockstar Games. “We’re excited to help the National Museum of Scotland reveal more about the nation’s contributions to this thriving aspect of modern culture.”
The exhibition reveals the story of Scottish gaming, from its roots in Dundee in the 1980s with the manufacture of the ZX Spectrum computer to emerging talent such as Sad Owl Studios, whose game Viewfinder was awarded Best British Game at the Bafta Game Awards 2024. Visitors will also discover the important role Scottish studio, 4J studios played in making Minecraft a global phenomenon.
Game On is curated and toured by Barbican Immersive. The exhibition examines the creative and technological advances that have established gaming as a new art form.
Patrick Moran, Game On Associate Curator, said: ““The gaming world has had an undeniable social, cultural, and technological impact. Games transcend the boundaries between art and technology, becoming part of popular culture.
“Game On presents the opportunity to not only see the evolution of video games and how they have changed over time but also to immerse yourself inside gaming worlds with over 100 playable games.
“The show features the largest playable collection in the world, including original arcades, hand-held consoles, and key games, including Pac-Man, Super Mario, Tetris, Sonic the Hedgehog, Just Dance and FIFA.
“The exhibition also explores new advances in the gaming world. Highly interactive, groundbreaking and popular, Game On is engaging for hardcore gamers and visitors new to gaming. Crucially, the show is suitable for players of all ages.”
The National Museum of Scotland was the exhibition’s very first touring venue in 2002, and Game On has since been visited by over 5 million people of all ages in 25 cities around the world.
Dr Geoff Belknap, Keeper of Science and Technology at National Museums Scotland, said: “It’s great to welcome Game On back to the National Museum of Scotland. As someone in charge of Scotland’s national science and technology collections, it’s exciting to explore the country’s incredible contribution to gaming, past and present.
“I’m delighted to bring Scottish independent games to a new audience, including The Longest Walk, a pioneering project exploring the experience of living with mental health issues and Highland Song, a beautiful adventure through the Scottish landscape. The exhibition has been continually updated at each new touring venue since the early 2000s and so we look forward to bringing the story of video gaming right up to date here in Scotland, where the industry today is so vibrant.”
Chris van der Kuyl, Chairman of 4J Studios, said: ““Scotland is driving innovation in the games industry. The National Museum of Scotland’s new exhibition, Game On, is a fantastic showcase of this pioneering sector and its significant cultural contributions.
“We’re proud that 4J Studio’s achievements are displayed alongside some of Scotland’s most innovative developers, to inspire the next generation of creators and ensure that Scotland continues to punch above its weight on the world stage.”
The exhibition is organised in thematic sections, exploring hardware formats such as handheld to home consoles to arcade machines, as well as wider cultural aspects such as the links between music, film and gaming.
A programme of public events will support the exhibition, including a Museum Late, relaxed viewings for those with sensory needs and family-focused activities to inspire videogaming’s next generation of creators.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year – 20 January to 6 May 2024
National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street
Wildlife cameraman and presenter Hamza Yassin yesterday attended an event to mark the opening of the world-renowned Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland.
The exhibition, on loan from the Natural History Museum in London, features exceptional images which capture fascinating animal behaviour, spectacular species and the breathtaking diversity of the natural world.
Using photography’s unique emotive power to engage and inspire audiences, the images shine a light on stories and species around the world and encourage a future of advocating for the planet.
Hamza Yassin said: “I was delighted to be among the first people in Scotland to view this thought-provoking exhibition.
“As a wildlife cameraman and photographer myself, it was great to see such a variety of incredible images and to appreciate the skill, knowledge of nature and ingenuity that must have gone into capturing them.
“Photography like this can really inspire us all to think about the beauty and fragility of our natural world, as well as the things we can do to protect it.”
Wildlife Photographer of the Year is the most prestigious photography event of its kind, providing a global platform that showcases some of the best photography talent from around the world for nearly 60 years.
Launched in 1965, today the competition receives entries from countries all over the world, highlighting its enduring appeal. This year’s award-winning images will embark on an international tour that will allow them to be seen by well over a million people.
This year’s competition attracted 49,957 entries from photographers of all ages and experience levels from 95 countries. Over the course of a week at the Natural History Museum in London, entries were judged anonymously on their creativity, originality, and technical excellence by an international panel of industry experts.
French underwater photographer and marine biologist Laurent Ballesta was awarded Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023 for The golden horseshoe, an otherworldly image of a tri-spine horseshoe crab accompanied by a trio of golden trevallies. Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2023 was awarded to 17-year-old Carmel Bechler from Israel for his Owls’ roadhouse, a dynamic frame of barn owls in an abandoned roadside building.
Dr Nick Fraser, Keeper of Natural Sciences at National Museums Scotland, said: “These images taken together tell a powerful story, balancing the wonder and beauty of the natural world with its fragility and vulnerability to climate change and biodiversity loss.
“It is perhaps less well understood how the work of in-house natural sciences teams and external researchers on collections such as ours at National Museums Scotland and those at the Natural History Museum contributes hugely to global understanding of human impact on the environment. We look forward to welcoming visitors to the exhibition when it opens this weekend.”
Dr Doug Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum said: “We are facing urgent biodiversity and climate crises, and photography is a powerful catalyst for change.
“The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition reveals some of nature’s most wondrous sights whilst offering hope and achievable actions visitors can take to help protect the natural world.”
Chair of the judging panel, Kathy Moran said: “What most impressed the jury was the range of subjects, from absolute beauty, rarely seen behaviours and species to images that are stark reminders of what we are doing to the natural world. We felt a powerful tension between wonder and woe that we believe came together to create a thought-provoking collection of photographs.”
The exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland is supported by players of People’s Postcode Lottery and will be supported by a range of public events and activities.
Laura Chow, Head of Charities at People’s Postcode Lottery, said: “The Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition is truly stunning and inspiring, helping us discover untold stories of species from around the world.
“Our players have raised more than £3.3 million for National Museums Scotland and I’m delighted their support makes exhibitions like this accessible to everyone, allowing more people to learn about our natural world”.
POLICE in Edinburgh are appealing for information following a serious assault.The incident happened in Chambers Street around 9pm last night (Saturday, 19 August, 2023).
A 23-year-old man suffered serious injuries and was taken to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh for treatment.
Officers are working to identify two males as part of the ongoing investigation.
The first male is described as being aged between 16 and 17 years old, 5ft 5ins tall, with buzz cut style, dark hair. He was wearing a black and grey tracksuit jumper and grey tracksuit bottoms.
The second male is described as white, between 17 and 18 years old, 5ft 7ins tall, with short blonde/ginger beard and dirty blonde curly hair. He was wearing a football top.
Detective Sergeant Steven Gray, of Gayfield CID, said: “Our enquiries into this incident are ongoing and I would urge anyone who may have witnessed the incident or has any information about those involved to get in touch.
“Anyone who can help is asked to call 101, quoting incident number 3799 of 19 August, or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.”
Uniquely Scottish Silver 5 August 2023 to 26 May 2024 National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh
#UniquelyScottishSilver
A new display at the National Museum of Scotland, Uniquely Scottish Silver (5 August 2023 to 26 May 2024), will showcase a range of objects highlighting Scottish designs and provide an insight into how people used them.
The display will bring together five distinctively Scottish designs: mazers, quaichs, thistle cups, ovoid urns and heart brooches. While some of these objects survive in plentiful numbers, others are amongst the earliest and rarest survivals within the Scottish silver smiths’ craft.
Lyndsay McGill, Curator of Renaissance and Early Modern Scottish History said: “During the Renaissance and Early Modern period (about 1450-1750) Scottish craftsmen designed and produced a wealth of silver artefacts.
“While most designs were influenced by contemporary British and European fashions, the country’s silversmiths also created a number of forms unique to Scotland, and that’s what the display is about.
“These items were owned and used by people from many walks of life. Some objects were sentimental and held meaning, while others signified the latest styles.”
Highlights of the display include thistle cups which were a relatively short-lived phenomenon from the 1680s to 1720s, but a distinctively Scottish one, with their inverted bell-shape and prominent lobes to the bottom half of the cup giving the impression of a thistle head.
These designs reveal that Scottish silversmiths were innovative in their work and that they added their own twist to create a remarkable Scottish form of silverware.
The display includes pieces from the 16th to the early 20th centuries, some of which are instantly recognizable as Scottish including quaichs and heart brooches, as well as rarer items such as thistle cups and mazers – only nine Scottish mazers are known to survive.
Also on display will be a futuristic looking ovoid urn, which, thanks to some detective work by researchers, is now believed to have been used for serving coffee rather than tea, as had previously been thought.
Of the 43 items in the display, Lyndsay says that a particular favourite is a quaich made by William Scott in Aberdeen around 1681: “It’s a tiny quaich that fits in the palm of your hand and is engraved with parrots and flowers.
“Scott presumably took inspiration from pattern books or books on the natural world. It’s a wonderful example of his delicate craftsmanship and creativity – it’s quite beautiful and I look forward to visitors getting the rare chance to see it.”
Uniquely Scottish Silver runs from 5 August 2023 until 26 May 2024. Admission is free.
COURT SUPPORT IN EDINBURGH
Leonardo 5 – Trial
Thursday 16th April 2026 (Day 1, day 2 not yet scheduled)
Edinburgh Sheriff Court & Justice of the Peace Court, 27 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1LB
From 9AM
PLEASE LET FRIENDS KNOW AND GET A GREAT TURN OUT FOR THESE BRAVE ACTIVISTS BOTH OUTSIDE AND INSIDE THE COURT
