Richard III discovery at the Royal Society Summer Exhibition
The team behind the scientific detective story of the decade, the discovery of King Richard III, has been selected as one of 22 exhibitors at the Royal Society’s annual display of the most exciting cutting-edge science and technology in the UK.
The exhibit, at the prestigious Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition 2015, will reveal the crack team of scientists, historians, archaeologists and engineers at the University who worked tirelessly to find and identify the king who had been lost for 500 years and will bring together their expertise once more to provide a thorough account of the interdisciplinary research used to identify the remains of King Richard III.
The Richard III stand will also include an incredible 3D-printed replica of King Richard III’s skeleton created by Loughborough University using CT scans undertaken by the University of Leicester’s Department of Engineering.
Dr Turi King, Lecturer in Genetics and Archaeology at the University of Leicester, led the DNA analysis of King Richard's remains. She said: “This project has been a really wonderful example of how the expertise from a number of different disciplines can be brought together to answer a specific question. It was scientific research hand-in-hand with archaeological, historical and genealogical investigation which brought this amazing project to fruition. We hope the exhibit will be a great and fun way for people to learn about the work that went into the identification of the remains and learn more about Richard III.”
Visitors will be asked to look at the evidence the University of Leicester team uncovered during the search for Richard’s remains and asked to vote ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ as to whether they think they found him - placing a ‘Red’ chip into the ‘No’ box, or a ‘White’ chip in to the ‘Yes’ box.
At the event there will be an array of other exhibits exploring everything from cancer cells to plasma rockets.
The event, which runs from Tuesday 30 June to Sunday 5 July, is free entry for all ages and there is no booking required, except for school groups.
Follow @RIIIRoyalSoc for updates on the Richard III exhibition stand.
Watch Richard's remains video on how scientists are solving a 500-year mystery: