Hello from Adelaide, Australia.  I'm at the IUTAM Congress.  The big news today:  the 2012 IUTAM Congress will be held in Beijing.  The Chinese delegates made a brilliant bidding.  Among promised items are good food, low registration fee (which will pay for all lunches), National Conference Center in the Olympic Village, and a tour to the Great Wall (which is also included in the registration fee).  So start planning for the trip.

Professor Bai Yilong, of the Cinhese Academy of Sciences, will chair the 2012 Congress. 

Members of the International Mechanics Community

Dear Mechanics Colleagues,

As was reported in the Final Announcement of the forthcoming International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics to be held in Adelaide, Australia next August, two major prizes in mechanics will be awarded for the first time at the Congress. These are the G. K. Batchelor Prize in Fluid Mechanics, sponsored by Cambridge University Press and the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, and the Rodney Hill Prize in Solid Mechanics, sponsored by Elsevier Ltd. and its journals in solid mechanics. Both prizes have been created in order to recognize major contributions by individuals to their respective branches of mechanics over the past 10 years. The purpose of this letter is to announce the decisions of the selection committees for these prizes.