Royal Society a compliment to Lord Brouncker, a peer and the first President of the Royal Society. The society's motto, "Nullius in verba", is Latin for "Take nobody's word for it". It was adopted to signify the fellows' determination to establish facts via experiments and comes from Horace's "Epistles", where he compares himself to a gladiator who, having retired, is free from control. The society's core members are the fellows: scientists and engineers from the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth selected based on having made "a substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science". Fellows
No Word from Gurb No Word from Gurb No Word from Gurb (original in Spanish "Sin noticias de Gurb") was written by Spanish writer Eduardo Mendoza and published as a novel in 1990. However, it originally appeared in the Spanish national newspaper El País in regular installments. The story is about an alien who is lost in Barcelona whilst in search of his friend Gurb. Through taking on the appearances of various people, including the famous Spanish singer Marta Sánchez, he explores the city observing human life. The book is in the style of a diary, so the reader is taken day by day