Ancient Maya civilization suffered a major demise between the tenth and eleventh centuries. The causes continue to be investigated and debated. Paleoenvironmental research over the past twenty years has revealed that the demise coincided with a prolonged, intensive drought that extended across the region, providing compelling evidence that climate change played a key role in the collapse of the Maya. Billie Turner will examine this evidence and the complex social and environmental conditions that affected Maya societies.
Join the Harvard Museum Natural History for a public lecture with Robert McCracken Peck, Curator of Art and Artifacts, Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University.
Edward Lear (1812–1888), best known for The Owl and the Pussycat and other nonsense poetry, was also an accomplished painter of birds, mammals, reptiles, and landscapes, and an adventurous world traveler. His paintings of parrots, macaws, toucans, owls, and other birds are among the finest ever published. Robert McCracken Peck will discuss the remarkable life and natural history paintings of this...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
Pulsation permeates the universe at every scale, from heartbeats to pulsars. Join the artist Dario Robleto and the astrophysicist Abraham (Avi) Loeb, both of whom engage deeply with pulsatility in their work, for a conversation on how the arts and sciences can explore a common set of understandings.
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
For centuries, in both the arts and the sciences, the human heart has been a source of reverence and marvel. In this conversation, the artist Dario Robleto, whose exhibition at the Radcliffe Institute rethinks the deep history of cardiological recording, and Doris A. Taylor, a leading scientist in regenerative medicine, will discuss the surprising opportunities for both the arts and sciences to converge around new insights and questions of the human heart.
This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
The Special Exhibitions Gallery, Science Center 251, 1 Oxford St., Cambridge
This exhibit features images and objects drawn from a variety of disciplines and time periods that show the importance of visual experiences in science. Images have played many roles in scientific research. Images can record fleeting observations, whether a painting of an animal glimpsed in the field or an interaction between sub-atomic particles that lasts a millisecond. They can also make unseen things visible.
Physical models can make abstract mathematical concepts into something that researchers can touch; properly arranged, sand, metal plates, and a violin bow can make...
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge
Fruits in Decay is a new special exhibit in the Glass Flowers gallery that explores blight, rot, and other diseases on summer fruits. It features exquisitely detailed glass botanical models of strawberries, peaches, apricots, plums, and pears made by famed glass artist Rudolf Blaschka. On display for the first time in nearly two decades, these models capture—with astonishing realism—the intricacies and strange beauty of fruits in various stages of decay.
Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford St., Cambridge
On July 20, 2019, the Harvard Museum of Natural History marked the fiftieth anniversary of the first manned mission to the Moon with the unveiling of Cosmic Origins. Visitors to this new mini-exhibit—located within the Earth & Planetary Sciences exhibition—will investigate the origins of and processes shaping planetary bodies and stars using touchable specimens, colorful visuals, and interactive media.
Through November 27, 2019, the exhibit will also feature an original lunar specimen on loan from NASA, collected during the Apollo 12 mission. Don’t miss the...
Houghton Library, Edison and Newman Room, Harvard Yard, Cambridge
Join curator John Overholt for a guided tour of the exhibition to learn about the ways early modern science inspired and made possible the historic Apollo 11 moon landing.
In collaboration with Houghton Library’s celebration of the moon landing’s 50th anniversary, the Harvard Film Archive presents films about humans’ exploration of that final frontier. This program features "A Trip to the Moon" with live musical accompaniment, "A Grand Day Out," "One Small Step," and more family-friendly short films!
Cost: $5 Weekend Matinee Admission or free with Cambridge Public Library Card.
Houghton Library, Edison and Newman Room, Harvard Yard, Cambridge
Join curator John Overholt for a guided tour of the exhibition to learn about the ways early modern science inspired and made possible the historic Apollo 11 moon landing.
Lily Simonson and Peter Girguis exemplify the long tradition of artists and scientists working in tandem to explore new worlds—in their case, the magnificent deep sea. Simonson will discuss how the immersive, glowing canvases in her current exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Lily Simonson: Painting the Deep, have been shaped by collaborations with scientists—whether exploring the depths of the ocean in a submersible or scuba diving beneath Antarctic sea ice. Girguis will reveal how working at sea with an artist has shaped his research and enabled him to see...
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
Anna Von Mertens is an exhibited artist who uses the structures of quilting and drawing to explore the frontiers of human understanding. Her new exhibition "Measure" explores the life and work of Henrietta Leavitt, one of the women “computers” hired to study glass-plate astronomical photographs at the Harvard College Observatory a century ago. Leavitt’s findings provided a unit of measurement for galactic distances. Reimagined in meticulous stitches and intricate graphite marks, Von Mertens examines our current understanding of the size and shape of...
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, Room 105, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge
Dr. Yvonne Cagle is a NASA Astronaut and Family Physician. In 2008, Dr. Cagle retired as a Colonel in the USAF where she served as a Senior... Read more about Dr. Yvonne Cagle
Harvard Graduate School of Design, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, Room 105, 48 Quincy St., Cambridge
The Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities (CGBC) retrofitted its headquarters, a pre-1940s house in Cambridge, MA, into a first-of-its-kind test case to demonstrate unprecedented levels of building efficiency and promote substantial shifts in the design and operation of existing buildings. Dubbed “HouseZero,” the project aims to prove that ultra-efficient retrofits can, indeed, be achieved...
