2019 Oct 30
Crafty Crows, Tropical Islands, and the Mystery of Human Technological Evolution
4:00pm
Location: 
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
Professor of biology Christian Rutz will explain how New Caledonian and Hawaiian crows can shed light on the biological processes that allow rudimentary technologies to arise, advance, and diversify.
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2019 Oct 25
Making the Cut: Promises and Challenges of Gene Editing
9:00am to 5:00pm
Location: 
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
Gene editing holds extraordinary promise but also raises serious legal and ethical issues. In this science symposium, leading scientists, clinicians, and ethicists will explore case studies of particular therapies and the legal and bioethical implications of gene editing.
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2019 Oct 10
An Evolutionary Journey through Domestication
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
As the earliest farmers began to select wild plants and animals that had desirable traits, they initiated a series of genetic changes in these species that gradually made them more suitable for agriculture. Plants became easier to grow, had greater yields, and were of higher quality. Animal species exhibited favorable changes in behavior, coat color, and reproductive traits. Barbara Schaal will discuss how the artificial selection of these species—a pivotal technological achievement—has influenced their genetics, evolution, and capacity to flourish in the care of humans.
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2019 Sep 25
Wildhood: Coming of Age on Planet Earth
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
Adolescence is dangerous, difficult, and destiny-shaping for humans and other animals. In Wildhood (Simon & Schuster, 2019), Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers look across species and evolutionary time to find answers to a single, consequential question: Why do some adolescents safely, successfully, and independently enter the adult world, while so many others do not? The authors apply the results of their five-year study of wild animal adolescence to our species, presenting a new understanding of the dangers, stresses, and challenges we face on our journeys to...
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2019 Sep 24
Thinking Like a Magician
4:15pm
Location: 
Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
In this performance-based lecture, the globe-trotting magician Joshua Jay will pull back the curtain on the way magicians think. He will explore how magicians achieve the seemingly impossible and how people can apply the same strategies to their own lives and work.
Learn more about and register for Thinking Like a Magician.
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2019 Sep 19
All That Glitters Is Gold: Gravitational Waves, Light, and the Origin of the Heavy Elements
4:15pm
Location: 
Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
Edo Berger, professor of astronomy at Harvard University, will discuss his efforts to explore the long-standing question of how gold and other heavy elements are created in the universe. In particular, his work aims to demonstrate the creation of these elements in neutron star collisions detected through their gravitational wave emission and the implications of the answer.
Learn more about and...
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2019 Sep 18
The Ancient Maya Response to Climate Change: A Cautionary Tale
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
Ancient Maya civilization—known for its cities, monumental architecture, ceramics, hieroglyphic writing, and advanced understanding of mathematics and astronomy—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.
In this lecture, Billie Turner will examine...
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2019 Sep 17
Lecture and Book Signing: Assembling the Dinosaur
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
Join the Harvard Museum of Natural History and the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments for a free lecture and book signing by Lukas Rieppell, David and Michelle Ebersman Assistant Professor of History at Brown University.
Dinosaur fossils were first found in England, but a series of late-nineteenth-century discoveries in the American West turned the United States into a world center for vertebrate paleontology. Around the same time, the United States also emerged as an economic powerhouse of global proportions, and large, fierce, and spectacular creatures...
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2019 Jun 05
Harvard Science Book Talk: Graham Farmelo
6:00pm
Location: 
Science Center Hall D, One Oxford St., Cambridge
In The Universe Speaks in Numbers, Graham Farmelo, the award-winning author of The Strangest Man and Churchill's Bomb, takes his readers on a journey from the Scientific Revolution to string theory, highlighting the role of mathematics in guiding the search for the most fundamental laws of nature.
In this talk, he will be joined by Harvard's own Jacob Barandes in conversation about this new book which explores how the harmonies between physics and mathematics enrich and deepen our understanding of the universe.
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2019 May 22
Ethnobotany at Harvard
12:00pm to 2:00pm
Location: 
Harvard University Herbaria, 22 Divinity Ave., Cambridge
Historically, plants have provided humans with most of our drugs, fibers, food, dyes, perfumes, building materials, and even musical instruments. But how has this diverse and fascinating field been studied and what has been learned? In fact, for over 100 years, Harvard has played a pivotal role in the study of human-plant interactions, leading to the creation of the field of ethnobotany.
In this interactive lecture we will explore the science and history of some of the most important Harvard botanists and explorers through their unique specimens—now housed in the Harvard...
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2019 May 16
Footprints On Another World: Apollo Plus 50
7:30pm
Location: 
Phillips Auditorium, 60 Garden St., Cambridge
Half a century later, Dr. Jonathan McDowell will look back at humanity's first voyages to another world. In December 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first people to enter the gravitational sphere of the Moon, and seven months later, Armstrong and Aldrin headed for the surface in Apollo 11. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union's moon rocket exploded disastrously as its robot probes competed with NASA astronauts in the race to bring home the first moon rocks. Dr. McDowell will explain how the first landing stood at the tip of an immense effort as engineers from California to Cambridge, MA...
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2019 May 02
The Human Swarm: How Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
Join us for a free lecture and book signing by Mark W. Moffett. Based on his new book, The Human Swarm: How Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall (Basic Books, April 2019), Moffett will discuss the social adaptations that bind societies and distinguish humans from other animal species. Drawing on findings in psychology, sociology, and anthropology, he explores how human society evolved from intimate chimp communities into sprawling civilizations of unrivaled complexity–and will address what is required to sustain them.
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2019 May 02
Why Brain Science Needs an Edit: Non-human Primate Studies in Neuroscience and Biomedicine
4:15pm
Location: 
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge
This lecture will feature Dr. Mu-ming Poo, the founding director of the Institute of Neuroscience at the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences. In his talk, Dr. Poo will discuss the use of gene-editing tools such as CRISPR in efforts to develop a macaque monkey behavioral model for studying self-consciousness. He will also address the relevant ethical issues associated with gene editing and the use of non-human primates in biomedical research.
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2019 Apr 24
Lee Historical Lecture: Anton Zeilinger
8:00pm
Location: 
Jefferson 250, 17 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Join Harvard's Department of Physics for the 2019 David M. Lee Historical Lecture, "Quantum Information and Quantum Communication, Foundations and Prospects," delivered by Anton Zeilinger.
Learn more about Lee Historical Lecture: Anton Zeilinger.
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2019 Apr 18
Lecture: Frontiers in Evolution
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
New approaches to studying evolutionary processes, from genomics to big data, have revolutionized the study of organisms across geological time and geographical space. Join us for a series of short “flash” lectures presented by Harvard graduate students and learn about the range of questions that scientists are asking today about evolution.
Learn more about Lecture: Frontiers in Evolution.
Read more about Lecture: Frontiers in Evolution
2019 Apr 10
Lecture: Chasing Ants (And Their Microbes) in the Rainforest
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
Microbes play critical roles in the biology and health of human beings, but we are not the only species that benefits from intimate relationships with microbes. Ants, for instance, rely on the microbial communities living in their guts to process food and make strong armor.
Corrie Moreau will discuss this unique aspect of ant biology and what it tells us about the diversity and dominance of ants in terrestrial ecosystems, the evolutionary history of social insects, and the broad-scale evolutionary patterns of life.
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2019 Apr 09
Lecture: Self-Domestication in Bonobos and Other Wild Animals
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
Domesticated animals such as dogs, pigs, and horses often sport floppy ears, patches of white hair, and other features that are unknown in their wild ancestors. These traits—collectively referred to by scientists as a “domestication syndrome”—are the result of breeding less aggressive individuals.
Drawing from his new book, The Goodness Paradox (2019, Pantheon Books), Richard Wrangham will show that our cousin apes, the bonobos, also exhibit a domestication syndrome, making them the first clear example of a “wild domesticate.” Self-domestication in the wild now seems...
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2019 Apr 02
Living with White Sharks
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
The Cape Cod white shark population has increased in recent years in response to the dramatic increase in the seal population. Shark sightings—some close to popular swimming and surfing beaches—are becoming more frequent and negative interactions between sharks and humans have become a real concern.
Gregory Skomal has studied and tracked white sharks in the Atlantic for more than 30 years. In this lecture, he will examine the behavior, ecology, natural history, and population dynamics of this species, and how scientific research can help sharks and humans coexist in the Cape...
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2019 Mar 28
Viruses: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Viruses are the tiniest but most numerous inhabitants of Earth. Although notorious for causing deadly epidemics, not all viruses are bad. Many are beneficial to their hosts and several play key roles in maintaining the health of ecosystems.
Paul Turner (Elihu Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Microbiology Program Faculty Member, Yale University) will discuss the “good, bad, and ugly” effects of viruses, from how they invade organisms and wreak havoc in biological systems to how they are used to control pests and develop cancer treatments, among other medical...
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2019 Mar 14
Art and Science Converge in the Deep Sea
6:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
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...
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