HOME /

Events

    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...

    Read more about All That Glitters Is Gold: Gravitational Waves, Light, and the Origin of the Heavy Elements
    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...

    Read more about The Ancient Maya Response to Climate Change: A Cautionary Tale
    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...

    Read more about Lecture and Book Signing: Assembling the Dinosaur
    2019 Jul 11

    Exhibition Tour: Small Steps, Giant Leaps

    12:30pm to 1:15pm

    Location: 

    Edison and Newman Room, Houghton Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge

    Join curator John Overholt for a guided tour of the exhibition Small Steps, Giant Leaps to learn about the ways early modern science inspired and made possible the historic Apollo 11 moon landing.

    Tours are free and open to the public. No reservation is required.

    Exhibition Tours are also offered on the following dates:

    Read more about Exhibition Tour: Small Steps, Giant Leaps
    2019 Jun 26

    Exhibition Tour: Small Steps, Giant Leaps

    5:30pm to 6:15pm

    Location: 

    Edison and Newman Room, Houghton Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge

    Join curator John Overholt for a guided tour of the exhibition Small Steps, Giant Leaps to learn about the ways early modern science inspired and made possible the historic Apollo 11 moon landing.

    Tours are free and open to the public. No reservation is required.

    Learn more about Exhibition Tour: Small Steps, Giant Leaps.

     

     

    ... Read more about Exhibition Tour: Small Steps, Giant Leaps
    2019 Jun 20

    Exhibition Tour: Small Steps, Giant Leaps

    4:30pm to 5:15pm

    Location: 

    Edison and Newman Room, Houghton Library, Harvard Yard, Cambridge

    Join curator John Overholt for a guided tour of the exhibition Small Steps, Giant Leaps to learn about the ways early modern science inspired and made possible the historic Apollo 11 moon landing.

    Following this tour will be a a screening of The Right Stuff (1983) at the Harvard Film Archive at 5:30pm

    An Exhibition Tour will also be offered on...

    Read more about Exhibition Tour: Small Steps, Giant Leaps
    2019 Jun 08

    Moon Medley

    3:00pm to 4:10pm

    Location: 

    Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge

    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.

    ...

    Read more about Moon Medley
    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.

    ...

    Read more about Harvard Science Book Talk: Graham Farmelo
    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...

    Read more about Footprints On Another World: Apollo Plus 50
    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.

    ...

    Read more about The Human Swarm: How Societies Arise, Thrive, and Fall
    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.

    ...

    Read more about Why Brain Science Needs an Edit: Non-human Primate Studies in Neuroscience and Biomedicine
    2019 Apr 30

    Our Extravagant Universe: The Undiscovery of Cosmic Deceleration

    5:00pm

    Location: 

    Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Knafel Center, 10 Garden St., Cambridge

    Astronomers have known about the expansion of the universe for nearly a hundred years. Twenty years ago, when we set out to use exploding stars to measure gravity’s predicted effect, we discovered the expansion of the universe to be speeding up! This (un)discovery has been attributed to a “dark energy” that dominates the universe, whose nature is a deep mystery at the heart of physics. Robert P. Kirshner, Clowes Professor of Science, emeritus, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, will explain this phenomenon of cosmic acceleration.

    ...

    Read more about Our Extravagant Universe: The Undiscovery of Cosmic Deceleration
    2019 Apr 23

    Film Screening: Lobster War: The Fight Over the World's Richest Fishing Grounds

    6:00pm to 8:00pm

    Location: 

    Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge

    Lobster War is an award-winning documentary film about a conflict between the United States and Canada over waters that both countries have claimed since the end of the Revolutionary War. The disputed 277 square miles of sea known as the Gray Zone were traditionally fished by U.S. lobstermen. But as the Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than nearly any other body of water on the planet, the area’s previously modest lobster population has surged. As a result, Canadians have begun to assert their sovereignty, warring with the Americans to claim the bounty.

    Directed...

    Read more about Film Screening: Lobster War: The Fight Over the World's Richest Fishing Grounds
    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 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...

    Read more about Lecture: Self-Domestication in Bonobos and Other Wild Animals

Pages