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CAPITAL
SCIENCE EVENINGS
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Season| Thursday |
September 29, 2005 6:45 PM |
Alycia Weinberger
(video on demand: low bandwidth -
;
high bandwid-th
-
help)
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism,
Carnegie Institution of Washington
Our Solar System and Others Not So Like It
Understanding the mechanisms for planet-building compels us to look out to young stars. The leftovers from star formation are the raw materials for planets, and in young solar systems astronomers look for analogues of our own early Solar System. Hear how astronomers learn about nascent planetary systems and the processes that sculpt them.
| Thursday |
October 27, 2005 6:45 PM |
Robert
Hazen (video
on demand: low bandwidth -
;
high bandwidth -
- help)
Geophysical Laboratory,
Carnegie Institution of Washington
Genesis: The Scientific Quest for the Origins of Life
Life’s origins occurred as a dynamic sequence of events, each of which added complexity and structure to the emerging living world. By what chemical processes did water, air, and rock combine to form a living entity?
| Thursday |
November 10, 2005 6:45 PM |
David
Ehrhardt -
(video
on demand: low bandwidth -
;
high bandwidth -
- help)
Department of Plant Biology,
Carnegie Institution of Washington
The Dynamic Architecture of Plant Cells: Molecular Machines and Biological Organization
Life displays a stunning diversity of forms, from the single cell to the whole organism. Learn how advanced imaging technology and other tools enable biologists to visualize and investigate the behaviors of dynamic proteins as they organize plant cells and guide their construction.
| Thursday |
January 26, 2006 6:45 PM |
Alan
Guth -
(video on demand: low bandwidth -
;
high bandwidth -
- help)
Department of Physics,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cosmic Inflation and the Accelerating Universe
Why is the universe so flat and so uniform? Why are there faint ripples in the cosmic background radiation—the afterglow of the big bang? Find out how the inflationary universe theory can explain these otherwise mysterious features, and how it can even explain the origin of essentially all matter.
| Thursday |
February 23, 2006 6:45 PM |
Robin
Canup -
(video on demand: low bandwidth -
;
high bandwidth -
- help)
Department of Space Studies,
Southwest Research Institute
Origin of the Earth and Moon
Our home planet and its nearest celestial neighbor, the Moon, have a coupled history. It is believed that in the final stages of Earth’s formation it collided with another planet-sized object and produced our Moon. Learn about the origin of Earth and its moon, and the repercussions this event continues to have on our planet today.
| Thursday |
March 23, 2006 6:45 PM |
Richard
Axel -
(video on demand: low bandwidth -
;
high bandwidth -
- help)
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Pathology, Columbia University
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Scents and Sensibility: A Molecular Logic of Olfactory Perception
In humans, smell is often viewed as an aesthetic sense, a sense capable of eliciting enduring thoughts and memories. For most organisms, however, smell is the primal sense. The genetics of olfaction have recently revealed how we recognize the vast repertoire of odors and how these odors are represented in the brain.
| Thursday |
April 27, 2006 6:45 PM |
David Goodstein --
(video on demand: low bandwidth -
;
high bandwidth -
- help)
Department of Physics and Applied Physics,
California Institute of Technology
Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil
The world will soon start to run out of cheap oil. It won’t be the end of oil—there will still be plenty of it in the ground—but supplies will start to be depleted faster than new oil can be produced. This historic change will affect every part of the global oil economy, with results that are difficult to predict.
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