Capital Science Evenings

Lectures are free and open to the public and are held at the Carnegie Institution, located at 1530 P Street, NW(corner of 16th and P Streets). Information is also available as a PDF.
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  • Lectures can be sign interpreted for the hearing-impaired. Call 202.939.1121, or send an email, to request an interpreter (two weeks notice required).
  • For recorded information on the Capital Science Evenings, please call 202.328.6988 or send us an email.
  • Periodically the Carnegie Institution sends out information about its Capital Science Evenings program. If you would like to receive these notifications please send us an email . You can also register by completing the online registration form.
    Live streaming video     and archived video on demand (also check for links below) are available for many lectures.
    • Lectures may also be viewed on iTunes U.

 
 

  • Thu, 09/27/2012 - 6:45pm
    Balzan Lecture - From Here to Eternity
    Joseph I. Silk,

     
    Institut d’Astrophysique, Université Pierre et Marie Curie
    Department of Physics and Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University
    Beecroft Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, University of Oxford
     
    Astronomers peer back into the past with the world’s largest telescopes. They see billions of galaxies, and they find indications of evolution and youth. Before the first galaxies, more than ten billion years ago, there were the Dark Ages. And before then, the Big Bang. But there is much of the universe that we cannot probe. Dr. Silk will describe the universe that we see and give an astronomer’s perspective on the universe that we cannot see. He will describe the past with some confidence, and will speculate about the future, as perceived by cosmologists.

    Co-hosted by the Carnegie Institution for Science with the Embassies of Italy and Switzerland, and the Balzan Foundation.
     
    YouTube

  • Thu, 10/18/2012 - 6:45pm
    Every Fish in the Sea: Findings of the First Census of Marine life
    Jesse H. Ausubel,

     
    Director of the Program for the Human Environment, The Rockefeller University
     
    The recently completed first Census of Marine Life was a cooperative international effort to assess and explain the diversity, distribution, and abundance of marine life. Program co-founder Jesse H. Ausubel will report on the most comprehensive answers yet to one of humanity’s most ancient questions—“what lives in the sea?” The Census combined information collected over centuries with data obtained from 540 expeditions during the decade-long effort to create a roll call of species globally and in 25 biologically representative regions—from the Antarctic through temperate and tropical seas to the Arctic. The Census helped set a baseline for measuring future changes in Earth’s oceans.
     
    YouTube

  • Wed, 11/28/2012 - 6:45pm
    Kavli Lecture - Making and Breaking Habits: the Basal Ganglia in Action
    Ann M. Graybiel,

     
    McGovern institute for Brain research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
     
    The same brain that can construct language, music, and mathematics also lets us develop habits of thought and action. Dr. Graybiel will highlight research directed towards understanding how we make and break habits and how the neurobiology of the brain’s habit system is helping to advance understanding of human problems ranging from Parkinson’s disease to obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders and addiction.
     
    Co-hosted by the Carnegie Institution for Science with the Royal Embassy of Norway, the Norwegian Academy of Science, and the Kavli Foundation.

  • Thu, 02/21/2013 - 6:45pm
    Biological Imaging in the Digital Age: How Cells Became Actors and the Tales They Tell
    Mary E. Dickinson,

     
    Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Dickinson Lab, Baylor College of Medicine
     
    While microscopes have existed for centuries, the ability to record moving objects through the microscope is relatively recent. Enabled by the invention and popularization of television and more recently turbo-boosted by advances in digital media and microscope technology, video microscopy is in its prime. Advanced video microscopes are now hovering over cancer cells and spying on stem cells, revealing new information about disease. Dr. Dickinson will highlight some examples of how watching cells is changing the way we think about fighting disease.

  • Thu, 03/14/2013 - 6:45pm
    Illuminating the Atomic World: the X-ray Laser at SLAC
    Persis S. Drell,

     
    Professor, Stanford University
     
    The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is the world’s brightest source of hard X-ray laser light. Not only is this light a billion times brighter than any previous hard X-ray source, it also comes in strobe-like pulses just a few millionths of a billionth of a second long. This combination of high intensity and ultrafast shutter speed allows scientists to make stop-motion images of very fast processes at a very small scale—the scale of atoms and molecules. Dr. Drell will focus on the conception, construction, and start up of the LCLS, as well as some of the first experimental results, with a view to the new frontier of science that this remarkable tool has opened.
    YouTube

  • Thu, 04/04/2013 - 6:45pm
    Metabolic Flexibility and Suspended Animation
    Mark Roth,

     
    Roth Lab, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
     
    For living things, time is marked by the internal orderly progression of sequential events. In fact, all dynamic processes are manifestations of biological time. Amazingly, all animated life processes involve conversion of chemical energy to kinetic energy through processes analogous to the burning of a candle. Dr. Roth will explore the range of ability for living things to change the rate of burning from normal rates to those associated with suspended animation. He will also consider how the rate of burning is naturally controlled and how we might use this understanding to improve survival limits.