Science Sundays

Gamma-ray bursts, discovered by accident with classified satellites, were for decades a leading mystery in astrophysics. John M. Horack explores the breakthroughs that followed from the Gamma Ray Observatory (1991) and subsequent experiments, which showed that these are the most powerful explosions in the universe. Very recently, gravitational waves have been detected from these still-mysterious explosions.

While the digital revolution has changed the way libraries serve their users, it’s also enabled new modes of research and creativity. Kate Zwaard will explore how libraries and archives are presenting their collections so artists, researchers and the curious can interact with them in new ways.

Food insecurity is on the rise, affecting the nutrition and mental health of around 821 million people. Drawing on research from Nicaragua, Barbara Piperata will explore the underlying causes of the issue and how to inform policies aimed at alleviating food insecurity and improving mental health both locally and globally.

Science and medicine are at an exciting crossroads. Recent developments in the clinical laboratory are being implemented in research hospitals and will soon be used to diagnose diseases across the U.S. In this talk, Amanda Hummon will illustrate some of the recent breakthroughs in molecular imaging technologies and how they are being used to help cancer patients.

In this lecture, physicist Nandini Trivedi will explain why a piece of metal can superconduct, that is allow electricity to flow without any resistance; why superconductors make the strongest magnets; how superconducting qubits are driving the revolution for quantum computers; and, most importantly, describe open questions in quantum matter.

In this lecture, Karen G. Lloyd will introduce the vast and diverse microbial ecosystem that was recently discovered buried deep within Earth’s crust, illuminating how these microbes perform important ecosystem functions in volcanoes, hot springs and deep subsurface oceanic sediments.

Every decade, politicians update voting districts to account for population shifts as measured by the U.S. Census. Of course, partisan politicians are inclined to draw maps that favor their own party, resulting in partisan gerrymandering. In this episode, Dustin G. Mixon will explore how tools from mathematics can help to deter this growing threat to democracy.

The human hearing organ is exceptional in its ability to sense sound across a wide range of frequencies and intensities. The process of sound conversion into brain electrical signals that we can understand is called "mechanosensation" and is carried out by various proteins essential to hearing. In this lecture, Marcos Sotomayor will explore and present in simple terms the structures and function of these proteins.

Educational neuroscience draws upon cognitive neuroscience, education and psychology with the goal of examining neurobiological processes related to education. This presentation by Laurie Cutting will provide an overview of this emerging field and the insights it can offer, using reading development as an exemplar and examining how neurobiological approaches inform and refine our understanding of how to identify and treat reading difficulties.

The story of Earth is a 4.5-billion-year saga of dramatic transformations driven by physical, chemical and biological processes. The co-evolution of life and rocks unfolded in an irreversible sequence of evolutionary stages. Each stage re-sculpted our planet’s surface; introduced new planetary processes and phenomena; and inexorably paved the way for the next.

Contemporary humanity enjoys mobility levels that are unprecedented in history. While this has benefits, it also has enormous social, health and environmental costs. Resolving these costs is crucial if civilization is to survive the 21st century — a world that will see 10 billion people, most of whom will crowd into cities. This lecture will describe the concept of sustainable transportation and how new, data-driven science allows scholars and practitioners to address these essential issues.

Quantum mechanics — the fundamental theory that describes nature at the smallest scales of atomic and subatomic energy levels — seems to be everywhere, from superhero movies to Fortune 500 companies. But what makes quantum mechanics so different and special? How can it be used (and can objects really pass through barriers)? This talk will bridge the divide between popular imaginations of quantum and real quantum mechanical devices, covering the basics of quantum mechanics and how it creates both limits and promise for computer processing.

What are the social interactions and responses that explain the stunning behavior of flocking birds, schooling fish and swarming honeybees? How do performance instructions shape a collaborative improvisation when dancers make compositional choices on the fly? How should we design decision-making for a team of robots to perform environmental monitoring and search and rescue? In this episode, Naomi Leonard presents a unifying framework to explore these and related questions on the dynamics of groups.

Mitochondria — the so-called “powerhouse of the cell” — hold a special place in eukaryotic (nucleus-containing) cells. Evidence accumulated over the past half century strongly points to an origin of the mitochondrion from a free-living bacterium closely related to a specific group, the Alphaproteobacteria. However, the actual processes by which this endosymbiotic bacterium was integrated into its host cell remain controversial. So, what do we really know?

Over billions of years, nature has developed materials, objects and processes that function from the macroscale to the nanoscale. Many organisms and objects — including bacteria; plants; animals; and seashells — possess properties of commercial interest. The emerging field of biomimetics allows scientists to mimic biology or nature to develop eco-friendly nanomaterials, nanodevices and systems with desirable properties. This talk will present an overview of the field of biomimetics and biologically inspired surfaces.

Citizens and scholars alike worry about the health of representative democracy around the world today. They worry about resurgent nationalism across the globe as well as accusations of “democratic deficits” against technocrats. In the United States, public approval of Congress remains near its all-time low, with populist challenges roiling both major parties. This talk explores some realistic reform proposals based on Neblo's research into what ails democratic politics in the U.S. today.

Trumpery: worthless nonsense, something that is, simultaneously, deceitful and showy. Cairo explains how to fight fake data, fake facts, fake visualization, demonstrating how choices a data-visualization designer makes have significant impact on how an audience perceives data. He shares strategies to improve rational thinking and understand probability and uncertainty as ways to fight back against a deluge of misinformation.

Archimedes — remarkable physicist, engineer, inventor, astronomer — built a heat ray to burn attacking ships’ sails; designed machines predicting motions of planets and eclipses; estimated how many grains of sand it would take to fill the universe. Kahle discusses a few of these amazing inventions and insights, including one that anticipated calculus by thousands of years.

Consumers have many lay beliefs about how the world works. But are these beliefs always correct? Reczek explains how our non-professional theories about food, including the relationships between health and taste; and cost and health, drive our food choices that can sometimes lead us away from making healthy decisions.

Particle physics, the quest to understand the smallest objects in the universe, depends on operating powerful colliders, like those at Fermilab and CERN. Surprisingly, the answers we get also shed light on the largest objects, such as the universe itself. Lykken outlines deep theoretical questions, exciting experimental programs and how they connect.

Mindfulness meditation has been practiced for centuries, but is now finding its place in Western discourse. Prakash discusses research examining the effect of training in practices of mindfulness meditation for brain and cognitive health, with a special emphasis on the aging brain.

Yewdell, who studies influenza viruses to see how viral proteins are made to better understand immune-system responses to viral infection, describes the nuts and bolts of becoming a biomedical PhD researcher. He shares what is required to make and interpret discoveries, the sheer joy of scientific exploration and life in the worldwide research community.

Despite an ever-growing dependency on science and technology, we are seeing a decline in scientific literacy. Bertley discusses this duality and challenges us to become advocates for science. Highlighting wide-ranging technological advances, he emphasizes the necessity of basic scientific literacy and appreciation for the scientific process, whatever our career paths.