Boston Flora

Tag: Harvard

  • Sunday, March 9, 2:00 pm – Echoes of Their Wings: The Life and Legacy of the Passenger Pigeon

    The passenger pigeon once ruled the skies of North America, numbering in the billions and comprising upwards of 25% of the region’s bird population in the mid-1800s. By 1914, however, the species was extinct—a downfall hastened by America’s growing hunger for land development and hunting.  Author and naturalist Joel Greenberg will discuss how the passenger pigeon’s extinction may inform today’s conservation decisions. The author talk and book signing will take place on Sunday, March 9, beginning at 2 pm at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge. Regular museum admission rates apply.

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  • Wednesday, March 12, 6:00 pm – Evolutionary Forces in Humans and Pathogens

    Have you been watching Helix on the SciFi Channel? This Evolution Matters Lecture on Wednesday, March 12, beginning at 6 pm, will appeal to you. The genome revolution has created unprecedented opportunities to study human biology, evolution, and infectious diseases. Geneticist Pardis Sabeti, Associate Professor, Center for Systems Biology at Harvard University, and a member of the Department of Immunology and Infection Diseases at Harvard School of Public Health, will discuss the rapidly emerging techniques and resources her lab is applying to advance our understanding of natural selection in the human genome and the genomic evolution of microbial pathogens such as Lassa virus, Ebola virus, Plasmodium falciparum malaria, and Vibrio cholerae.

    The Evolution Matters Lecture Series is supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit.  Free and open to the public. The talk will be held at the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free event parking in the 52 Oxford Street Garage.

    http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/022709_Sabeti_KS_016.jpg

  • Wednesday, February 26, 6:00 pm – Building Earth-Like Planets: From Gas and Dust to Ocean Worlds

    How do planets form, and what makes them habitable? Where might life be found beyond our solar system? Linda Elkins-Tanton, Director of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution and an expert in planet formation and evolution, will discuss how the violent impacts that are the “final act” of a planet’s creation may not always wipe out water and carbon from the early-growth period. Enough of these all-important elements may have existed to make many rocky planets and exoplanets habitable, increasing the likelihood that life might exist elsewhere among the Milky Way’s 17 billion Earth-sized planets. The Harvard Museum of Natural History lecture will take place Wednesday, February 26, beginning at 6 pm.  Free and open to the public. Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free event parking in the 52 Oxford Street Garage. Image from www.sciencedaily.com.  For more information visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

    http://images.sciencedaily.com/2008/10/081015144137-large.jpg

  • Saturday, February 22, 2:00 pm – Wild Animal Neighbors

    In cities and suburbs around the world, wild creatures such as coyotes, alligators, and mountain lions are showing up where least expected. How can they survive in the contemporary world of concrete, steel, and glass? Ann Downer discusses the factors that bring these creatures to our backyards and ways to create spaces for people and animals to live side by side, in a talk and book signing at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, on Saturday, February 22 at 2 pm. Regular museum admission rates apply. Visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu for more information.

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  • Wednesday, February 12, 6:00 pm – Time Travel in Experimental Evolution

    Richard Lenski, Hannah Distinguished Professor, Michigan State University, will speak at the Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, as part of the Harvard Museum of Natural History’s Evolution Matters Lecture Series on Wednesday, February 12, beginning at 6 pm. Escherichia coli (E. coli) is a common form of intestinal bacteria that reproduces and mutates with incredible speed. This trait, along with scientists’ ability to freeze and revive organisms, makes E. coli an ideal organism for studying the evolutionary process (a form of “time travel”). Microbiologist Richard Lenski has carried out a 25-year study of E. coli, propagating over 50,000 generations, and has discovered new insights into natural selection, adaptation, and genetic evolution.

    The Evolution Matters Lecture Series is supported by a generous gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit.  Free and open to the public.  Free event parking is available in the 52 Oxford Street Garage.

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_Fw6BHk6kmk/Tei5VnW3vpI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/MUFQ2SFSeAs/s1600/e-coli-streptococci.jpg

  • Monday, February 10, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Déjà vu all over again: Denialism of Climate Change and of Evolution

    Eugenie Scott, PhD, Director of the National Center for Science Education, will speak at The Arnold Arboretum on Monday, February 10, from 7 – 8:30 as part of the Director’s Lecture Series.  This program is sold out but you may join the waiting list by calling 617-384-5277.

    Both evolution and global warming are “controversial issues” in education, but are not controversial in the world of science. There is remarkable similarity in the techniques that are used by both camps to promote their views. The scientific issues are presented as “not being settled”, or that there is considerable debate among scientists over the validity of claims. Both camps practice “anomaly mongering”, in which a small detail, seemingly incompatible with either evolution or global warming, is held up as dispositive of either evolution or of climate science. Although in both cases, reputable, established science is under attack for ideological reasons, the underlying ideology differs: for denying evolution, the ideology of course is religious; for denying global warming, the ideology is political and/or economic. Eugenie Scott will deconstruct the arguments and identify the ideologies that hinder widespread understanding of evolution and responsiveness to climate change.

    Eugenie Scott, a former university professor, served as the executive director of NCSE from 1987 to 2014; she now serves as the chair of NCSE’s Advisory Council. She has been both a researcher and an activist in the creationism/evolution controversy for over twenty-five years, and can address many components of this controversy, including educational, legal, scientific, religious, and social issues. She has received national recognition for her NCSE activities, including awards from scientific societies, educational societies, skeptics groups, and humanist groups. She holds nine honorary degrees, from McGill, Rutgers, Mt. Holyoke, the University of New Mexico, Ohio State, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Colorado College, the University of Missouri-Columbia, and Chapman University. A dynamic speaker, she offers stimulating and thought-provoking as well as entertaining lectures and workshops. Scott is the author of Evolution vs Creationism and co-editor, with Glenn Branch, of Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design Is Wrong for Our Schools.

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  • Friday, February 7, 6:45 pm – The Role of Seed Banks in Plant Conservation

    The February lecture sponsored by the New England Botanical Club will take place Friday, February 7, beginning at 6:45 at Harvard University in the Haller Lecture Hall (Room 102), Geological Museum, 24 Oxford Street (door to the right of the Harvard Museum of Natural History entrance,) and will feature Dr. Tristram Seidler, Herbarium Curator at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, speaking on The Role of Seed Banks in Plant Conservation. Dr. Seidler was a post doctoral fellow at Imperial College, England, and his work has been sponsored by the Food and Health Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the William F. Milton Fund. For more information visit www.rhodora.org.

    http://www.newfs.org/images/grow/Tristram%20Seidler%20seed%20collection_Debra%20Strick.JPG/image_preview

  • Tuesday, January 14, 7:30 pm – A Heads-Up View of Urban Stream Ecology

    The next meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club will take place Tuesday, January 14, beginning at 7:30 in room 101 of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Oxford Street, Cambridge. Dr Bob Smith will present a talk entitled A Heads-up View of Urban Stream Ecology.

    Human activities in the watershed and direct alterations to the stream channel can alter the habitat and water quality experienced by fauna living in a stream. Thus, studies examining stream communities along an urbanization gradient typically focus on the links between watershed land-use and in-stream conditions. However, stream organisms are not confined to a single stretch of stream throughout their life. Fish have the ability to disperse long distance through the stream network, and flying insects can disperse long distances across the landscape, unconstrained by the stream network.

    Using a combination of field studies and GIS, Dr Smith investigated how dispersal (a regional process) affects patterns of stream biodiversity along a gradient of human influence. His research suggests that human land use across the landscape may impede dispersal and both local (watershed based) and regional (dispersal based) processes are important for controlling community structure in urbanized streams. The mechanisms for how human activities alter regional processes differ between taxa and are related to species life history traits. These findings have important implications for conservation and restoration strategies as well as developing land-use development plans that promote the sustainability of stream ecosystems.

    The meeting is free and open to the public. Snacks will be provided and you are also welcome to join us at 6:00 PM for an informal pre-meeting dinner at the Cambridge Common.

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  • Saturday, January 11, 2:00 pm – Navigating Our Milky Way Galaxy

    Earth may be a pint-sized planet and the Sun just an average star, but the Milky Way galaxy is a major player within the cosmos. Astronomer William Waller, author of the new The Milky Way, An Insider’s Guide, will lead a journey through our home galaxy, as viewed both from dark-sky sanctuaries here on Earth and from space satellites that explore the outer limits of the solar system. The author talk and book signing will take place Saturday, January 11, beginning at 2 pm at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge. Regular museum admission rates apply.

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  • Monday, January 27, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

    Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions. One of the world’s most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt, PhD, Cogan University Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University, has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery in his book The Swerve, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.  This program, to be held Monday, January 27 beginning at 7 pm in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum, is as of this date full.  However, it is winter, and people go to Florida, get a cold, or don’t feel like digging out the car, so call 617-384-5277, or email  //adulted@arnarb.harvard.edu to join the waiting list. Include names/# of tickets desired, phone and email address.

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