Fall 2017 Cafes announced -- our Ninth season!

Hi everyone, we are thrilled to announce that we will be returning this year for the ninth year (and counting!) of the Rochester Science Cafe. As always, we will be hosting cafes on the fourth Tuesday of the month, September -- November and January -- May. All talks will be at 7pm, at the Pittsford Plaza Barnes and Noble, 3349 Monroe Ave., upstairs in the Community Room. Everyone in the community is welcome, and the talks will be free to everyone, even including refreshments.

 Without further ado, Our Fall 2017 schedule is as follows:

•  Sept. 26:   “Prospects for a Universal Flu Vaccine”
  Dr. John Treanor, M.D.
  Professor, Departments of Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology
  University of Rochester Medical Center 



•  October 24: “Scientific Challenges to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution”
  Dr. John Jaenike, Ph.D.
  Professor, Department of Biology
  University of Rochester 



•  November 28: “Life after smartphones: the evolution of the human-information interface”
  Dr. Mark Bocko, Ph.D.
  Professor & Chair, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
  Director – Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences
  University of Rochester 



• January 23, 2018: “Dark Matter and Dark Energy: Where is 95% of the Universe?”
  Dr. Frank L.H. Wolfs, Ph.D.
  Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy
  University of Rochester

Spring 2018 Cafes will be announced later in the season. We look forward to seeing everyone there!

Spring 2017 Science Cafes announced

With 2017 now here, the Rochester Science Cafe is happy to announce we have a packed Spring schedule of talks, with meetings every month from January until May. On Tuesday, we will kick off the spring series with:

January 24, 7pm, Pittsford Plaza Barnes and Noble Community Room (2nd floor) Dr. Danielle Benoit (UofR) "Nanomaterials for drug and cell delivery to promote tissue regeneration"

From her webpage:

Our lab works at the interface of medicine and engineering, with an emphasis on precisely controlling biomaterial functionality and architecture to treat diseases, control cell behavior, or answer fundamental biological questions. In particular, we are focusing on two avenues: synthetic hydrogels with tunable degradation and mechanical properties as a synthetic extracellular matrix analogue for the culture and delivery of cells for regenerative medicine approaches and polymers formed using reversible-addition fragmentation chain transfer polymerization (RAFT), a controlled, living polymerization strategy, designed with drug delivery applications in mind. Our overall hypothesis is that by using bottom-up approaches, we can design ‘smart’ materials with distinct capabilities, such as controlling cell behavior or overcoming delivery barriers.

In February, our speaker will be: Tuesday, February 28, 7pm Dr. Jeyhan Kartaltepe (RIT) "How Cosmic Collisions Shape the Universe"

And for the rest of the Spring:

Tuesday, March 28, 7pm
Dr. Lisa DeLouise (UofR)

Tuesday, April 25, 7pm
Dr. Matthew Hoffman (RIT)

Tuesday, May 23, 7pm
Dr. Jason Nordhaus (RIT)

As always, coffee and cookies will be provided. We look forward to seeing everyone there.