April Science Cafe

On Tuesday, April 24, we will have a talk by Dr. Craig Henriquez of Duke University on "The future of brain-machine interfaces".

Dr Henriquez is the head of Duke's Center for Neuroengineering, whose mission is the following:

The Center for Neuroengineering brings together engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, neurologists and psychologists to advance the methodologies for the recording, imaging and analyzing normal and abnormal brain activity. The center brings new capabilities to the community of Neuroscientists on campus but will house state-of-the-art computational and fabrication facilities for developing novel technologies for the brain.

By partnering with existing departments, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center and their outstanding faculties and facilities, the Center for Neuroengineering will become the intellectual hub for neuro-based technologies such as neurochips, system-level computational modeling, and in the application of electrophysiological and functional imaging techniques to both monitor and treat neurological diseases.

February Science Cafe

On Tuesday, February 28, we will have a talk by Dr. Arie Bodek of the UofR on "The Search for the Higgs Boson".

The discovery of the Higgs boson has been, for many years, considered one of the so-called holy grails in particle physics. From the Exploratorium website run by the CERN Laboratory:

The question of mass has been an especially puzzling one, and has left the Higgs boson as the single missing piece of the Standard Model yet to be spotted. The Standard Model describes three of nature's four forces: electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces.... the search for the Higgs particle(s) is some of the most exciting research happening, because it could lead to completely new discoveries in particle physics. Some theorists say it could bring to light entirely new types of strong interactions, and others believe research will reveal a new fundamental physical symmetry called "supersymmetry."

Quoting wikipedia:

Bodek was awarded the 2004 American Physical Society W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics "for his broad, sustained, and insightful contributions to elucidating the structure of the nucleon, using a wide variety of probes, tools, and methods at many laboratories.... His doctoral thesis provided some of the evidence of the quark's existence that was the basis for the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics."

January Science Cafe

Hi everyone,
We are returning in the winter/spring of 2012 with talks from January thru May. To lead off, we are excited to present a talk by Dr. Sukanta Bose, who is visiting us from Washington State University. The talk will be this coming Tuesday, January 24, 7pm at the Pittsford Plaza Barnes and Noble:

Gravitational Wave Astronomy: The Next Generation
Dr. Sukanta Bose (Washington State University)

The coming years are expected to yield the first direct detections of gravitational wave (GW) signals and plant the first steps in an entirely new branch of astronomy. Plans are already underway for the followup advances in detector technology (third generation, or "3G"), and we are already envisaging the maximal GW science potential that may be realizable with an earth-based detector within a decade. These detectors will probe the dark energy seemingly making up most of the universe's mass, independent of any other type of observations, explore the properties of the black holes thought to lie at the centers of all galaxies, and peer inside neutron stars where no current telescope can see, and we will describe all these potential results and many more.

November Cafe

We are excited to announce the final Science Cafe for the Fall 2011 series. On Tuesday, November 22, 7pm at the Pittsford Plaza Barnes and Noble's Community Room, we will have a talk by Dr. Richard Aslin from the University of Rochester"

"The brain and cognitive science of early child development:
How smart is your baby (and how can you tell)?"

Dr. Richard Aslin
William R. Kenan Professor, Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Center for Visual Science
Director, Rochester Center for Brain Imaging
November 22, 7pm
Pittsford Plaza Barnes and Noble

Richard Aslin received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in child psychology and has been a professor of psychology and then of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester since 1984. His research examines the perceptual and learning abilities of infants and young children using detailed measures of where they look when viewing complex visual stimuli and how their brain responds to both visual and auditory (language) structures. His research is supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and by the McDonnell Foundation. In 2006 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2010 was awarded an honorary degree from Uppsala University (Sweden).


We look forward to seeing everyone there! As always, ASL
interpretation will be available and refreshments provided for all of
our guests, thanks to NASA. We'll be off in December, but resume
from January-May, with a whole new series of talks spanning the scientific world.

October Cafe this Tuesday

Hi everyone,
This coming Tuesday the Rochester Science Cafe will have a talk and then a book signing:

"About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang"
Dr. Adam Frank
Assistant Prof. of Astrophysics
University of Rochester

The Cafe will be at 7pm, October 25, at the Pittsford Plaza Barnes and Noble. Adam Frank is also a popular science blogger, so check out his work at 13.7: Cosmos and Culture, or the website for his previous book, The Constant Fire.

In November, our talk will be on November 22:

"The brain and cognitive science of early child development: How smart is your baby (and how can you tell)?"

Dr. Richard Aslin
William R. Kenan Professor, Brain & Cognitive Sciences and Center for Visual Science
Director, Rochester Center for Brain Imaging
University of Rochester

September Cafe: Mountains and Glaciers

Hello everyone,

The Rochester Science Cafe will be back this coming Tuesday with the first talk of our third year:

"The rise of large mountain belts and the fall in global surface temperatures: why we live in a glacial world"

Dr. Carmala Garzione, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Chair
Dept of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Rochester

Upcoming talks for October and November will be announced on Tuesday. We hope to see everyone there.

June Science Cafe - Mathematics in Nature

Please come join us this coming Tuesday, June 28th, for the final Science Cafe of the Spring/Summer 2011 schedule. We are happy to host Dr. John Adam of Old Dominion University, who will speak about "Mathematics in Nature", and have a book signing immediately after the talk.


John Adam is the Designated University Professor of Mathematics (for excellence in teaching). He was a winner of a 2007 Outstanding Faculty Award for the State of Virginia. The Outstanding Faculty Awards are the Commonwealth of Virginia's highest honor for faculty at the state's public and private colleges and universities. These awards recognize superior accomplishments in teaching, research, and public service.

From the book's website:

Mathematics in Nature

Winner of Association of American Publishers Mathematics and Statistics Professional/Scholarly Award

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2004

From rainbows, river meanders, and shadows to spider webs, honeycombs, and the markings on animal coats, the visible world is full of patterns that can be described mathematically. Examining such readily observable phenomena, this book introduces readers to the beauty of nature as revealed by mathematics and the beauty of mathematics as revealed in nature.

Generously illustrated, written in an informal style, and replete with examples from everyday life, Mathematics in Nature is an excellent and undaunting introduction to the ideas and methods of mathematical modeling. It illustrates how mathematics can be used to formulate and solve puzzles observed in nature and to interpret the solutions. In the process, it teaches such topics as the art of estimation and the effects of scale, particularly what happens as things get bigger. Readers will develop an understanding of the symbiosis that exists between basic scientific principles and their mathematical expressions as well as a deeper appreciation for such natural phenomena as cloud formations, haloes and glories, tree heights and leaf patterns, butterfly and moth wings, and even puddles and mud cracks.

John A. Adam is Professor of Mathematics at Old Dominion University, coeditor of A Survey of Models for Tumor-Immune System Dynamics, and a regular contributor to leading journals in applied mathematics.



From reviews of the book:

John Adam has combined his interest in the great outdoors and applied mathematics to compile one surprising example after another of how mathematics can be used to explain natural phenomena. And what examples! . . . [He] has done a great deal of reading and exposition, indulging his passions to create this compilation of mathematical models of natural phenomena, and the sheer number of examples he manages to cram into this book is testament to his efforts. There are other texts on the market which explore the connection between mathematics and nature . . . but none this wide-ranging. -- Steven Morics, MAA Online

John Adam's quest is a very simple one: that is, to invite one to look around and observe the wonders of nature, both natural and biological; to ponder them; and to try to explain them at various levels with, for the most part, quite elementary mathematical concepts and techniques. -- Brian D. Sleeman, Notices of the American Mathematical Association