Science at AMNH

What does a carnivorous plant have in common with the design for a water-saving toilet? What about a hungry cell with surgical equipment? It may be surprising to learn that engineers still turn to the natural world for inspiration. For Tak-Sing Wong, a professor of engineering at The Pennsylvania State University, nature is a constant source of inspiration. In our November SciCafe, Wong introduces two cutting-edge technologies that have been directly modeled after natural phenomena.

A video version of this SciCafe will be available on the Museum’s YouTube channel on Saturday, November 24.

Subscribe to the Science@AMNH Podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The SciCafe Series is proudly sponsored by Judy and Josh Weston.

SciCafe: Engineering Technologies Inspired by Nature and related activities are generously supported by the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In April 2018, the Gaia space telescope released its second catalog of over 1.3 billion stellar distances, helping astronomers map the Milky Way like never before. Astrophysicist Jackie Faherty takes us on a tour through her current work using Gaia data to visualize and study the galaxy.

This SciCafe included brand new visualizations that let you literally fly through the galaxy. A video version with all of Faherty’s data visualizations will be available on the Museum’s YouTube channel on October 27.

This SciCafe took place on October 3, 2018.

Subscribe to the Science@AMNH Podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The SciCafe series is proudly sponsored by Judy and Josh Weston.

In celebration of International Cat Day and to honor the legacy of zoologist and conservationist Alan Rabinowitz who died August 5, we’re re-publishing a talk he gave at the Museum in 2014. Rabinowitz shares his journey to conserve the jaguar, a species that despite its past resilience, is now on a slide towards extinction. In a story of tenacity and survival, the big cat expert also reveals better strategies for saving other species, and how to save ourselves from immediate and long-term catastrophic changes to our environment.

For a full transcript, visit https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/podcasts/podcast-jaguar-an-indomitable-beast-with-alan-rabinowitz

This lecture originally took place on September 17, 2014.

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The world under the waves or the wilds of the land? Which creatures—marine or terrestrial—are the most compelling, intriguing, and inspiring? Comedian and journalist Faith Salie leads two teams of scientific luminaries in this tongue-in-cheek “debate,” featuring categories like “Next Top Predator” and “Sexy Beast.” Panelists include conservationist Carl Safina and animal behavior expert Lori Marino (Team Sea) facing off against zoologist Jarod Miller and primatologist Mireya Mayor (Team Land).

Decide for yourself who reigns supreme and let us know on Twitter using the handle @AMNH

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Science Throwdown: Sea vs. Land is made possible by OceanX, an initiative of the Dalio Foundation, as part of its generous support of the special exhibition Unseen Oceans and its related educational activities and public programs.

Swirling disks of dust and gas surround young stars, and these disks contain the building blocks for new planets. It would take 100 million years to see a planet fully form, but luckily there are plenty of planetary systems in development for us to observe. By studying and compiling “snapshots” from nearby star systems, Alycia Weinberger of the Carnegie Institute of Washington takes us on a journey back in time to the origins of planets.

For a full transcript, visit https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/podcasts/podcast-planetary-origin-stories-with-alycia-weinberger

This Frontiers Lecture took place on May 14, 2018.

For information on upcoming events at the museum, including future Frontiers Lectures, visit AMNH.org/calendar.

Support for Hayden Planetarium Programs is provided by the Schaffner Family and the Horace W. Goldsmith Endowment Fund.

While wild orangutans in the rainforests of Borneo feed on a remarkable variety of plant life, they also endure unpredictable cycles of feast and famine. Erin Vogel of Rutgers University explains how research on these primates’ diet and health may help us to better understand the evolution of early human diets, as well as provide insight into today’s global obesity epidemic. This SciCafe took place on June 6, 2018.

To watch a video version of this lecture, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tforcdqDWIg

For a full transcript of this podcast, visit: https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/podcasts/podcast-scicafe-orangutans-obesity-and-human-evolution-with-erin-vogel

Subscribe to the Science@AMNH Podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The SciCafe series is proudly sponsored by Judy and Josh Weston.

This SciCafe event is presented in collaboration witht The Leakey Foundation.

SciCafe: Primate Palate: Orangutans, Obesity, and Human Evolution, and related activities are generously supported by the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program of the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Astronomers have discovered thousands of planets in our galaxy, but how much do we understand about how they are formed? Why, for example, are some planets rocky like ours, while others like Jupiter and Saturn are gaseous? Astrophysicist Meredith Hughes of Wesleyan University explains what we know about planet formation in our own solar system, and breaks down how powerful radio telescopes are helping scientists answer questions about distant systems in our galaxy.

For a full transcript, visit https://www.amnh.org/explore/news-blogs/podcasts/podcast-visualizing-planets-with-radio-telescopes-with-meredith-hughes

This Frontiers Lecture took place on April 9, 2018.

Subscribe to the Science@AMNH podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Support for Hayden Planetarium Programs is provided by the Schaffner Family and the Horace W. Goldsmith Endowment Fund.

How can studying ocean life help us to create more efficient technologies? Frank Fish, professor of biology at West Chester University of Pennsylvania, explores how the elegant movements of manta rays and humpback whales are inspiring new and better approaches to engineering.

This SciCafe took place on May 2, 2018.

Subscribe to the Science@AMNH Podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The SciCafe series is proudly sponsored by Judy and Josh Weston.

SciCafe: Ocean Locomotion: Bioinspiration from the Sea, and related activities are generously supported by the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

On April 25th, 2018, the European Space Agency’s Gaia observatory released its second data catalog, which includes the distances to a staggering 1.4 billion stars. Museum Astrophysicist Jackie Faherty explains why these new findings are important to astronomers, and how Gaia’s data can help us unlock our galaxy’s past, present, and future.

How do our brains make sense of the world our eyes see? How does attention affect our perception? And how is it possible to miss things even if they are right in front of us? In her recent SciCafe talk, Marisa Carrasco, a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University, revealed the surprising answers to these questions and demonstrated firsthand how our brains selectively process complex information. This podcast highlights some of the essential questions Carrasco explores.

To experience the full presentation, watch the video version of this SciCafe on the Museum’s YouTube Channel. https://bit.ly/2rbjIgF

This SciCafe took place at the Museum on April 4, 2018.

Subscribe to the Science@AMNH Podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The SciCafe Series is proudly sponsored by Judy and Josh Weston.