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The week's events
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UW Seminar - Stable Isotope Analyses in Neotropical Mammals: Paleoecological Implications
UW Seminar - Stable Isotope Analyses in Neotropical Mammals: Paleoecological Implications
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May 13, 2024Speaker: Dr. Julia Tejada
Institution: California Institute of Technology | Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
Seminar date: Monday, May 13, 2024 - 12:00 to 13:00
Location: Hitchcock Hall (HCK) 132; uw.edu/maps/?hck
Stable isotope analyses are powerful tools for reconstructing ancient ecologies and ecosystems, as they provide direct insights into dietary ecology independent of morphology. The application of stable isotope analyses, however, is not without limitations, as determination of food web dynamics using these methods often relies on poorly tested assumptions. In this presentation, I will address challenges in paleoecological reconstructions of South American tropical ecosystems. By testing long-standing assumptions of stable isotope analyses, I aim to validate the suitability of applying these techniques to different mammalian clades, and to more reliably interpret the isotopic signals preserved in extinct organisms.
University of Washington-Hitchcock Hall (HCK)Seattle,UW Seminar - Stable Isotope Analyses in Neotropical Mammals: Paleoecological Implications
UW Analytical Chemistry Seminar: Prof. Judit VillénUW Analytical Chemistry Seminar: Prof. Judit Villén
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May 13, 2024Multidimensional proteomics identifies molecular trajectories of cellular aging and rejuvenation
Associate Professor Judit Villén - Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington
Host: Nick RileyUniversity of Washington-Bagley Hall (BAG)Seattle, WASara Khor, Ethan Mickelson, & Treasure WarrenSara Khor, Ethan Mickelson, & Treasure Warren
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May 13, 2024Town Hall Seattle and UW Engage Science present
Sara Khor, Ethan Mickelson, & Treasure Warren
UW Engage 2024
Town Hall Seattle1119 8th Ave.Seattle, WA 98101 -
Steven Pinker: Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
Steven Pinker: Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
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May 14, 2024Steven Pinker: Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
In the midst of humanity’s remarkable scientific progress, we find ourselves grappling with an alarming surge of misinformation, pseudo-science, and conspiracy theories. However, attributing this solely to human irrationality seems inadequate given our capacity for discovery and rational thought.
Psychologist Steven Pinker proposes that our cognitive processes, evolved for simpler contexts, often fail to utilize the sophisticated tools of reasoning available to us. Despite our advancements, we frequently overlook logic, critical thinking, and probability, hindering our ability to navigate complex modern challenges effectively. Moreover, individual pursuits of self-interest and group cohesion can collectively foster societal irrationality, underscoring the importance of fostering norms that prioritize objectivity and truth.
Rationality, Pinker argues, is indispensable — it guides our personal choices, shapes public discourse, and serves as a catalyst for social justice and moral progress.
Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He specializes in visual cognition and developmental linguistics, and his experimental topics include mental imagery, shape recognition, visual attention, regularity and irregularity in language, the neural basis of words and grammar, and childhood language development.
Presented by University of Washington Office of Public Lectures. If you have questions about the event, please contact lectures@uw.edu or call (206) 543-5900.
Town Hall Seattle1119 8th Ave.Seattle, WA 98101Steven Pinker: Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters
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Film Screening and Reception for AIDS, Posters, and Stories of Public Health: A People’s History of a Pandemic
Film Screening and Reception for AIDS, Posters, and Stories of Public Health: A People’s History of a Pandemic
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May 15, 2024Campus location Magnuson Health Sciences Center T (HST) Campus room Health Sciences Library, 2nd floor Accessibility Contact ahamman@uw.edu Event Types Lectures/Seminars, Screenings, Special Events Event sponsors Health Sciences Library; National Library of Medicine Join us for a special film screening and reception in partnership with the traveling National Library of Medicine (NLM) exhibit: AIDS, Posters & Stories of Public Health: A People's History of a Pandemic. Our special guest speakers, Karen Hartfield and Frank Chaffee will discuss their work with HIV/AIDS in both UW and the surrounding communities in Washington state. Following their presentations, we will screen Target Zero: Preventing HIV Transmission, a documentary series that shows the challenges and emotional complexity of the fight to control HIV infection. Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP by Monday, May 13.
About the exhibit: The posters featured in this traveling National Library of Medicine (NLM) exhibit were created by "communities bonded together by illness and a desire to make change". These posters provide a gateway to AIDS history that illustrate how, in the face of illness, neglect, and the unknown, people came together to connect, create, and save one another's lives.
Link www.eventbrite.com… University of Washington-Magnuson Health Sciences Center T (HST)Seattle, WAUW Psychology Edwards Colloquium with Edmund Lalor, Ph.D., University of RochesterUW Psychology Edwards Colloquium with Edmund Lalor, Ph.D., University of Rochester
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May 15, 2024Campus location Kincaid Hall (KIN) Online Meeting Link washington.zoom.us… Campus room Kincaid 102/108 Accessibility Contact psylectures@uw.edu Event Types Lectures/Seminars Event sponsors Department of Psychology Target Audience Faculty, students, staff Description This is a hybrid event - in person and livestreamed on Zoom.
Modeling Speech-To-Language Transformations in the Human Brain
Edmund Lalor, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Neuroscience and Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Rochester
To transform speech into words, the human brain must accommodate variability across utterances in intonation, speech rate, volume, accents and so on. A promising approach to explaining this process has been to model electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings of brain responses to speech. In this talk, I will describe our use of this approach over the past decade to understand how the human brain transforms speech to language and how this transformation is affected by attention and visual input.
This lecture made possible in part by a generous endowment from Professor Allen L. Edwards.
Faculty host: Joe Sisneros, sisneros@uw.edu
Q&A and light refreshments to follow the lecture.
University of Washington-Kincaid Hall (KIN)UW Psychology Edwards Colloquium with Edmund Lalor, Ph.D., University of Rochester
OSU Making the Unseen Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation ExposureOSU Making the Unseen Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation Exposure
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May 15, 2024Sponsored by Oregon State University
Join Professor of History Jacob Hamblin and History Senior Instructor Linda Richards for a conversation on their new book Making the Unseen Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation Exposured. Hamblin and Richards will also engage participants with original primary sources on radiation exposure from the nuclear history collections in the Special Collections and Archives Research Center of the Valley Library.
Oregon State University-The Valley LibraryOSU Making the Unseen Visible: Science and the Contested Histories of Radiation Exposure
Zoë Schlanger in Conversation With Ferris JabrZoë Schlanger in Conversation With Ferris Jabr
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May 15, 2024Sponsored by Powell's City of Books in Portland
https://www.powells.com/events-update
It takes tremendous biological creativity to be a plant. To survive and thrive while rooted in a single spot, plants have adapted ingenious methods of survival. In recent years, scientists have learned about their ability to communicate, recognize their kin and behave socially, hear sounds, morph their bodies to blend into their surroundings, store useful memories that inform their life cycle, and trick animals into behaving to their benefit, to name just a few remarkable talents. The Light Eaters (Harper) is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.
Powell's City of Books1005 w. burnside st.Portland, OR 97209 -
OSU - HMSC Research Seminar- Evaluating tsunami vertical evacuation in Seaside, Oregon
OSU - HMSC Research Seminar- Evaluating tsunami vertical evacuation in Seaside, Oregon
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May 16, 2024Speaker: Laura Gabel, Coastal Field Geologist, Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries
Topic: Evaluating tsunami vertical evacuation in Seaside, Oregon
With little time to escape a Cascadia Subduction Zone tsunami, it is essential that every coastal community have effective wayfinding signage and navigable escape routes to guide people out of the tsunami zone. Communities also must consider potential route obstacles due to bridge failures, landslides and liquefaction, or long distances to high ground and evaluate the cost-benefits of various mitigation strategies. While most of the Oregon Coast has high ground near enough for horizontal evacuation, there are some places where vertical evacuation (VES) will be necessary to save lives. Funding, permitting, designing and construction of VES is a complex process, requiring strong community involvement and leadership at all levels of government. DOGAMI is utilizing approaches developed by Freitag and Gomez (2021) in Washington state to evaluate VES in Seaside and Cannon Beach, two high priority coastal communities where horizontal evacuation will save lives. This community-driven project is guided by least-coast distance evacuation modeling, detailed tsunami arrival times, and geospatial population distributions with the goal of providing quantitative evidence for the need for VES as well as an analysis of locations and numbers of VES needed to save the most lives.
Dial-In Information
call +1-971-247-1195 US Meeting ID: 971 3707 8566
Password: 104815
Oregon State University-Hatfield Marine Science CenterOSU - HMSC Research Seminar- Evaluating tsunami vertical evacuation in Seaside, Oregon
UW ESS Colloquium: Isabel Montañez (UC Davis)UW ESS Colloquium: Isabel Montañez (UC Davis)
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May 16, 2024"Paleo-CO2 revisited — challenges, advances, and implications"
Campus location Johnson Hall (JHN) Campus room JHN 075 Accessibility Contact Summer Caton, sacaton@uw.edu Event Types Lectures/Seminars Keywords: Paleo-CO2, global carbon cycle, paleoclimates
Abstract: Paleo-CO2 reconstructions are integral to understanding the evolution of Earth system processes and their interactions given that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are intrinsically linked to planetary function. Furthermore, past periods of major climate change, within both greenhouse and icehouse states, provide unique insights into the response of land-atmosphere-ocean interactions to warming induced climate change, in particular for times of pCO2 comparable to those projected for our future. How well the past can inform the future, however, depends on how well paleo-CO2 estimates can be constrained. Although CO2 estimates exist for much of the past half-billion years (the Phanerozoic), proxies used to reconstruct paleo-CO2, differ in their assumptions and degree of understanding, and many existing paleo-CO2 estimates do not meet modern proxy theory.
In this talk, I will first address present-day CO2 in the context of the geologic past and what it suggests about our future, and then discuss approaches to and challenges of reconstructing paleo-CO2 concentrations. I will then introduce the CO2 Proxy Integration Project (CO2PIP) as a path forward to advance the science of paleo-CO2 reconstruction and to build next-generation CO2 record for the Phanerozoic. This will include approaches that the CO2PIP Consortium is taking to modernize published paleo-CO2 records so that they meet modern proxy theory criteria and the modeling tools that are being developed to provide quantitative, data-driven CO2 reconstructions. To illustrate the potential of high temporal-resolution and modernized paleo-CO2 records to advance our understanding of how Earth surface processes and ecosystems responded to changing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, I will share a couple of examples of our work reconstructing CO2-climate-ecosystem interactions and feedbacks during a time (late Paleozoic Ice Age) when CO2 fluctuated within the range of Quaternary levels to those projected by socio-economic emission scenarios of this century. This deep-time interval was defined by CO2-driven abrupt (hyperthermal-scale) warmings that led to major changes in environmental conditions in the oceans and on land. If time permits, I’ll wrap up by discussing how the typically long-term processes of carbon cycling studied to interpret paleo-CO2 changes can be accelerated in soils of natural and working lands as a promising new CO2 removal technology capable of sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere in volumes and at rates relevant to climate change.
University of Washington-Johnson Hall (JHN)Seattle, WABook talk: Kirk Hanson & Seth ZuckermanBook talk: Kirk Hanson & Seth Zuckerman
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May 16, 2024Sponsored by Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing,
https://www.powells.com/events-update
Throughout Oregon and Washington there are several hundred thousand family forest owners, in addition to millions of forest acres under the care of community forests, municipalities, and Indigenous tribes, all of whom manage trees for sustainable wood harvest as well as recreation, inspiration, and a range of cultural connections. Yet there hasn’t been a complete resource for Pacific Northwest forest stewards until now. In their comprehensive how-to, A Forest of Your Own: The Pacific Northwest Handbook of Ecological Forestry (Skipstone), authors Kirk Hanson and Seth Zuckerman explore all aspects of forest management — everything from how to evaluate a piece of land before you buy it through implementing long-term plans that may include establishing new stands of trees, harvesting mushrooms as well as wood, and protecting your forests far into the future through wildfire risk reduction, climate change adaptation, and conservation easements. Loaded with helpful tables and illustrations that address the pros and cons of various species and how to best care for wildlife and the land, A Forest of Your Own is a clear guide to the many rewards of ecological forestry.
POWELL'S BOOKS AT CEDAR HILLS CROSSING -
OSU - A Veterinary Perspective on the One Health Approach (virtual available)
OSU - A Veterinary Perspective on the One Health Approach (virtual available)
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May 17, 2024Dr. Scholz is a graduate of Oregon State University, where he earned two undergraduate degrees, a Master of Public Health (MPH), and a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine (DVM). His master's degree, with a focus on epidemiology and disease surveillance, has been particularly useful in his work with the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Dr. Scholz's public health background provides him with a unique perspective that enhances his ability to collaborate with colleagues and address diseases that can affect both animals and humans.
Co-Sponsored with the Epidemiology Program.
Watch in-person at Hallie Ford Center 115
Watch via https://oregonstate.zoom.us/j/97741013978
Learn more about upcoming and past seminars.
Oregon State University- Hallie E. Ford Center For Healthy Children and FamiliesOSU - A Veterinary Perspective on the One Health Approach (virtual available)
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Experts on hand at Mount St. Helens for eruption anniversary
Experts on hand at Mount St. Helens for eruption anniversary
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May 18, 2024Volcano Awareness Month also includes watching movies, online discussions
Scientists and preparedness experts will be on hand May 18, 2024, at the Science and Learning Center at Coldwater to commemorate the tragic 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. It’s just one of several events taking place between the Washington Emergency Management Division and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Cascades Volcano Observatory in May for Volcano Awareness Month, which includes lectures, watching a movie together and an online question and answer session on Reddit.
The month of May is chosen each year to be Volcano Awareness Month in Washington to commemorate the tragic eruption of Mount St. Helens that killed 57 people, spewing forth 540 million tons of ash and changing our understanding of Washington volcanoes forever.
Typically, the public would be invited to Johnston Ridge Observatory with a great view of the Mount St. Helens lava dome. But the observatory and Highway 504 at Mile Post 45.2 are both closed after a landslide caused catastrophic damage to a nearby bridge. WSDOT says on its construction project website that permanent access will not be restored for public or administrative use at least until the latter part of 2026. And even after that, it will take time for the observatory to re-open.
However, the Science and Learning Center at Coldwater is open with scientists and preparedness experts available to talk about the volcano from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on May 18, 2024. This facility is located at milepost 43 on State Highway 504. The address is 19000 Spirit Lake Hwy, Toutle, WA.
Science and Learning Center at ColdwaterExperts on hand at Mount St. Helens for eruption anniversary
UW Aquatic Sciences Open HouseUW Aquatic Sciences Open House
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May 18, 2024Campus location Fishery Sciences (FSH) Accessibility Contact wittouck@uw.edu Event Types Exhibits, Information Sessions, Special Events Target Audience students, faculty, staff, public Description The UW Aquatic Sciences Open House is an annual event, taking place this year on Saturday May 18, organized by Students Explore Aquatic Sciences (SEAS) and hosted by the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences with support from the School of Oceanography, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, and external partner organizations.
The Open House offers a free and family-friendly afternoon of hands-on learning to celebrate science and research that relates to water. Visitors can experience the UW Fish Collection, the Research Vessel Rachel Carson, and real working science labs here at the university. We also have hands-on activities led by current UW students, staff, postdocs, and faculty across the College of the Environment and by organizations from the greater Seattle area (e.g., foundry10).
Come get your hands wet and learn about the aquatic science happening right here in your backyard—covering everything from freshwater to oceans, microscopic microbes to whales, and everything in between!
Link fish.uw.edu… University of Washington-Fishery Sciences (FSH)Seattle, WA
Please note: NSWA provides these event details as a courtesy to science-related organizations throughout the Pacific Northwest. Please confirm event details with the sponsoring organization before attending.