Welcome back to Science Fair, Bwog’s weekly roundup of science events happening around campus. As always, email science@bwog.com if you want your event featured.

Tree-ring and Radiocarbon Refinements Towards More Precise Chronology for the Near Eastern Bronze Age

• Monday, November 6, 12 to 1:30 pm
• Online via Zoom. Registration required. 
• “Combining tree-ring records and radiocarbon dating can open new possibilities to enhance chronology, however, discrepancies between radiocarbon dating and historically or archaeologically based chronologies persist. In this talk, we will explore how single year radiocarbon measurements from tree-rings were used to permanently anchor a previously floating tree-ring record from 22 archaeological sites in Turkey and examine the implications of this for dating in Bronze Age central Anatolia. We will also look at the difference that newly proposed refinements to the radiocarbon calibration curve may make to radiocarbon dating across the same time period and consider the limitations and complications of the radiocarbon dating method.” More information here. 

Brian Harvey – Politics, Personalities and Space Programs: The Case of Japan

• Wednesday, November 8, 10 to 11:30 am
• Online via Zoom. Registration required. 
• “How influential are politics and political leadership in shaping a space program? Japan launched its first satellite fifty years ago (1970). What was originally an independent endeavor for space science using small, indigenous, solid-fuel rockets evolved into successful wide-spectrum program but recently altered course to focus on defense and security. This talk examines the role of the key personalities who shaped the program (Hideo Itokawa, Hideo Shima) and the political leaders who guided its direction (Shigeru Yoshida, Eisaku Sato, Yasuhiro Nakasone, Takeo Kawamura and Shinzo Abe) and the role of changing political sentiment..” More information here. 

Our Future Energy Economy: Shell’s Scenario Analyses

• Wednesday, November 8, 5:30 to 7 pm
• Online and in-person at 4 West 43rd Street. Registration required. 
• “The world is engaged in a race to decarbonize global energy systems, watching from one year to the next, as mean global temperatures rise, severe weather events proliferate, precipitation patterns change, and other manifestations of a changing climate impact all of humanity, and especially the world’s poor. As the last two years have highlighted, however, the world needs a decarbonized energy future and, simultaneously, steady and improving energy security. How can stakeholders think about the array of choices that lie ahead as we try to pursue these intertwined outcomes?” More information here. 

Innovation in Neurotechnology, Innovation in Governance?

• Wednesday, November 8, 5:30 to 7 pm
• In-person at the Schapiro Center, Davis Auditorium. Registration required. 
• “As rapid innovations in neurotechnology give rise to ethical, legal, and social concerns, this seminar investigates how countries, institutions, and organizations are navigating the governance of neurotechnologies. […] Leading experts from public policy, the corporate sector, neuroethics, and the emerging field of neurorights will share insights on the effectiveness of various governance approaches, spanning from ethical guidelines to the formulation of new human rights.” Featuring Riki Banerjee, Dr. Nina Frahm, Khara Ramos, Professor Rafael Yuste, and Dr. Madi Whitman. More information here. 

BOAS Seminar: Todne Thomas

• Wednesday, November 8, 2:10 to 4 pm 
• In-person at 963 Schermerhorn Extension
•  Join the Department of Anthropology for a seminar featuring Todne Thomas, sociocultural anthropologist and Associate Professor of Divinity and Religious Studies at Yale Divinity School. More information here. 

Transnational Backlash and the Deinstitutionalization of Liberal Norms: LGBT+ Rights in a Contested World

• Wednesday, November 9, 12 to 2 pm
• In-person at 509 Knox Hall
• Join Kristopher Velasco of Princeton University for a Department of Sociology Colloquium entitled: “Transnational Backlash and the Deinstitutionalization of Liberal Norms: LGBT+ Rights in a Contested World.” More information here. 

True Science: Leo Tolstoy and Popular Science in Late Imperial Russia

• Thursday, November 9, 12:15 to 2 pm
• Online and in-person at the Heyman Center for the Humanities. Registration required. 
• “This talk examines Leo Tolstoy’s philosophy of science in his non-fiction essays and literary works. Tolstoy methodically rejected an exclusively positivist worldview, arguing that it was detrimental to Russia’s social development. Instead, the writer formulated an idea of socially functional science—a “true” science—whose goal was to promote ethical and moral values for popular audiences…” More information here. 

Repatriating Stolen and Looted Cultural Property

• Thursday, November 9, 12 to 1 pm
• In-person at Columbia Law School, 104 Jerome Greene Hall. Registration required. 
• “From the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s questionable acquisition of an ancient Egyptian priest’s coffin, to the disappearance of treasures from the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, to a raid on a New York collector’s Fifth Avenue apartment, Matthew Bogdanos ’83 has been on a mission to combat global looting of ancient cultural treasures. As Manhattan assistant district attorney, Bogdanos leads the Antiquities Trafficking Unit, the world’s first prosecutorial squad dedicated to antiquities thievery. On November 9, Bogdanos, retired Marine colonel and author of the book Thieves of Baghdad, joins the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts to discuss the sensitive legal and ethical issues involved in repatriating stolen and looted cultural property.” Lunch will be provided. More information here. 

The Epoch of Giant Planet Migration: Searching for Young Planets within the Noise

• Thursday, November 9, 2023, 4:35 – 5:05 pm
• In-person at 1402 Pupin Hall
• Seminar by Quang H. Tran, PhD Candidate at UT Austin. “The presence of close-in giant planets indicates that inward orbital migration is a common phenomenon. […] This program will determine the timescale and dominant physical mechanism of giant planet migration by measuring their occurrence rate at young ages and comparing them to established frequencies at older ages. In this talk, I will summarize the survey design and initial results, including an overview of the first candidate planets to emerge from this program.” More information here. 

Rethinking Practice: Climate, Equity, Labor

• Friday, November 10, 9 am to 4:15 pm
• In-person at 114 Avery Hall, 1172 Amsterdam Avenue. No registration required. 
• “Rethinking Practice: Climate, Equity, Labor is a one-day conference organized by Alessandro Orsini, Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP. […] The Rethinking Practice symposium aims to promote a dialogue around radical practicing to address the discipline’s exclusionary dynamics to prompt models that allow architects to reclaim agency over the design processes, ethics, and the condition of labor under which architecture operates…” See more information on the event and the schedule of panels here. 

Ocean and Climate Physics Seminar: Dr. Andre Perkins

• Friday, November 10, 11 am to 12 pm
• Online via Zoom and in-person at the Geochemistry Seminar Room, Seismology Building, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Email Isabelle Bunge at ieb2123@columbia.edu for Zoom link. 
• “On Friday, November 10th, we will have an OCP Seminar given by Dr. Andre Perkins, a Research Engineer at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.” More information here. 

The Genomics of PTSD Risk: Scientific and Ethical Perspectives

• Friday, November 10, 12 to 1 pm
• Online via Zoom. Registration required. 
• “Using genomics to identify those most at risk for PTSD and better understanding its etiologic pathways could help clinicians and others, including the military, to better treat, prevent, and minimize risk for the disorder. But the use of genomic screening to predict PTSD risk in occupational contexts like military service also raises ethical challenges. Drawing on research with the US VA’s Million Veterans Program, this webinar explores the scientific and medical promise of PTSD genomics and the ethics of using genetic markers for PTSD vulnerability and resilience in high-risk occupational contexts like the military.” More information here. 

LDEO Earth Science Colloquium with Dr. Edwin Nissen

• Friday, November 10, 3:30 to 4:30 pm
• In-person at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Monell Auditorium. 
• The Earth Science Colloquium Series presents: Dr. Edwin Nissen, Professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria. Dr. Nissen’s main areas of research are earthquakes and active tectonics. More information here.

Science Fair via Giovanni DeLaRosa