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.

Agile & Generalizable Specialization via Reconfigurable Computing

• Monday, February 27, 11:40 am to 1 pm.
• Computer Science Building 451.
• “This talk will first give an overview of Princeton Reconfigurable Gate Array (PRGA), an open-source framework for building customized, physical-design-friendly FPGAs with co-generated RTL-to-bitstream toolchains. PRGA lays the foundation for my future work on integrating novel hardware components into domain-specialized FPGAs. Then, I will present Duet, a cache-coherent, manycore-FPGA system that facilitates fine-grained workload partitioning between processors and reconfigurable accelerators. PRGA and Duet are both validated on multiple silicon prototypes which I led/co-led. I will present these prototypes and share the insights I gained through the experience from architecture design to chip evaluation.” More information here.

Behavior is a motor and a brake of evolution

• Monday, February 27, 12 pm.
• 601 Fairchild.
• “One of the most striking patterns of evolution is its uneven tempo across the tree of life. Whereas some traits and lineages diversify rapidly, others appear to remain inert over millions of years. But why is this so? What causes evolution to achieve overdrive, and what forces it into the slow lane? Research in my lab explores uneven patterns of diversity in reptiles, amphibians, and fishes, and investigates the processes that underpin them. Today, I explore this question by focusing on one of evolution’s key architects: behavior. I illustrate how organisms are not passive targets of selection; rather, through behavior, they can be agents of selection, amplifying it some cases and dampening it in others. Using Anolis lizards as a model system, I reveal the signatures of behavior at both micro- and macroevolutionary scales and illustrate the constraints on this phenomenon. Behavior can slow or hasten evolution and, on occasion, it does both simultaneously.” More information here.

Quantum Matter Out of Equilibrium

• Monday, February 27, 12:30 to 1:30 pm.
• Center for Theoretical Physics (Pupin Hall 8th Floor).
• “I will describe some highlights of an active research program to advance many-body theory beyond the regime of near-equilibrium time-independent Hamiltonians, with a view towards uncovering novel emergent phenomena in the non-equilibrium dynamics of many-body systems, and the physics of quantum circuits. For example, certain phases of matter that are forbidden in equilibrium, such as quantum time crystals, have found new life in the out-of-equilibrium setting. Likewise, ‘monitored’ circuits that include unitary evolution and measurements can give rise to novel entanglement and teleporatation phases.” More information here.

Galactic Probes of Dark-Sector Physics

• Monday, February 27, 2:10 to 3 pm.
• Center for Theoretical Physics (Pupin Hall 8th Floor).
• “Fundamental properties of the dark matter can leave spectacular signatures on galactic and sub-galactic scales. A flood of upcoming astrophysical data, coupled with rapid advancements in theory and simulation, open the opportunity to answer key questions about the nature of the dark sector. In this talk, I will focus specifically on the question of whether new force carriers are allowed to mediate interactions between dark matter particles. I will discuss how such self-interactions affect the properties of individual dwarf galaxies, as well as their population statistics around Milky Way-like hosts. Using these results, I will show that current observational constraints strongly argue for self-interacting dark matter models that are velocity-dependent and lead to gravothermal collapse in the densest dwarf galaxies. This remaining region of model space will be targeted with observational data on the abundance of dwarf galaxies, as well as cluster substructures.” More information here.

Blazing Temperatures, Broken Records: Responding to the Global Heat Crisis

• Monday, February 27, 6 to 7 pm.
• Online event, register here.
• “The summer of 2022 — which brought record-breaking heat waves, heat-related deaths around the globe, pervasive drought, devastating wildfires, and severe rains — ranks among the hottest in recorded history. Scientists agree that without active intervention, the world faces a worsening crisis of more killer heat, humidity, and climate consequences. This event considers way to avert this climate catastrophe.” More information here.

Plastic Warriors

• Tuesday, February 28, 9 to 10:30 pm.
• Online event, register here.
• “The monumental task of dealing with plastic pollution requires creativity and innovation to reimagine packaging and delivery models, new ways of recycling, and a strong ecosystem that integrates social and economic dimensions of waste management. The session will feature changemakers, who will share their inspiring journeys and rich experiences of creating sustainable pathways for combating plastic pollution.” More information here.

Patterns and Determinants of Racialized Inequities in Health and Aging

• Tuesday, February 28, 11:30 am to 12:30 pm.
• Online event, register here.
• “Racialized inequities in health and aging are striking in magnitude and devastating in toll. This talk will synthesize findings from recent work aimed at 1) documenting racialized inequities across diverse markers of biological aging and health and 2) identifying their micro-, meso-, and macro-level determinants.” More information here.

Capillary-scale flows and interfacial engineering for water, energy, and sustainability

• Tuesday, February 28, 11:30 am to 1 pm.
• Mudd Hall.
• “Here, three examples in which interfacial engineering can enable new paradigms for water, energy, and sustainability will be presented. I will show that composite liquid/solid surface can eliminate mineral fouling for improved material resilience, that nano-engineered materials can induce ejection of foulant crystals via evaporative flows with potential application for heat transfer and waste brine management, and that multiphase microfluidics with controlled pore geometries can enable new separation processes.” More information here.

Black Bodies Labeled Suspicious in Nature: from Our Neighborhoods and Parks to Our Hair

• Tuesday, February 28, 12 to 1:30 pm.
• Online event, register here.
• “This roundtable will address Anti-Black racism as one of the greatest injustices in climate justice through an exploration of beauty standards that center Eurocentric norms resulting in environmentally harmful practices that are linked to health issues like uterine cancer and fibroids; When Black People’s existence in nature is criminalized – On October 22, 2022, a neighbor called the police on nine-year-old girl Bobbi Wilson in Caldwell, NJ, because they believed her to be deviant, though she was innocently killing lanternflies outside by spraying them with a homemade mixture. We will also explore the criminalization of the Black man Christian Cooper birdwatching in Central Park on whom the police were called by white woman dogwalker Amy Cooper on May 25, 2020 and a false account of aggression was given.” More information here.

MRV as a Tool for Achieving Just Outcomes in the Carbon Removal Sector

• Tuesday, February 28, 4:15 to 6:15 pm.
• Online and in-person (Heyman Center Second Floor Common Room), register for both here.
• “As carbon removal gains prominence as a climate solution and carbon removal companies vie for billions of dollars in public and private funding, there is growing interest in developing standardized protocols to measure exactly how much carbon has been removed from the atmosphere. MRV (monitoring, reporting, and verification) is the quantitative accounting of a carbon removal project that enables accountability for project outcomes, including payment for tons of carbon removed and enforcement of contractual and regulatory obligations. But who is being held accountable in today’s carbon removal market and the gigaton-scale removals market we need in the future to achieve our climate goals? This talk explores the development of MRV practices and protocols that allow communities and the public more broadly to hold project operators accountable for their climate, public health, and environmental impacts. This approach can build trust between stakeholders in the CDR ecosystem, and trust is absolutely necessary to achieve gigaton-scale in the carbon removal industry.” More information here.

Architecture of Life: Soviet Modernism and the Human Sciences

• Tuesday, February 28, 6:30 to 8 pm.
• 930 Schermerhorn.
• “Alla Vronskaya will detail the argument in her recently published book Architecture of Life: Soviet Modernism and the Human Sciences. Situating Soviet interwar architectural theory in its transdisciplinary and transnational context, it will unpack it as a discourse about society and the human. It will identify this discourse as monism, an intellectual framework centering on ‘life,’ a synthetic notion developed at the intersection of architecture, psychology, and social engineering.” More information here.

Vertical Integration in Open-source Hardware-Software Co-Design for GPU Research

• Wednesday, March 1, 11:40 am to 1 pm.
• Computer Science Building 451.
• “Our work aims at addressing this research gap, drawing inspiration from the innovations that have taken place in the RISC-V ecosystem and the open-silicon initiative to propose Vortex, an open-source hardware platform for advancing GPU research. Our contribution integrates a compiler, software, and simulation stack to enable a vertical exploration of new hardware extensions. Vortex is currently used for conducting research and teaching in systems, compilers, and hardware microarchitecture. In this talk, I will first present our open-source platform, with a focus on its design philosophy and unique architecture. Then, I will discuss its latest addition which explores the design space of graphics rendering acceleration.” More information here.

Rereading the Sciences Across Islamic Manuscript Cultures

• Wednesday, March 1, 12 to 1:30 pm.
• Online event, register here.
• “Moving beyond narratives of conventional “Golden Age” narratives, this panel reexamines the scientific works of scholars in the Islamicate world through the lens of manuscript culture. Utilizing the recently digitized treasures of the Columbia University Libraries’ Manuscripts of the Muslim World project, the panel presents in-depth case studies in the history of knowledge across the premodern Islamicate world. By foregrounding the manuscript cultures that shaped the production and exchange of astronomical and mathematical knowledge, this panel raises important questions about the role of manuscript cultures in shaping scientific inquiry and the circulation of knowledge across traditions. How might we read these scientific texts in new ways that take into account the different intellectual traditions that shaped them and their legacies on their own terms?” More information here.

The Landscape of Relativistic Stellar Explosions

• Wednesday, March 1, 4:05 to 5:05 pm.
• Pupin 1402.
• “For the last half-century, relativistic outflows accompanying the final collapse of massive stars have predominantly been detected via high-energy emission, as long-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Yet, it has long been hypothesized that GRBs are the tip of the iceberg of relativistic stellar explosions, because the conditions required to produce and detect a GRB are contrived. I will present results from a search for relativistic stellar explosions using optical time-domain surveys. The emerging zoo includes afterglows at cosmological distances with no detected GRB, supernovae with luminous X-ray and radio emission, and a mysterious class of “fast blue optical transients” with minute-timescale optical flares at supernova-like luminosities. An understanding of the origin of these events and their relation to GRBs will be enabled by upcoming time-domain surveys in other bands, including X-ray, UV, and submillimeter.” More information here.

Carrying Fragile X

• Wednesday, March 1, 4:30 to 6:30 pm.
• Online event, register here.
• “Passed down from a “carrier” parent to a child, fragile X syndrome is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability and autism. Further troubling the experience of affected families, many fragile X carriers—once thought unaffected—also suffer from disabling symptoms. Anne Skomorowsky narrates the stories of these families exposing the complex interactions between genes, personality, and family dynamics, while underlining the ethical dilemmas of genetic medicine.” More information here.

The Fight for Climate Justice

• Thursday, March 2, 12:15 to 1:30 pm.
• International Affairs Building Room 802.
• “A discussion on how human rights practitioners, climate activists, and scholars combat climate change, from strategic litigation at the international level, to environmentally-conscious urban planning and design in NYC, to addressing challenges of data justice and epistemic violence to marginalized communities.” More information here.

More than Mundane: Testing Ecological Theory For Global Climate Change Impacts in the Forests Home to a Billion+ People

• Thursday, March 2, 2:30 to 3:30 pm.
• 10th Floor Schermerhorn Extension.
• “Neil Pederson is a senior forest ecologist at the Harvard Forest who studies the dynamics and long-term development of forests from individual trees to regions and subcontinents. He currently studies the impacts of extreme climate on the lives of trees in the Northeastern US and how climate might have shaped the old-growth forests we love today.”

Taming multifaceted Ni catalysts: An academic fascination

• Thursday, March 2, 4 to 5:30 pm.
• Havemeyer 209.
• “The recent years have witnessed a renaissance in the general area of Ni-catalyzed reactions. The popularity of these processes is mainly attributed to the unique features of nickel when compared to its d10 congeners, and the promiscuity of nickel to participate in multiple redox manifolds. Our research group has reported some progress directed towards the utilization of feedstock materials en route to added-value building blocks by means of Ni-catalyzed transformations. Among these, we have shown the ability for enabling a series of C–C and C–heteroatom bond-forming reactions from simple (un)saturated hydrocarbons or native functionality. These methods are characterized by their simplicity and wide substrate scope, including challenging substrate combinations.” More information here.

SURF Symposium

• Friday, March 3, 11:30 am to 1 pm.
• Low Library, Rotunda.
• “Last summer, 55 CU undergraduate students conducted research in the biological through the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). Come hear them describe their experiences and learn more about this program at the SURF Symposium on Friday, March 3rd 2023, from 11:30am to 1pm at Low Library, Rotunda.” More information here.

Culturally-Minded Disaster Response

• Friday, March 3, 12 to 1:30 pm.
• Online event, register here.
• “In the presentation with respect to disaster relief response, Fatima Mann will address what currently exists for relief efforts, what efforts have arisen since Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Harvey, what are the issues with the current infrastructure, policies that support the current infrastructure, policies that are being advocated to support more human-centered approaches, operational and policy recommendations for FEMA, and other relief programs.” More information here.

CSC Workshop: Neural Machine Translation using Python

• Friday, March 3, 12 to 2 pm.
• Online and in-person (516 Milstein), register for both here.
• “In this workshop, we will consider neural machine translation, with a focus on sequence to sequence models. We’ll consider specifically a basic character-level recurrent sequence-to-sequence model and show how it can be applied across varying languages, and explore why the differences in language representation impact the aspects of the model. We will be coding in Python. No prior experience is required!” More information here.

Art and Technology: Early “Animal Style” Gold Artifacts Found in Northwest China and the Eurasian steppes

• Friday, March 3, 4:30 to 6:30 pm.
• Faculty House—check the announcement board in the first-floor lobby for room information.
• “Precious metals recently discovered from the Dongtalede cemetery in the Xinjiang Altai region and other burial sites in northwest China (dating from the 9th century to the 3rd century BCE) have attracted much attention for their artistic mastery and fine craftsmanship. This is especially true of gold ornaments rendered in animal styles, such as ibex, snow leopard, boar, deer, and other zoomorphic figures, and which are closely linked to gold objects excavated in Central Asia and Southern Siberia. Through discussing the industry and political economy of gold crafting in early China, we will look at the manufacturing techniques and ornamental details of “animal style” gold artifacts from an interdisciplinary perspective. Multispectral non-destructive analyses of tool marks and microstructure of selected samples reveal specific gold-making technologies of the time, such as double-sided carving and mould-pressing techniques. The results show that gold production was practiced under elite control and that craftsmanship varied in early Iron Age northwest China. Patterns of compositional data pertaining to the “animal style” appliqués found in Dongtalede, Balikun (Xinjiang), and Majiayuan (Gansu) sites and their counterparts in the Eurasian steppes also point to various mineral provenances.” More information here, request pre-circulated paper here.

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