Jan 8 Reporters: Fair, Balanced and Gullible?

Saturday, Jan 8, 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm

Bob Hirshon , Senior Project Director in
the Directorate for Education and Human
Resources Programs at the American
Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS) and Principal Investigator for
the NSF-supported Kinetic City project

A public talk. Free.
Refreshments & Socializing until 3:45

National Science Foundation, Room 110 
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA (Map) (Flyer)

The job of a journalist is to investigate news stories to report the facts, as well as they can be discerned, to the public. As such, reporters should be our nation’s leading skeptics. Yet newspapers are rife with stories of clearly fraudulent claims, reported as matter of fact, no different than sports scores and weather reports. Bob Hirshon rips the lid off this sensational story, emerging from his years as a mole within the labyrinth of journalistic secret societies, revealing the dark secrets no one has ever dared tell — until now! 

Bob Hirshon is Senior Project Director in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources Programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is Principal Investigator for the NSF-supported Kinetic City project for children, featuring the Codie Award winning, web-based Kinetic City After School program, Peabody Award-winning Kinetic City Super Crew radio show, and McGraw-Hill book series. Hirshon hosts Science Update, a daily radio feature now in its 23rd year on the air. He also created and oversees the Science NetLinks project for K-12 science teachers, with nearly 400,000 user sessions per month. 

Dec 11 Arboreal Mind: Finding Self in Nerve Cell Branching

Saturday, Dec 11, 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm

Giorgio Ascoli, Ph.D., 
Computational Neuroanatomy Group, 
Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, 
George Mason University, VA 

A public talk at the lay level. Free.
Refreshments & Socializing until 3:45


National Science Foundation, Room 110 
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA (Map) (Flyer)

The importance of neuronal morphology, i.e. the tree-like shape of nerve cells, in modern neuroscience is rooted in two foundational aspects. On the one hand, dendrites and axons mediate respectively the functional input and output of neurons. On the other, they constitute the essential substrates for network connectivity. To connect this level of scientific analysis to the philosophical problem of the mind-brain relation requires a radical shift in the current research paradigm to include first-person (subjective) experience as a legitimate topic of empirical investigation. To date, the exact neural correlates are not yet known for any conscious function. However, two general principles are commonly (if implicitly) believed. First, mental states (thoughts, feelings, memories, intentions, etc.) consist of spatio-temporal activity patterns in networks of neurons. Second, learning, meant as the acquisition of the potential to instantiate a previously unknown mental state, corresponds to the formation of new connections among neurons, enabling the activation of the new spatio-temporal pattern underlying said mental state. In this talk, Dr. Ascoli will introduce the notion that the branching structure of neurons provides a fundamental physical underpinning for a key cognitive function, namely the capability to learn. In particular, he will explain that this capability is far from trivial and that any individual can typically only acquire a fraction of the relations that can in principle be known. Moreover, he will illustrate how the spatial architecture of axons and dendrites provides a crucial constraint (and insight) on the capability to acquire knowledge.

This talk will be presented at a lay level because subjective experience and tree shapes are accessible to all humankind.

Dr. Ascoli is head of the Computational Neuroanatomy Group at the Krasnow Institute. The group's main effort is to model neuronal morphology (the "shape" of brain cells) and its influence on network connectivity and electrophysiological activity. One of the products of that group is L-Neuron, a modeling tool that generates and describes realistic neurons. Among the current research projects of the Computational Neuroanatomy Group are anatomically plausible neural networks and autobiographic memory. He edited the scientific book, Computational Neuroanatomy: Principles and Methods, which defines Computational Neuroanatomy in broad terms. His main long-term scientific and philosophical goal consists in establishing a working model for the highest cognitive functions such as human consciosuness. His current consciousness model is fundamentally based on associative learning.

On the experimental side, Dr. Ascoli's research involvement is primarily in neuroanatomy, but his scientific background is biochemistry. As a researcher at the former Laboratory of Adaptive Systems of the N.I.H., he worked on the structural characterization of a learning-associated neuronal protein, Calexcitin, and on the Prion protein, the infective agent of Mad Cow disease. He received his M.Sc. (Laurea) from the University of Pisa, and his Ph.D. from the Scuola Normale Superiore, in Italy, where he investigated drug-protein binding.

Sep 18 Radiation From Your Cell Phone a Health Hazard? Risk vs. Reality

Saturday, Sep 18, 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm


Prof. Christopher Davis, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland


Bethesda Library, 7400 Arlington Rd, Bethesda, MD 
Near Bethesda metro (map) (directions)  Flyer (Video)

Nov 20 NCAS Talk: Physics Nobel Laureate John MatherBig Bang, Webb Space Telescope & Alien Life

Dr. John C. Mather, Nobel Laureate in Physics 

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Observational Cosmology Laboratory

Saturday, Nov 20, 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Big Bang, Webb Space Telescope & Alien Life

National Science Foundation, Room 110 

4201 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA (Map) (flyer)

A public talk at the lay level. Free.

The history of the universe in a nutshell, from the Big Bang to now, and on to the future – John Mather will tell the story of how we got here, how the Universe began with a Big Bang, how it could have produced an Earth where sentient beings can live, and how those beings are discovering their history. He will explain Einstein’s biggest mistake, show how Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe, how the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission was built, and how its data support the Big Bang theory. He will also show NASA’s plans for the next great telescope in space, the James Webb Space Telescope. It will look even farther back in time than the Hubble Space Telescope, and will peer inside the dusty cocoons where stars and planets are being born today. Using the stellar transit technique, the JWST is capable of examining Earth-like exoplanets, where follow-on missions may find signs of life. Currently planned for launch in 2014, the JWST may lead to another Nobel Prize for some lucky observer. 

Dr. John C. Mather is a Senior Astrophysicist in the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. As a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Mather led the proposal efforts for COBE (1974-76), and came to GSFC to be Study Scientist (1976-88), Project Scientist (1988-98), and also the Principal Investigator for COBE’s Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS). Presently he is Senior Project Scientist for the JWST. Mather earned his B.A. in Physics from Swarthmore College and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2006, Mather shared the Nobel Prize for Physics with George F. Smoot of the University of California, Berkeley for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation. 

Mandelbrot, father of fractal geometry, dies

AFP news service article, Oct 16, 2010