Fall 2015

10/10/2015 | When the Dust Settles: Ice Records Through Time -- Sarah Aciego (U-M Earth and Environmental Sciences)

Although dust seems like a small component of the Earth’s ecosystem, it provides essential nutrients to ocean and terrestrial environments. Dust source activity, and dust transport and deposition are highly variable on timescales ranging from minutes to centuries to millennia depending on climate, landscape evolution and human activity. Dr. Aciego will present three case studies, examining the modern, ice core, and geologic record of dust sources and deposition through the use of physical and chemical characterization of the dust.

10/17/2015 | Lighting Up Dark Matter -- Eric Bell (U-M Astronomy)

One crucial component of our current understanding of galaxies and cosmology is that most of the matter in the Universe is in the form of dark matter--an as-yet-unidentified form of matter that appears to neither give off nor interact with light. In this talk, Professor Bell will describe what we have learned about the distribution of dark matter around galaxies by studying stars in the sparsely-populated distant outskirts of galaxies, well outside where one would expect to find stars.

10/24/2015 | Measuring Time from the Ultrafast to the Ultraprecise -- Steven Cundiff (U-M Physics)

Ultrashort light pulses produced by lasers are the shortest man made events, reaching durations measured in femtoseconds to attoseconds. They can be used to measure processes that occur on similar timescales. Surprisingly, perhaps, they are also useful in constructing the most precise atomic clocks. Dr. Cundiff will discuss both of these uses of ultrashort light pulses and the connection between them.

10/31/2015 | The Physics of Halloween -- Timothy Chupp (U-M Physics), Gregory Tarle (U-M Physics)

Devilish demos delight and deceive.

11/07/2015 | Ice Fishing for Cosmic Neutrinos -- Francis Halzen (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

Eighty-six holes over 1.5 miles deep were melted in the Antarctic icecap to create IceCube, a novel astronomical observatory. Into each hole was lowered a string knotted with basketball-sized light detectors that are sensitive to the shimmering blue light emitted in the surrounding clear ice when ghostly particles called neutrinos pass through the Earth. These neutrinos are cosmic messengers from the most violent processes in the universe, for example, giant black holes gobbling up stars in the heart of quasars and gamma-ray bursts, which are the biggest explosions since the Big Bang. This talk covers IceCube’s early results and its discovery of cosmic neutrinos.

11/14/2015 | Mighty Cyanobacteria -- Gregory Dick (U-M Earth and Environmental Sciences)

Tiny organisms called cyanobacteria have a huge impact on our planet, both throughout its history and today. Deep in Earth's history, they oxygenated the atmosphere, enabling the evolution of life as we know it. In the modern world they provide crucial ecosystem services but can also make toxins that threaten ecosystems and drinking water supplies. This talk will introduce these mighty microorganisms and discuss how we are studying them to better understand the history and future of life on Earth.

11/21/2015 | Mechanobiology at the Cellular Length Scale -- Allen Liu (U-M Mechanical Engineering)

If someone punches me, I will feel pain. How do cells in your body sense and respond to mechanical cues? This talk will discuss an emerging area of cellular mechanobiology.

12/05/2015 | Coloring the Universe -- Travis Rector (University of Alaska)

Everyone loves pictures of space. But have you ever wondered if that’s what it really looks like? Or if the colors are real? For over twenty years astronomer Dr. Travis A. Rector has been making color astronomical images with some of the world’s largest telescopes. In this talk, Dr. Rector will give a behind-the-scenes look at what professional astronomers do, and what they don’t do, when making these beautiful images.