Past Events

A visit to the Weng Lab at Whitehead Institute/MIT to see how Professor Jing-Ke Weng and his research team investigate plant molecules for their medical potential. We hear from the director, Professor Jing-Ke Weng, and some of the researchers in his lab. Image: [Science For The Public ](http://scienceforthepublic.org/medical-research/probing-the-health-molecules-of-plants-the-weng-lab-at-whitehead-institute)

Halfway through Donald J. Trump's first term as President, Michele Dunne, then director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, presented her understanding of the Middle East as a region in turmoil.

Hear from ten transportation experts and community thinkers hailing from the Boston area and elsewhere around the country. Each presenter takes the stage to share their big ideas in short, rapid-fire, lightning rounds. Get some transportation inspiration to take back to your own community group.

Sculptor, engineer and inventor Chris Fitch talks about his explorations as an artist, using engineering and dance as inspiration for his kinetic sculptures.

Journalists Lauren Duca, known for her article “Donald Trump is Gaslighting America” in Teen Vogue, and Martin Lukacs, author of "The Trudeau Formula", discuss collective action and non-violent protest. They are joined by members of the climate action group Extinction Rebellion . Image: Pexels.com

Hear retellings of the epics from different characters and other perspectives. Authors Nina MacLaughlin and Kathika Naïr discuss their two novels that reenvision these old tales. In _Until the Lions: Echoes from the Mahabharata_, Karthika Naïr retells the Mahabharata through the embodied voices of women and marginal characters, so often conquered and destroyed throughout history. Through shifting poetic forms, ranging from pantoums to Petrarchan sonnets, Naïr choreographs the cadences of stray voices. And with a passionate empathy through a chorus of bold voices, she tells of nameless soldiers, their despairing spouses and lovers, a canny empress, an all-powerful god, and a gender-shifting outcast warrior. Seductresses and she-monsters, nymphs and demi-goddesses, populate the famous myths of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. But what happens when the story of the chase comes in the voice of the woman fleeing her rape? When the beloved coolly returns the seducer’s gaze? In voices both mythic and modern, _Wake, Siren_ revisits each account of love, loss, rape, revenge, and change. It lays bare the violence that undergirds and lurks in the heart of Ovid’s narratives, stories that helped build and perpetuate the distorted portrayal of women across centuries of art and literature.

Modern urban development requires a multi-dimensional design approach to encompass energy-efficient architecture, pedestrian-friendly access to shops, entertainment, work and schools, and vibrant outdoor spaces. Using sophisticated computer-modeling, the Sustainable Design Lab at MIT combines and analyzes many elements for optimal, healthy urban environments.  In this presentation, Dr. Reinhart outlines such a model based on a neighborhood proposal in Boston. Image: [Science For The Public](http://scienceforthepublic.org/energy-and-resources/designing-sustainable-urban-development)

You heard news in 2019 about more epic forest fires, of the loss of many of the oceans coral reefs and of more glaciers falling into the sea. As Planet Earth reaches the global warming brink, journalists are striving to translate the impact of climate change and hold the powerful accountable.

Meet two of them in this forum hosted at MIT: Propublica's Lisa Song and The New York Times' Kendra Pierre-Louis discuss the media’s role in illuminating environmental issues, promoting environmental justice and ethics, and the future of climate journalism. Beth Daley, Editor and General Manager for The Conversation, moderates.
Photo: National Park Service, Mountaineering ranger on mountaineering patrol on the remote Dall Glacier in the western Alaska Range.

Nuclear weapons have not gone away, and the Trump administration has brought a new urgency, if not a new approach, to dealing with them. The President has met with Vladimir Putin as the New Start Treaty with Russia comes up for renewal in 2021, the first presidential summit ever with Kim Jong-un occurred to discuss denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, and President Trump has decertified the Obama nuclear deal with Iran. To what degree should past nuclear talks guide future U.S. nuclear arms control negotiations? Can the art of the deal apply to stabilizing our nuclear future? Image: ["Operation Crossroads Baker"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Operation_Crossroads_Baker_Edit.jpg) taken July25, 1946 by United States Department of Defense

Postwar Afghanistan is fragile, volatile, and perilous. It is also a place of extraordinary beauty. Evolutionary Biologist Dr. Alex Dehgan arrived in the country in 2006 to build the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Afghanistan Program, and preserve and protect Afghanistan’s unique and extraordinary environment, which had been decimated after decades of war. The efforts of Dehgan, a former diplomat working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, were central to the creation of the first Afghanistan National Park Program. In his book, The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation, Dehgan takes readers through some of the most dangerous places in postwar Afghanistan as he and his team work to establish the country’s first national park, complete some of the first extensive wildlife surveys in 30 years, and act to stop the poaching of the country’s iconic endangered animals, including the snow leopard. Dehgan reflects on innovative approaches to advancing the environment and security in some of the most politically and ecologically fragile places in the world, while exploring connections between conservation and political stability. Image: [Pexels.com](http://www.pexels.com/photo/animal-big-ground-fur-33581/)