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NOVA Science Café

NOVA Science Café is a free monthly meetup for science discussions, NOVA film screenings, and community events in the WGBH studio at the Boston Public Library, and other locations across the city. Sponsored by NOVA, the science documentary series on PBS, NOVA Science Café is part of an international network of science cafés with over 350 active cafés in local communities across the U.S. and abroad. Find a Science Café near you!

http://www.sciencecafes.org/

The Effects of Early Adversity on Life-long Development

Tue, Oct 18, 2016

Tens of millions of children around the world are exposed to profound adversity early in life. In high resource countries such as the United States, this can include growing up poor, exposure to domestic or neighborhood violence, growing up with a parent with a significant mental health problem; in low resource settings, this can also include food scarcity, lack of clean water and poor sanitation. In this talk Charles Nelson will discuss the effects of early profound adversity on child and brain development. (Image By By Steve Ford Elliott - More bubbles, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=119035)

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How Teens View the Job Market: School Engagement and the Role of Parents

Tue, Sep 20, 2016

Considerable media attention is paid to the job market and the economy, especially its fragility and strength. In addition, there is increased emphasis on preparing youth to be college and career ready. However, we know little about how youth feel about the job market in which they enter and how these perceptions impact their engagement in school, planning for the future, and their wellbeing. This presentation will focus on students’ job market perceptions, the role of parental and school-based relationships and their relation to academic outcomes. Further, we will discuss variations across ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

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Let's Think About What We Put on Our Feet!

Tue, Jul 19, 2016

We were born to be barefoot. But what has the impact of footwear had on our feet? We may think that cushioned and supportive footwear is good for us...but actually it may not be! Learn and try some foot exercises that promote strong and healthy feet with Dr. Irene Sprague Davis.

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Me Want It, But Me Wait: Self-Regulation in Early Childhood

Tue, May 17, 2016

In an increasingly complex and stimulating world, how do children learn to control their impulses and avoid distraction? Using evidence from neuroscience, developmental psychology, and education, this talk will explore the importance of self-regulation and executive function as core skills to be developed in the preschool period. In particular, we will consider what it means to be "well regulated," how we can measure this abstract construct in real-world settings, and what environmental and biological factors might improve -- or inhibit -- children's odds of achieving self-regulatory success.

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Hunting For Fossil Fat in Earth's History

Tue, Apr 19, 2016

Molecular fossils are organic molecules derived from organisms that can be preserved for thousands to hundreds of millions of years in sediments and rocks. Compared to DNA or protein, fats (lipids) have the best chance of being preserved. Lipids also preserve information about the organism that produced them and the environment in which they were produced. **Shane O'Reilly**, Postdoctoral Fellow in Geobiology at MIT, hunts for molecular fossils in the geologic record and reconstructs what life and environments may have looked like at important intervals in Earth's past.

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From Flint to Our Backyard: Environmental Health and Justice in New England

Tue, Mar 15, 2016

The lead contaminated water crisis in Flint, Michigan has highlighted the issue of environmental injustice and who bears the burden of toxic chemical exposures in the U.S. Childhood lead poisoning has been a problem for decades, including in Massachusetts, and occurs more frequently in low income communities and communities of color. Other areas in New England, such as New Bedford and Pittsfield, MA are also the locations of contaminated industrial waste dumping that has put them on the Federal Superfund list. Dr. Richard Clapp discusses local issues of environmental justice and answer audience questions. (Photo: [By The Iowa State Department of Agronomy](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php ""), CC)

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Time in Time Again: Reconstructing the Geologic Past through Ancient Proteins

Tue, Dec 15, 2015

For the final part of the **Rock the Café** series, we will hear about reconstructing the deep past by looking at ancient genes. When accessing our planet’s deep past, we have two main datasets to draw upon in reconstructing major transitions in the biosphere: the rock record (i.e., fossils) and the existing biodiversity (i.e., genetic sequences). In this talk, Dr. Kacar will explore a third methodology —one that allows us to reconstruct ancient genes. Image: [Pixbay](https://pixabay.com/en/photos/gene/ "")

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Biography of a Sand Grain

Tue, Nov 17, 2015

Beaches are some of the world’s most dynamic ecological environments. Each grain of sand on the beach has a story to tell; a tale of great travels, interactions with others, and surviving through catastrophic events. The research of **Dr. Allen Gontz** will take you on a journey that begins to unravel and decipher the stories. Image: [Banzai Surf School](http://banzaisurfschool.com/the-sand/ "The Sand")

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Sea-Level Rise and Storm Impacts on Our Coastlines

Tue, Oct 20, 2015

Sergio Fagherazzi, Associate Professor in the Earth & Environment Department at Boston University looks closely at our coastlines--their evolution, ecology, hydrology, and the impacts they face in light of climate change and major storm events like hurricanes and tsunamis.

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Cafe Sci: Human Language

Tue, Sep 15, 2015

Human languages have many properties that seem surprising from the perspective of communication: they are ambiguous, redundant, and apparently arbitrary. **Richard Futrell**, a PhD student in Cognitive Science at MIT, will discuss the remarkable variations among languages: some languages require you to mark gender all the time; in other languages never. In some languages you can rearrange words in whatever order you like, whereas in others, such as English, you can’t. Surprisingly, many of the universal properties of languages and the range of arrangements in particular languages can be predicted by assuming that languages are efficient and robust communication systems. Futrell explains how this recent line of research works, and what it can tell us about language and the human mind.

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