Exploring Scientific
Progress Over Time
In this celebration of 30 years of the Eberly College of Science’s public-facing preeminent winter lecture series, we look at how science has changed over the passage of time, including updates, breakthroughs, and how research fields have evolved. This anniversary year will look back at past topics, including updates from some speakers, as well as look ahead to the new advancements and future prospects of the impactful research in the college and across Penn State.
“Before Cells: How the Components of Life Might Have Come Together”
January 27, 2024
Presented by Christine Keating
Shapiro Professor of Chemistry at Penn State
In the past 30 years, functional neuroimaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have revolutionized the study of the human brain. At the same time, problems with reproducibility and replicability have plagued the field, owing in part to historically small sample sizes, a plethora of choices at the data preprocessing and analysis stages, and a lack of transparency in reporting. In this talk, Lazar will give a general introduction to fMRI, its strengths, and its weaknesses. She will then survey some of the issues surrounding reproducibility and replicability of neuroimaging studies. Some remedy may come in the form of open science practices, which she will also discuss.
“Surprises at the Dawn of Time from James Webb: A First Look at the First Stars, Galaxies, and Black Holes”
February 3, 2024
Presented by Joel Leja
Lee M. Hammarstrom-Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross Endowed Early Career Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Institute for Computational and Data Sciences Faculty Fellow at Penn State
The James Webb Space Telescope is the culmination of thirty years of planning, twenty years of construction, and eleven billion dollars of funding. It is the most expensive and complex astronomical observatory ever built and it was designed specifically to perform the first systematic exploration of stars, galaxies, and black holes in the early universe. Luckily for us, this first systematic exploration is happening right now --- in our lives. Leja will provide an overview of this flagship telescope and discuss some of the stunning early, and sometimes tentative, discoveries that have been made in Webb's first deep fields from the first light of galaxies and black holes, which has travelled many billions of years through empty space before being captured by Webb.
“Signaling between Cells in the Brain: Bridging the Past and Present of Neuroscience at Penn State with New Tools and New Questions"
February 10, 2024
Presented by Nikki Crowley
Huck Early Career Chair in Neurobiology and Neural Engineering, the Associate Director for Postdoctoral Training and Leadership in the Center for Neural Engineering, and an assistant professor of biology, biomedical engineering, and pharmacology
Crowley will present an overview of the history of neuroscience at Penn State, a reflection of the unique questions asked and solved by Penn State research, and some healthy speculation surrounding the future of emerging technologies and neuroscience.
“Finding the Good News on Climate and Energy"
February 17, 2024
Presented by Richard Alley
Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences
We enjoy great benefits from energy use, mostly from fossil fuels now, but they cause highly damaging climate changes. Very strong evidence shows that we can use this knowledge to build a larger economy in a cleaner environment with more jobs, improved health, and greater national security more consistent with the Golden Rule. Students today are part of the first generation in human history that knows with confidence that they can build a sustainable energy system, powering everyone everywhere.
“Going Beyond Classical Computers"
February 24, 2024
Presented by Morteza Kayyalha
Assistant professor of electrical engineering, runs the Quantum Devices Lab (QDL) at Penn State
Classical computers based on semiconductor technology have revolutionized our daily lives in many aspects: from smartphones and portable laptops to tiny medical sensors and healthcare devices. The main driving force behind what we now know as the semiconductor revolution was the urge to create smaller, faster, and more power devices. From the industry point of view, this urge was summarized in Moore’s law – named after Gordon Earle Moore, one of the co-founders of Intel. Moore’s law states that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years. However, as we are approaching nanometer-sized devices — devices that are hundred thousand times smaller than a strand of hair — Moore’s law is struggling to keep up. In this talk, Kayyalha will introduce an emerging technology based on quantum mechanics that could go beyond semiconductor-based classical computers. He will discuss why there is a need for such a technology, how this technology works, and how it could impact our daily lives and society as a whole.
“Einstein, Gravitational Waves, Black Holes and Other Matters"
March 2, 2024
Presented by Gabriela González
Boyd Professor in the Physics and Astronomy Department at Louisiana State University
More than a hundred years ago, Einstein predicted that there were ripples in the fabric of space-time traveling at the speed of light: gravitational waves. Thirty years ago, when the Ashtekar Frontiers of Science lectures started, scientists were beginning to build detectors of those elusive waves, talking about the incredible technology that was needed. Decades later, on September 14, 2015, the LIGO detectors in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana in the US registered for the first time ever a loud gravitational wave signal traveling through Earth, created more than a billion years ago by the merger of two black holes. Another spectacular signal was detected by LIGO and the Virgo detector in Europe in 2017, produced by the collision of two neutron stars giving birth to a black hole, generating also electromagnetic waves (light!) detected by many telescopes and helping us understand the origin of gold. In only a few years from the first detection, there are now more than 100 discovered signals from mergers of black holes and/or neutron stars - this is the era of gravitational wave astronomy. González will describe the history and details of the observations, and the gravity-bright future of the field.