Michael Gully-Santiago
The Science and Discovery of Stars, Sub-Stars, and Planets!
Do you ever think about how big space is? Join us as Michael Gully-Santiago explains how he is discovering new stars and sub-stars with some of the largest telescopes in the world. Michael will show how we can use these and other discoveries to learn about how stars and planets form from giant clouds of space dust and gas. Science Under the Stars is a free public outreach lecture series in Austin, Texas.
There are hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, and “billions and billions” of galaxies in our Universe. In the Milky Way Galaxy we call home, scientists are still making discoveries in our astronomical backyard- the vicinity of space within merely a few hundred light-years to the Sun. Weather permitting, we will use portable telescopes to look at the planet Jupiter, and its largest moons; a star formation region M42, about a thousand light-years away; and the Andromeda Galaxy, 2.5 million light-years distant.
Michael Gully-Santiago is a graduate student in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. Click here to visit Michael’s website.
Chintan Modi
Light Bright: Fluorescence and Chemiluminescence Lighting New Paths in Biology and Technology
Join us as Chintan Modi explores how scientists continue to find novel uses for biofluorescent and biochemiluminescent molecules and use them to gain insight into the inner workings of biology and chemistry! Science Under the Stars is a free public outreach lecture series in Austin, Texas.
In nature, we see organisms put on beautiful light shows, glowing through the use of specialized proteins. Proteins that glow are called biofluorescence and biochemiluminescence molecules, which were discovered over 50 to 60 years ago. These proteins with their unique properties have enabled us to visualize biological processes in a live cell and an organism. Today we can color each individual neuron of a mouse with different fluorescent proteins, or we can use fluorescent proteins to observe how pathogenic bacteria grow in a bio-film. The use of these light-producing biomolecules as biotechnology tools revolutionized the biological sciences in the past 20 years, which was recognized by the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Chintan Modi is a graduate student in Cell and Molecular Biology at the University of Texas at Austin.
Patrick Stinson
How Animals Adapt to Living Around Humans
Patrick Stinson explains the myriad ways in which animals and humans interact in urban ecosystems!
Patrick Stinson is a graduate student in the Ecology, Evolution and Behavior graduate program at the University of Texas at Austin.
Stavana Strutz
The Wild Wild West:
West Nile and Vector-borne Disease in Texas
Fall 2012 Speakers
We’re pleased to announce the following dates and speakers for the Science Under The Stars public outreach lecture series.
- September 13 | Stavana Strutz, West Nile Virus
- October 11 | Patrick Stinson, How Animals Adapt to Living Around Humans
- November 8 | Chintan Modi, Vaccine Development and Flourescence
- December 13 | Michael Gully-Santiago, The Science and Discovery of Stars, Sub-stars, and Planets
Science Under The Stars 