Hello Friend,
With the really cold weather as of late, this is the perfect opportunity to take in some "cool" events this weekend.
Wait a minute....somehow that doesn't sound right!
Anyway, here we go:
The first is the Annual ASX Astronomy Symposium "Life Beyond Earth: which is Friday January 25th.
Here are the details:
Dr. Chris McKay from
NASA Ames and Professor Sara Seager from MIT recognized by Time magazine as "one of the 25 most influential people on Space"
Where: 2158 JJR Macloed Auditorium
Medical Sciences Building
1 King’s College Circle
Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A8
Canada
When: Friday, 25 January 2013 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM (EST)
Click here for ticket information.
Sara Seager is
a Professor of Planetary Science and a Professor of Physics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been a pioneer in the
vast world of exoplanets, planets that orbit stars other than the sun.
Her ground-breaking research ranges from the study of exoplanet
atmospheres to innovative theories about life on other worlds to
development of novel space mission concepts. Professor Seager earned her
BSc in Math and Physics from the University of Toronto and her PhD from
Harvard University and now holds the Class of 1941 Professorship at
MIT. She is on the advisory board for Planetary Resources and the
Rosalind Franklin Society. Professor Seager is the recipient of numerous
academic awards including the 2012 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in
the Physical Sciences and she has been frequently recognized in the
media including most recently in Time Magazine’s 25 Most Influential in
Space in 2012.
Kathryn Denning
is an anthropologist and archaeologist at York University, where she
teaches coursesranging from the Anthropology of Outer Space to Ancient
Civilizations. Her current work with the NASA Astrobiology Institute and
the SETI Institute includes co-leading projects on the evolution of
intelligence on Earth, and astrobiology and society. She also studies
Mars simulations, and current ideas about the human colonization of
space. Her SETI-related anthropological work focuses on scientists’
ideas about what alien
intelligences would be like, the ongoing debates about active
transmission projects, and the potential social impact of a SETI
detection.
She has presented her work at the Royal Society UK, American
Anthropological Association, the International Astronautical Congress,
Bioastronomy, AbSciCon, and Singularity University. Her published
SETI-related research includes explorations of: scientists’ conceptions
of ETI, and how these are influenced by culture, history, and by the
technology used in SETI; interstellar message construction; debates
about ‘active SETI’; and, what civilizations on Earth tell us about the
Drake factor “L” (a key variable in the Drake Equation). She is an
active member of the International Academy of Astronautics SETI
Permanent Study Committee and its Post-Detection task group, co-PI of
the Astrobiology & Society Focus Group of the NASA Astrobiology
Institute, and co-PI of the Intelligence in Astrobiology project of the
NAI and the SETI Institute. She greatly enjoyed a stint at the Mars
Desert Research Station, and collaborates with Icarus Interstellar, Tau
Zero, and the Lincoln Center Space Ethics group at Arizona State
University. She is active in media outreach, and sometimes wanders off
to investigate the undead, mythical beasts, and ancient apocalyptic
ideas for television programs.
Chris McKay has done research on planetary atmospheres, particularly the atmospheres of Titan[3] and Mars, and on the origin and evolution of life. He is a co-investigator on the Huygens probe, the Mars Phoenix lander, and the Mars Science Laboratory. He also performed field research on extremophiles, in such locations as Death Valley, the Atacama Desert, Axel Heiberg Island, and ice-covered lakes in Antarctica.He is a member of the board of directors of the Planetary Society and also works with the Mars Society, and has written and spoken on space exploration and terraforming. He is also an adviser for the Microbes Mind Forum.
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