Past – Science Cafe

The Dark Sides of Empathy

Wednesday, July 17th, 7pm at Hopscotch

Professor Fritz Breithaupt, director of the Experimental Humanities Lab will discuss his work on empathy.

What can trigger empathy and what can block empathy? Empathy is often considered the basis of moral action, but plays a central part in a variety of highly problematic behaviors. The ability to empathize with other people proves to be a prerequisite for deliberate acts of humiliation and cruelty. Even well-meaning compassion has many unintended consequences.

This talk will discuss a range of phenomena, including vampirism (helicopter parents wishing to relive a better youth), empathic sadism, humanitarianism (in which people identify with helper-heroes to feel good about themselves at the costs of holding others in the victim role, but mistake this for empathy), and dynamics of polarization (empathetic side-taking that leads to aggression), all concepts and ideas from the recent book, The Dark Sides of Empathy.

Several things to note:

1) We’re starting at 7pm
2) We’re on the 3rd Wednesday
3) We’re at Hopscotch on Morton & Dodds
4) Hopscotch doesn’t have much food, which is why we’re beginning at 7pm (They do have great coffee, tea, beer, and pastries all the time.)

Wednesday, June 19th: The Pharmacology of Capital Punishment

Regardless of one’s position on capital punishment, nearly all people agree that the method should be humane. This was the rationale for the embrace of lethal injection in the 1980s but has proven problematic, with ‘botch’ rates now much higher than for other methods. Much of this comes down to the pharmacology of the drugs used and problems with their administration.

Dr. Alex Straiker will talk about the history and pharmacology of lethal injections in the US.

Four things are different from our usual meetings:
1) We’re starting at 7pm
2) We’re at Hopscotch on Morton & Dodds
3) Hopscotch doesn’t traditionally have food, though they’re working on that and we’ll update this event as more information becomes available They do have coffee, tea, beer, and pastries all the time.
4) We’re on the 3rd, rather than 4th Wednesday, so as not to conflict with Green Drinks

Thursday, May 16th: Extreme matter and the beginnings of the universe

What happens to matter when you heat it to more than a trillion degrees? Physicists are exploring the properties of an exotic form of matter, known as a quark-gluon plasma, that only exists at such extreme temperatures. In the first few microseconds (that is, a few millionths of a second) after the Big Bang, the universe was thought to be composed entirely of such quark-gluon plasmas and, by re-creating them in the lab today, we are exploring what they can tell us about the one fundamental force, the strong nuclear force, of the universe.
quark gluon plasma

Our speaker, Professor Jinfeng Liao, is a theoretical nuclear physicist exploring the forms of matter under extreme conditions: extremely hot, extremely dense, and extremely strongly interacting forms of matter at the Center for Exploration of Energy and Matter(CEEM) of IU Bloomington

Several things are different from our usual meetings:

1) We’re starting at 7pm
2) We’re on the 3rd Thursday
3) We’re at Hopscotch on Morton & Dodds
4) Hopscotch doesn’t have much food, which is why we’re beginning at 7pm (They do have great coffee, tea, beer, and pastries all the time.)

Wednesday, April 17th: The Science of Cannabis

Dr. Alex Straiker will be back with a 5-year update on a favorite Science Café topic, the Science of Cannabis. How do cannabinoids work in the body? Are they dangerous? What has changed with the movement to legalize cannabis?

Wednesday, February 20th: Molecular Machines

Image courtesy of Kenji Matsuda, University of Kyoto

Join us Wednesday, February 20th, 6:30pm for a Science Cafe talk by Dr. Amar Flood, on Molecular Machines.

Molecular machines were the basis for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 for “the design and synthesis of molecular motors”. What are molecular machines, how are they made and how are their small molecule-scale movements the same and different from the machines in the world around us?

This Science Cafe will be at The Roost (formerly Finch’s), upstairs, at 514 E Kirkwood Ave

Wednesday, November 28th: Stress, gender, brains

Stress is implicated in many psychological disorders, and the rate and expression of many stress-related disorders differs in women and men. Prefrontal cortex has been implicated in many stress-influenced psychological disorders. Using animal models, we have shown that stress affects prefrontal cortex differently in males versus females. Given that prefrontal cortex is an important regulator of emotional behavior, understanding the mechanisms underlying these different stress effects is key to developing appropriate treatments for stress-related disorders such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dr. Cara Wellman, director of the Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior will present this talk.

Friday(!) November 2: Hope for Huntington’s disease

Huntington’s disease, a fatal neurodegenerative condition that strikes in the prime of life, is caused by a single gene defect. The mutant gene was identified in 1993 but hope for a cure was far from assured as subsequent research revealed an amazingly complex role for this gene in brain function. Now, a positive phase I clinical trial and a $45 million bet from Roche suggests a reason for optimism. And if the therapy works for HD patients could a similar approach work for other neurodegenerative conditions?

Dr. George Rebec will talk about this work and the implications.

(This talk was rescheduled because of a roof leak at Bears in June. Also, to avoid conflict with Halloween, we’re doing it on a Friday instead of Wednesday!)

July 25: Superbugs and Superdrugs

Antibiotic resistance is a major concern in the medical community, as the well-publicized “superbugs” appear to be staying well ahead of our current antibiotic armamentarium. However, a few new antibacterial drugs have recently been approved by the FDA. Come to hear what we now are able to treat, and what still remains untreatable in the infectious disease arena.

Dr. Karen Bush will talk about this important work.

June 20: Hope for Huntington’s Disease

Dr. George Rebec will talk about this work and the implications.

February 28, Gravitational Waves

Gravitational waves were detected for the first time just a couple of years ago. Already the information from the violent events which makes these waves is giving us new insights into physics and astronomy. Michael Snow will explain what a gravitational wave is, describe how they are detected, and report on the latest news: the discovery of where the heavy chemical elements in the universe are made.

We’ll be in the back room of Bears Place (1316 E 3rd St) at 6:30 pm. As always, Bloomington Science Cafe is free and open to anyone (over 21)!