nuclear

Like thoroughly scientific alchemists, nuclear chemists work to create elements that don’t exist naturally on Earth. These new super-heavy atoms could be long-lived, residing on proton-packed islands of stability off the far end of the periodic table. What new elements have most recently been added to the periodic table? How do scientists construct these fundamental novelties? How do investigators deduce the physical and chemical properties of the new elements from just a few ephemeral atoms?

 

Our Wonderfest speaker is Dr. Jacklyn Gates, leader of the Heavy Element Group in the Nuclear Science Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Charles Darwin was deeply troubled by the sudden appearance of complex animal life during the Cambrian Explosion about half a billion years ago, animal evolution’s Big Bang. He felt the sudden appearance of such diverse animal body-plans was inexplicable, fearing that it was the Achilles heel of his theory. What do we now know of this spectacular event? Drawing on the fossil record, ecology, developmental biology, genetics, and computer simulation, can we understand how and why the Cambrian Explosion occurred?

 

Our Wonderfest speaker, Dr. Charles Marshall, is Distinguished Professor of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley. He is also Director of the University of California Museum of Paleontology.