Lecture Series to Address Solar Storms, Saturn’s Moon, Global Economy and More

The spring/summer lecture series from the Science, Technology and Business Division at the Library of Congress will include illustrated talks by NASA scientists on the exploration of the universe, solar storms and Titan, Saturn’s exotic moon. Other experts will investigate the global economy and discuss the biological consequences of nuclear disasters.

The series runs from April 22 to Aug. 19. All lectures, which are free and open to the public, will take place in the Library’s James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. Tickets and reservations are not needed.

More detailed information about the topics and speakers will be highlighted in the next several months on the Library’s science blog “Inside Adams” at blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/.

• At 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, April 22 in the Mary Pickford Theater, Jane Rigby, NASA astrophysicist and deputy project scientist for operations for the James Webb Telescope, will present “Magnifying the Universe.” Rigby will show how scientists study parts of the distant universe with the use of natural telescopes (a natural phenomenon known as gravitational lensing) in conjunction with the largest telescopes on or off the Earth. She will describe how this technique works and then show recent, spectacular results from the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes that demonstrate what this technique allows us to learn about the buildup of stars and galaxies in the universe.
• At 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 15 in the Mumford Room, Timothy Mousseau, professor of biological sciences at the University of South Carolina at Columbia, will present “Biological Consequences of Nuclear Disasters: From Chernobyl to Fukushima.” Mousseau is serving on a National Academy of Sciences panel to analyze cancer risks of populations near nuclear facilities.
• At 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 15 in the Mary Pickford Theater, author Larry Doyle will discuss his recently published book “In Bed with Wall Street: The Conspiracy Crippling Our Global Economy” (2014). A book signing will follow the event.
• At 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, June 26 in the Mary Pickford Theater, Carrie Anderson, associate chief of the NASA Goddard Planetary System Laboratory, will present “Titan: Exploring the Similarities Between Saturn’s Exotic Moon and the Primordial Earth.” Anderson will discuss what was learned about Titan from NASA’s flagship Cassini mission.
• At 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 9 in the Mary Pickford Theater, Holly Gilbert, chief of the NASA Goddard Solar Physics Laboratory, will present “The Moody Sun.” Gilbert will discuss solar storms and how they can interact with the Earth’s magnetic field. Gilbert will follow a solar storm’s journey from the sun through the solar system and explain how the sun’s changing behavior impacts people on Earth.

The Library of Congress maintains one of the largest and most diverse collections of scientific and technical information in the world. The Science, Technology and Business Division provides reference and bibliographic services and develops the general collections of the Library in all areas of science, technology, business and economics, with the exception of clinical medicine and technical agriculture, which are the subject specialties of the National Library of Medicine and the National Agricultural Library. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/rr/scitech.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds more than 158 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov.

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