Reception
Reception for LOOPS: Digitally Enhanced Performance
Cost: free

Socialize with the creators and performers of LOOPS: Digitally Enhanced Performance before the show begins (described below). Light refreshments will be served.

Performance
LOOPS: Digitally Enhanced Performance
Cost: $20, student discount available

Audience: adult

Kick-off the Cambridge Science Festival a day early with this unique dance performance that comes to the MIT Museum via the Boston Cyberarts Festival. Brian Knep, Golan Levin, Casey Reas and Sosolimited reconstructed the choreography of the doyen of modern dance of Loops created in 1971 as a “solo event” which meant that its form was to continually adapt to the requirements of occasion and venue.  Using data and software, a digital portrait of Merce Cunningham made in 2001 has now been updated as the performance you will see here at the MIT Museum. Made possible by the Cunningham Foundation, OpenEnded Group, and LEF Foundation.  A video reprise of this performance will run for free on Saturday, April 25.

Selected LOOPS video and art installation on view at the MIT Museum through May 10, 2009.

The MIT Museum will be free all day, and open until 6:00 p.m.

Don’t Miss…..
The Cambridge Science Festival Science Carnival---New Location!

The Cambridge Science Festival kicks-off this year with a bigger and better free Science Carnival held in a new, easy-to-reach location*: Kresge Auditorium on the MIT Campus at 48 Massachusetts Ave., Building W16 [map].

Headline acts include: “The Solar System Shuffle”; the North Cambridge Family Opera; Marvelous Marvin; and a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) Demonstration of the large scale Right Whale Buoy. Spread throughout the Kresge Auditorium and outside will be over 50 interactive booths of activities for adults and students of all ages. Bring the whole family for a great day of science, fun, inspiration and entertainment!

*Free parking and shuttle buses to the main MIT campus. Student center food court will be open.

Talk/Demonstration
Robots Under the Waves
Audience: family

Meet scientists and their robotic devices (underwater gliders and such) from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s new Ocean Observatories Initiative. These folks spend their days working on technologies that are used to explore the mysterious and unknown aspects of the ocean. From underwater weather, to life on the sea floor, this casual talk and demonstration will inspire, educate and fascinate!    Held on the first floor of the MIT Museum.

Talk/Demonstration
Pollution, UV Damage, and You
Audience: family
This annual open house created by the MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences and Harvard’s NIEHS Center for Environmental Health explains topical issues like the importance of sunscreen in an accessible and family friendly way. Held in the conference room, second floor of the MIT Museum.

Discussion
Meet the Artist: Evolving Darwin’s Gaze
Audience: family
Chat with artist and scientist Steve diPaola about his work, Evolving Darwin’s Gaze, an artwork combining projections and printed works. diPaola is an expert in emerging interactive art techniques and  virtual characters who lectures throughout the world about creating virtual human and community systems.  Held in the Emerging Technologies Gallery, second floor of the MIT Museum.

Exhibition on view through May 10

Video
LOOPS: Digitally Enhanced Performance
Cost: free

Audience: adult

Watch a video reprise of the Friday, April 24 performance of LOOPS, a dance and media response to a 2001 digital portrait of Merce Cunningham. This project is funded by the LEF Foundation.

Selected LOOPS video and art installation on view at the MIT Museum through May 10, 2009

Activity
Tikatok Science Storybook Writing
Audience: ages 7 – 15

This program can accommodate 50 people. Work with MIT students and scientists and Tikatok’s StorySparks to turn ideas about science, technology and innovation into a published storybook. First come, first served.

Activity
MOLEQULES: Amino Acid Action Figures and Biochemical Virtual World
Audience: family
Have fun helping Ethan Levesque, a new toy designer experiment with his recent creation. Explore biochemistry through action figures and virtual worlds!  Write your name in the molecular language of life. Can you find your way through the metabolic maze? 

Talk
Darwin, Artificial Intelligence and Creativity
Audience: adult
Join digital artist Steve diPaola and learn how Darwin’s theories have inspired new types of Artificial Intelligence and computer systems helping to merge the arts and the sciences. DiPaola will demonstrate how these new systems are merging the arts and sciences and taking on issues of human creativity, art and perception science. DiPaola's work, Evolving Darwin’s Gaze, will be on view at the MIT Museum through May 10.

Discussion
Darwin and Human Equality
Audience: adult
The Massachusetts Darwin Bicentennial Project and MIT Biology Professor Jonathan King expand our understanding of Darwin's role in the struggle for human equality.

Discussion
Lunch with a Luminary - Frank Wilczek
Free Admission
Audience: adult
Bring your lunch and your questions for a chat with Frank Wilczek, Physics Nobel Prize winner. He is known, among other things, for the discovery of asymptotic freedom, the development of quantum chromodynamics, the invention of axions, and the exploration of new kinds of quantum statistics (anyons). Wilczek is also a science writer and author of the popular and humorous, Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces.

Media Night/Film and Radio
Youth Media Night: WGBH Open Call
Audience: teen/adult
Review rough-cut videos about climate change made by the teen finalists from WGBH Lab’s Open Call, an international competition.

Media Night/Film and Radio

Youth Media Night: Terrascope Youth Radio
Audience: teen/adult
Hear from teens making radio programs about environmental topics and learn how to develop and record your own radio shows.  Led by the MIT Terrascope Youth Radio project and MIT Lecturer, Ari Epstein.

Adult Ed Workshop
Back to Basics: DNA
Audience: adults 21+
Cost: $15
Pre-registration Required. Limited to 12 participants
Within human bodies lies a complex system as elegant and efficient as any factory: protein synthesis from instructions encoded in DNA. In this introductory workshop, you'll learn about two vital biomolecules: DNA and proteins using LEGO-based models, digital simulation and animation, and guided discussion. Meant for adults interested in current trends in biology and medicine. No prior knowledge of biology necessary.

Talk
Lunch with a Luminary - John Ochsendorf
Free Admission
Audience: adult
Bring your lunch and your questions for a chat with one of 2008’s MacArthur "Genius Grant" winners, John Ochsendorf. Ochsendorf is an MIT professor of building technology, whose work straddles the fields of engineering, archaeology and architectural history. He explores alternative engineering traditions ranging from the ancient to the medieval, looking at structures such as Incan rope suspension bridges and French stone masonry arches.

Workshop

Geochronology Lab Link
(by invitation only)
Audience: high school students
Learn how to figure out how old rocks are with some of the most precise measurements on Earth. In this workshop and panel discussion, students and staff from the EARTH-TIME Lab in the MIT Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences Department work with selected high school students to explore radiometric dating and its use for geochronology. In association with Britta Bookhagen, Sam Bowring, and the Bowring Geochronology Lab.

Discussion
Lunch with a Luminary - Barbara Liskov
Free Admission
Audience: adult
Bring your lunch and your questions for MIT Institute Professor Barbara Liskov, winner of the 2008 Turing Award - a prize often recognized as "the Nobel Prize of Computing". Liskov was the first woman in the United States to earn a PhD from a computer science department. Her work in the design of computer programming languages and software methodology led to the development of object-oriented programming.

Talk & Tasting
Science of Food
Audience: adult/ 21+
Preregistration required; please email scitacular@gmail.com.
And you thought you knew food! Come for this annual fun food explanation event with talks by those in the know; tastings, and a reception!

Discussion
Lunch with a Luminary - Angela Belcher
Free Admission
Audience: adult
Bring your lunch and your questions for a chat with Angela Belcher, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering and head of the Biomolecular Materials Group at MIT. Dr. Belcher is a materials chemist with expertise in the fields of biomaterials, biomolecular materials, organic-inorganic interfaces and solid state chemistry. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2004, and was named as the research leader of the year in 2006 by Scientific American.

Tour
Behind the Scenes Tour
Audience: adults
Preregistration required. Limited to 12 participants.
Meet by 1st floor coat room
Take a look at the MIT Museum's historic collections with Hart Nautical Collections Curator Kurt Hasselbalch.

Demonstration and Discussion
Engineering Google

Audience: adults 21+
Mix and mingle with members of the Cambridge Google office! Hear presentations about the exciting products being built right here in Cambridge, including Android, Image Search, Book Search, and Friend Connect. Participate in a fun interactive demo about how Google search works and see just how Google focuses on the user by taking part in a usability study. Light refreshments will be served.

Adult Ed Workshop
Back to Basics: Robots for Grown-ups
Audience: adults 21+
Cost: $15
Preregistration required. Limited to 16 participants.
Explore what makes a robot tick in this active introductory workshop on programming robots. The user-friendly Lego Mindstorms NXT will let you get robots sensing, thinking, and moving about in just a few minutes. Examples from MIT's current and past robotics research and everyday robots like the Roomba vacuum cleaner highlight what makes a robot a robot and what we can expect from robots in the future.

Talk
Lunch with a Luminary - Tyler Jacks (CHANGE)
Free Admission
Audience: adult
Bring your lunch and your questions for a chat with Tyler Jacks, Director of the Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research and MIT Professor of Biology. Jacks is interested in the genetics of cancer development. His laboratory has constructed a series of mutant mouse strains that have served as animal models of tumor development and as a means to study the functions of cancer-associated genes.

Demonstration and Discussion
Stepping into virtual worlds    
Audience: adult
Online space opens new potentials for examining digital communication and relationships. Join us in exploring the diverse uses of virtual worlds ranging from research to education to entertainment. 

Speakers include: Drew Harry, a Ph.D. student in the Speech and Mobility group at the MIT Media Lab, John Lester, the Operations Director of the Boston office of Linden Lab - the creators of Second Life, and Eric Gordon, Assistant Professor of Visual & Media Arts at Emerson College, and co-director of Hub2.

In association with the Connections exhibit.

Performance
aesthetic evidence: elements | response           
Audience: adult
Join artist Halsey Burgund in helping to make and enjoy this musical-visual performance created in part from human voices collected from the Science Carnival, over the web, and from the live audience. Contribute your voice to the performance! 

Activity
COPUS Year of Science Scavenger Hunt         
Audience: family /Free Admission; meet at the MIT Museum Admission Desk
Solve a science scavenger hunt and learn about the COPUS Year of Science theme for May, Sustainability and the Environment. All entries win a prize. Produced by Natalie Kuldell and the Coalition for the Public Understanding of Science

Activity
Coffee vs. Chocolate        
Audience: adult
A no holds barred, knock down, drag out contest to judge the best tasting and most socially responsible bean based stimulants. Produced by Clay Ward and bilumi.org.

Activity
MOLEQULES: Amino Acid Action Figures and Biochemical Virtual World
Audience: family
Have fun helping Ethan Levesque, a new toy designer experiment with his recent creation. Explore biochemistry through action figures and virtual worlds!  Write your name in the molecular language of life. Can you find your way through the metabolic maze.

Talk
To Antarctica and Back
Audience: family
MIT students recently returned from a trip to Antarctica. They’ll show their slides and describe the beauty of the last wild place on Earth.

Activity
One-Way Mission to Mars
Audience: children
Thinking of going to Mars? Make sure to pack everything you'll need on this simulation of a one-way trip. 

Demonstration
Annosphere
Audience: family
Local artist and inventor John Goodman displays his beautifully crafted ‘Annosphere’. John comes to the Cambridge Science Festival every year to find the people who love to talk about the earth, the sun and how they move in relation to each other. You’ll be surprised.

Activity
Fun with Light
Audience: ages 5+
Why is the sky blue?  What makes 3-D TV work?  Take in these experiments with MIT’s Optical Society of America to find out.

Workshop
MOLEQULES: Amino Acid Action Figures and Biochemical Virtual World
Audience: family
Have fun helping Ethan Levesque, a new toy designer experiment with his recent creation. Explore biochemistry through action figures and virtual worlds!  Write your name in the molecular language of life. Can you find your way through the metabolic maze.