58 days to the Cambridge Science Festival

Seems like a while away, yes, I know.  But the whole team is in the office today, a group working on sorting through 1,547 Curiosity Challenge entries.  That's right.  One thousand, five hundred forty-seven entries, with only 120 winners. 

We're happy to announce that some incredibly awesome MIT students have stepped up and agreed to answer some of the most intriguing Curiosity Challenge questions that come in!  So, keep an eye out for future posts answering some of these Curious Students' questions.

But that's not all today, folks.

We will highlight one event a day from here out to the festival!  That'll be 58 events... (perhaps we'll double up as we get closer to cram them all in).

And today's event is:

Big Ideas for Busy People

Friday, April 27, 2012
7:30-9:30pm
First Parish in Cambridge
1446 Massachusetts Avenue

This will be the third Big Ideas for Busy People.  You can see the video of last year's event in the  Media Gallery (first video).  People were sitting on the floor, stairs, and leaning off the staircase to listen to this quirky brain-mashing speed-dating of Big Ideas.  We line up 10 super smart people with Big Ideas, and they get 5 minutes to share their idea with us.  Then you get 5 minutes to ask your questions (and for the speaker to answer).  These aren't wishy-washy "5 minutes" like many speaking events will allow.  There is a huge, projected countdown clock that gongs at 1 minute left and buzzes at end time - this goes for speaker and audience.

Anyway, due to the overwhelming response in the last two years, we've decided to move to a larger space this year - the Meeting Hall at First Parish in Cambridge on Harvard Square.

The Line-Up 2012:

	Small is Big Hatice Altug, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Boston University
	What if Everyone Lived 101 Years? Joseph Coughlin, Director of MIT AgeLab, Director of New England UTC (University Transportation Center
	Origami from Science to Sculpture Erik Demaine, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
	The Comeback of Cities in the Digital Age Edward Glaeser, Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics; Director of Taubman Center for State and Local Government; Director of Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston
	Maternal-Fetal Conflict in Human Pregnancy David Haig, Professor of Biology, Harvard
	Matter Near Absolute Zero Temperature Wolfgang Ketterle, 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics, John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics, MIT
	Interrupted Games: Pascal, Shakespeare, Probability Shankar Raman, Associate Professor of Literature, MIT
	Where in the World is the Climate Really Changing? Susan Solomon, Professor, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Ellen Swallow Richards Chair, MIT
	How the Brain Makes Sense of the Moral Mind Liane Young, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Boston College
	Designing for the Bottom Billion Muhammad Zaman, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University