CIT ID: 6201
Program date: Wednesday, November 28, 2007, 3:00:00 PM
Presented by: John Mather, 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Abstract:

The history of the universe in a nutshell, from the Big Bang to now, and on to the future - John Mather will tell the story of how we got here, how the Universe began with a Big Bang, how it could have produced an Earth where sentient beings can live, and how those beings are discovering their history. Mather was Project Scientist for NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, which measured the spectrum (the color) of the heat radiation from the Big Bang, discovered hot and cold spots in that radiation, and hunted for the first objects that formed after the great explosion. He will explain Einstein's biggest mistake, show how Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe, how the COBE mission was built, and how the COBE data support the Big Bang theory. He will also show NASA's plans for the next great telescope in space, the James Webb Space Telescope. It will look even farther back in time than the Hubble Space Telescope, and will look inside the dusty cocoons where stars and planets are being born today. Planned for launch in 2013, it may lead to another Nobel Prize for some lucky observer.

Dr. John C. Mather is a Senior Astrophysicist in the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. As an NRC postdoctoral fellow at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (New York City), he led the proposal efforts for the Cosmic Background Explorer (74-76), and came to GSFC to be the Study Scientist (76-88), Project Scientist (88-98), and the Principal Investigator for the Far IR Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) on COBE. He showed that the cosmic microwave background radiation has a blackbody spectrum within 50 parts per million, confirming the Big Bang theory to extraordinary accuracy. As Senior Project Scientist (95-present) for the James Webb Space Telescope, he leads the science team, and represents scientific interests within the project management. Dr. Mather is also Chief Scientist of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) at NASA Headquarters, where he provides independent scientific advice on all aspects of the NASA science program. He is the recipient of many awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics (2006) with George Smoot, for the COBE work.

For more information, visit
http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/staff/CVs/John.Mather

The NIH Director's Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series includes weekly scientific talks by some of the top researchers in the biomedical sciences worldwide.

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	Enhanced Audio Podcast	1:04:20			Enhanced Video Podcast	1:04:20

CIT ID: 6170
Program date: Monday, November 26, 2007, 12:00:00 PM
Presented by: Anthony Zador, M.D., Ph.D., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Abstract:

Dr. Zador is a Professor of Biology at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. His pedigree includes graduate work with Christof Koch (Caltech) and Tom Brown (Yale), and a postdoc with Chuck Stevens (Salk Institute). He is one of the main organizers of the Computational and Systems Neuroscience (COSYNE) meeting.

Dr. Zador's goal is to understand the mechanisms underlying the neural correlates of auditory processing, attention and decision making. Understanding these processes may help development treatments for cognitive disorder. He is particularly interested in autism. His lab uses a variety of physiological, molecular and computational approaches to study how the auditory cortex processes sound, and how it allows us to focus on one sound whilst ignoring the rest (aka the cocktail party problem). The long-term goal of his laboratory is to elucidate the cortical mechanisms underlying attention in the rodent auditory cortex. Solving this problem may ultimately provide insight into the "Big C" (consciousness). Research in the lab is organized around three main questions:

What are the neural representations of sound in the auditory cortex, and how are these representations modulated by non-sensory input, such as attention and reward?

What are the cellular and synaptic mechanisms underlying these sensory representations and their non-sensory modulation?

What are the mechanisms by which learning modifies these representations?

NIH Neuroscience Seminar Series

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	Enhanced Audio Podcast	1:01:34			Enhanced Video Podcast	1:01:34

CIT ID: 6169
Program date: Monday, November 19, 2007, 12:00:00 PM
Presented by: Harry Orr, Ph.D., University of Minnesota Medical School

Abstract:

Dr. Orr discovered that an expanded glutamine tract in the ataxin-1 gene is the cause of the inherited neurodegenerative disease, spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1). His current research focuses on understanding how polyglutamine tracts lead to neuronal dysfunction and neurodegeneration. His development of a conditional mouse model of Sca1 has yielded a number of insights into the molecular defects caused by the mutant ataxin-1 and how this affects Purkinje cell and cerebellar function and development.

NIH Neuroscience Seminar Series

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	Enhanced Audio Podcast	1:04:31			Enhanced Video Podcast	1:04:31

CIT ID: 6306
Program date: Friday, November 16, 2007, 2:00:00 PM
Presented by: Dr. Fauci, Dr. Parham, Dr. Fenton and Ms. Watts Davis

Abstract:

HHS and AIDS.gov will be hosting a World AIDS Day webcast with several senior HHS leaders (Dr. Fauci from NIH, Dr. Parham from HRSA, Dr. Fenton from CDC, Ms. Watts Davis from SAMHSA). The purposes of the webcast are to:

1) have senior HHS officials provide a brief overview of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and research for our grantees and employees, and

2) give our grantees and employees an opportunity to ask questions and have a dialog with HHS.

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	Enhanced Audio Podcast	57:05			Enhanced Video Podcast	57:05

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