10/17/24 7 p.m. - 8 p.m. Central Library - Community Room 302   Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. There Are (No) Stupid Questions … in Science was born from Elson’s popular web series, 60 Seconds of Science, wherein her avid followers, from all around the world, suggest topics to be explained within sixty seconds. In the vein of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil DeGrasse Tyson and The Complete Manual of Things That Might Kill You: A Guide to Self Diagnosis…

10/18/24 4 p.m. - 5 p.m. Discovery Building - DeLuca Forum Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. Explore the remarkable story of Wisconsin astronomers whose curiosity, persistence, and innovation helped us better understand our universe. Chasing the Stars traces the history of the University of Wisconsin’s Washburn Observatory, where some of the world’s most cutting-edge astronomical inventions were born. Learn about the earliest Indigenous stargazers, the women who worked as the first human computers, the astronomers who sold time by the…

10/18/24 5 p.m. - 6 p.m. Discovery Building - DeLuca Forum Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. “Even now, nearly a century after her death, Marie Curie remains the only female scientist most people can name,” writes Dava Sobel at the opening of her shining portrait of the sole Nobel laureate decorated in two separate fields of science— Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre and Chemistry by herself in 1911. And yet, Sobel makes clear, as brilliant as she…

10/18/24 6 p.m. - 7 p.m. Discovery Building, DeLuca Forum Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. Across cultures, sound and rhythm have been used to ease suffering, promote healing, and calm the mind. In his new book, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine neuroscientist and New York Times best-selling author of This Is Your Brain on Music Daniel J. Levitin explores the curative powers of music, showing us how and why it is one of the most potent…

10/19/24 10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Central Library, Community Room 302 Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. How often do we open the fridge or peer into the freezer with the expectation that we’ll find something fresh and ready to eat? It’s an everyday act—but just a century ago, eating food that had been refrigerated was cause for both fear and excitement. The introduction of artificial refrigeration overturned millennia of dietary history, launching a new chapter in human nutrition. We…

10/19/24 10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium   Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. Dive into the most mysterious waters around the world (if you dare) in Spooky Lakes, an illustrated nonfiction book from artist and educator Geo Rutherford. Some of Earth’s strangest—and creepiest—wonders lie deep below the surface. There’s Lake Natron, a Tanzanian lake so briny that its waters can mummify any creature that touches its surface; Lake Maracaibo, a Venezuelan tidal bay where a constantly brewing…

10/19/24 12 p.m. - 1 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium   Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. Earth is vibrantly alive and full of wisdom for those who learn to listen. Earth has been reinventing itself for more than four billion years, keeping a record of its experiments in the form of rocks. Yet most of us live our lives on the planet with no idea of its extraordinary history, unable to interpret the language of the rocks that surround…

10/19/24 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium   Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Science Festival. Insects surround us. They fuel life on Earth through their roles as pollinators, predators, and prey, but rarely do we consider the outsize influence they have had on our culture and civilization. Their anatomy and habits inform how we live, work, create art, and innovate. Featuring nearly 250 color images—from ancient etchings to avant-garde art, from bug-based meals to haute couture—The Insect Epiphany proves that…

10/19/24 3 p.m. - 4 p.m. Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium   Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. At a time when some scientists claim we are experiencing an insect apocalypse, Catherine Jagoe and Heather Swan use two different genres to call attention to these marvelous and crucial beings. Swan’s Where the Grass Still Sings is a nonfiction and art book about the vital role of insects and those working to save them around the globe; Jagoe’s Prayer to the God of Small Things is…

10/19/24 4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. Arts + Literature Laboratory Presented in partnership with Arts + Literature Laboratory, the Wisconsin Science Festival, and FlakPhoto Projects. Every day since January 1, 2012, Mary Jo Hoffman has made a photograph of found nature. That’s nearly 4,400 consecutive days—not a single day missed. Over more than a decade of STILL—the title Hoffman gave to the project—this daily ritual cracked open profound revelations about the importance of place, the passing of time, the connectedness of all things, and the…

10/19/24 6 p.m. - 7 p.m. Arts + Literature Laboratory Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. Since 2019, Donald S. Clark has documented the places that have been instrumental in influencing the lives and words of both historic and contemporary nature and environmental writers throughout the United States. While we have always felt their passionate connection to their own environments, no book has ever made this visual connection between writers and their land before—the relationship between prose and place. Featuring…

10/19/24 7:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. Arts + Literature Laboratory   Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. In Feed the Planet: A Photographic Journey to the World’s Food, acclaimed photographer George Steinmetz documents the global effort that puts food on our tables and transforms the surface of the Earth. Do you know where your food comes from? To find out, Steinmetz spent a decade documenting food production across thirty-six countries on six continents, twenty-seven US states, and five oceans. In striking…

10/20/24 10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m. Central Library - Community Room 302   Presented in partnership with the Wisconsin Book Festival. How the groundbreaking science of circadian rhythms can help you sleep better, feel happier, and improve your overall health. Your body contains a symphony of tiny timepieces that are synchronized to the sun and subtle signals in your environment. But modern insults like artificial light, contrived time zones, and late-night meals can wreak havoc on your internal clocks. Misaligned circadian rhythms…