This week, scientists, thinkers, artists and others will convene in New York City for the 10th annual World Science Festival, but even if you can't make it to the Big Apple, you can catch some of the action live online.
The festival, which kicked off yesterday (May 30), will run through June 4, and features more than 50 events in venues across the city. The weeklong celebration of science will engage participants with "revolutionary discoveries, the thinkers behind them, and their wide-ranging political and cultural implications," according to festival organizers. Topics of the panel discussions range from artificial intelligence (AI), to human regeneration, to the biggest questions in cosmology.
Several sessions — including "Computational Creativity: AI and the Art of Ingenuity" and "The Evolution of Evolution: Are We the Masters of Our Fate?" — will be webcast live, and you can watch them on Live Science. [Watch Live: World Science Festival 2017]
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Times Square will also act as a hub for the festival's events this year, with a program of free activities called "Science in the Square" that will bring science topics to a broad general audience — one of the festival's main missions.
"When we started the World Science Festival a decade ago, we conceived it as a way of introducing the diverse worlds of science to a broad audience — to take science out of scholarly journals and into the cultural mainstream," Tracy Day, co-founder and CEO of the World Science Festival, said in a statement. "Now, more than ever, it is critical that the general public recognize how vital science is to our collective future."
One way the festival focuses on the future is by considering the past, such as with the multimedia presentation "Time, Creativity, and the Cosmos." The production follows the universe from the Big Bang to through the present, highlighting the human spirit of exploration as told by physicist and World Science Festival co-founder Brian Greene.
Women in science are also highlighted in the festival's program this year, including two main events to recognize the achievements of female scientists. The women-led discussion "Hidden Figures No More! Heroines of Space Science Past, Present, and Future" will feature scientists and astronauts who shattered the glass ceiling. Actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik, of "The Big Bang Theory," will moderate a panel of accomplished women who will share their stories of pursuing careers in science.
And Bialik isn't the only Hollywood highlight: Actor and festival collaborator Alan Alda will have a conversation with actress Tina Fey about the science of communication. Bill Nye, of "Science Guy" fame, will also lead the festival favorite "Saturday Night Lights: Stargazing in Brooklyn Bridge Park."
Original article on Live Science.
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