Science to be featured at Chicago Humanities Festival

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At humanities festivals, physics and chemistry typically get left off the menu in favor of poetry and philosophy, but not at this year's Chicago Humanities Festival (CHF).

"Many people are often unaware of the links between the sciences and humanities," said Matti Bunzl, artistic director for the CHF. "Science and engineering enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the arts and humanities, and we are thrilled to have so many Argonne researchers involved in this year's event."

The Chicago Humanities Festival, which began in 1989, creates opportunities for people of all ages to support, enjoy and explore the humanities. This year, Argonne will be participating in the following programs:

The Future of Transportation

—November 9

To kick things off on Wednesday, November 9, Argonne's Steve Ciatti, a mechanical engineer who specializes in advanced engine and vehicle technologies research and development, will lead an interactive presentation on the future of transportation with students in grades 4-12 at Chicago's Francis Parker School. Ciatti will work to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers while discussing the new transportation technologies on the horizon that will improve the way we live and contribute to a better and cleaner future.

target="_blank">The Matter of Origins

—November 10-13 at 7:30 p.m.

Part performance, part conversation and part floor show, The Matter of Origins probes the physics of beginnings and the poetry of the mind. Act One takes place on stage and travels from Marie Curie's lab to Los Alamos to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and from the Hubble Space Telescope to the reaches of our accelerating universe. In Act Two, the company engages the audience in a thought-provoking dialogue, with physicists and provocateurs at the ready. It's a program perfectly suited to the CHF's inquisitive audience—a performance with conversation built-in. Eric Landahl, a researcher at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source and Assistant Professor of Physics at DePaul University, plays the role of nuclear pioneer J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Nuclear Trees: Cleaning up Radioactive Waste

—November 13 at 10:00 a.m.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed byUChicago Argonne, LLCfor theU.S. Department of Energy'sOffice of Science.

For more information, please contact Eleanor Taylor (630/252-5510 ormedia@anl.gov) at Argonne.

Follow Argonne on Twitter athttp://twitter.com/argonne.

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