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Oliver Sacks

Lecture

Oliver Sacks: Stinks and Bangs - A Chemical Boyhood

I had enough dangerous substances to poison the whole neighborhood, or blow it up, but I didn’t.       

Oliver Sacks, neurologist and best-selling author, traces his boyhood fascination with science, when his first chemical experiments wakened him to the beauty and elegance of nature’s laws. The influence of his scientific family steered him early into a fascination with chemistry and numbers. This is the basis for his book Uncle Tungsten: A Chemical Boyhood, in which he speaks about memories of his family in his early life. Sacks shares stories about nearly blowing up his London home by performing experiments with potentially dangerous elements as a child, his obsession with metal at an early age, and the inadequate Cub Scout skills that led him to feeding his Scout leader cement. He speaks about science in the poetic form for which his writing has won awards and his lecture will captivate both scientists and non-scientists alike.

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Featured Profile

May Berenbaum

May Berenbaum is the Swanlund Professor and head of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of numerous magazine articles as well as three books about insects for the general public, Buzzwords: A Scientist Muses on Sex, Bugs, and Rock 'n' Roll, Ninety-nine Gnats, Nits, and Nibblers, and The Earwig's Tail: A Modern Bestiary of Multi-Legged Legends. Berenbaum also organizes the annual Insect Fear Film Festival, a celebration of Hollywood's entomological excesses.

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2010 Stages, Sights & Sounds April 29-May 16, 2010

Stages, Sights & Sounds is presented by the Chicago Humanities Festival. This spring, a collector of nights, a melancholy superhero, and an incredible wooden cart all await you—among many other adventures. Stages, Sights & Sounds is for everyone. Many of programs are as engaging for adults as they are for children. Come see for yourself!

 

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