Webinars   

Colorado is a national leader for the emerging geothermal energy market with its market incentives and goals decarbonize our economy. Learn more about the state’s leading geothermal opportunities from high temperature geothermal energy for electricity production, to shallow loop systems for ground-source heat pumps and thermal energy networks that can heat and cool our buildings.

In this webinar, Dr. McGrath will discuss common neuromyths about learning that persist despite cognitive science to the contrary. She will describe findings from her study on neuromyths, which found high rates of neuromyth endorsement across the general public, educators, and individuals with high neuroscience exposure. Two of the most common myths were related to learning styles and dyslexia so we will spend time on these specific misunderstandings. The goal is for participants to gain a better understanding of evidence-based learning strategies by debunking common myths.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Sixth Assessment Report concluded that meeting the temperature targets of the Paris Agreement will require both aggressive decarbonization of the world economy and substantial amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide removal using options such as afforestation and reforestation, direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, bioenergy with carbon capture and storage and marine-based approaches. The purpose of this presentation will be to provide an overview of the potential benefits and risks of a number of CDR options, as well as to discuss governance aspects at the national and international levels.

For half a century, the RNA research community has seen RNA emerge from being simply a copy of the information stored in DNA to an active participant in the chemistry of life. But these breathtaking discoveries went largely unnoticed by the general public, even as people became more conversant with DNA. Then in 2020, the Covid-19 mRNA vaccines put RNA in the spotlight – and opened the door for sharing the wonders of RNA science with the World. Among its many activities, RNA powers the immortality enzyme, telomerase, which contributes to ageing and cancer. RNA guides CRISPR gene editing, which gives hitherto unthinkable power to re-write the code of life. And RNA may provide the answer to life’s most fundamental mystery – how did living things first arise on our planet? In this talk aimed at inquisitive non-scientists, I will illuminate some of the wonders of RNA, as described in my new book, “The Catalyst.”

New technologies like AI and robots seem to pose utterly unfamiliar questions: if they interact with us like humans, can we also expect them to be moral? Should we feel ethical duties towards them in turn? If not, why do they often seem so disturbing to our intuitions about the line between humans and non-humans? In fact, the human record suggests some of these problems are actually quite old. Humans have long treated some non-humans as intelligent or even moral beings in all sorts of ways. What can we learn from this history? What insights into the challenges of new technology does the empirical record offer us?

This webinar will provide a basic overview of cell cultured meats, focusing on the technology used to produce cell cultured meat products, regulation of the processes, common misperceptions, and what the future of the meat protein landscape looks like. The webinar will also touch on opportunities and challenges in cell-cultured meats and explore how the traditional meat industry is preparing itself for the future entry of these products into the marketplace.

Dense tropical forest shrouds the remains of ancient lowland Maya civilization. This makes it difficult to map ancient settlements in the field and hides them from overhead view, which in turn has limited what archaeologists could confidently say about ancient Maya urbanism and demography. Advances in remote sensing are now allowing researchers to see through the forest, transforming scientific understanding of ancient tropical urbanism and its environmental consequences in the process. This presentation will introduce the technologies that are driving this revolution—chief among them airborne laser scanning or lidar—and explore what they are revealing about the ancient Maya.