Videos and Recorded Programs

Larry Nittler, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Science, discusses how he uses microscopic analyses to understand what "presolar" stellar fossils - tiny grains of dust in meteorites - tell us about the evolution and inner workings of stars and the chemical history of the matter that became the sun and planets.

One of the most iconic paintings in British and American history, The Blue Boy, made around 1770 by English painter Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788), is undergoing its first major conservation treatment since its acquisition in 1921.

Catherine Hess, chief curator of European art, explains how the work of these two British artists resonates across centuries.

H.R. Woudhuysen, rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, talks about the market for old books and manuscripts in England in the time of the Tudors and Stuarts in this Zeidberg Lecture.

Rosalie McGurk, Fellow in Instrumentation at Carnegie Observatories, discusses how she is using the latest technological advances to build a new, custom-designed instrument for Carnegie Observatories' Magellan Telescopes that can peer into the Universe with extreme detail, making it possible to efficiently make 3D maps of galaxies, nebulae, and more.

Sujit Sivasundaram, director of the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge, discusses the historic gardens that existed in Sri Lanka before the arrival of the British and the changes they faced during the colonial period. Under foreign rule, botanical gardens became an important tool of empire building as sites for introducing, propagating, and collecting plants. This program is presented in conjunction with the LACMA exhibition, "The Jeweled Isle: Art from Sri Lanka."

Jennifer Van Horn, assistant professor at the University of Delaware, discusses the goods Anglo-Americans purchased and used in the 18th century, from dressing tables to portraits to peg legs in this Wark Lecture.

C. Pierce Salguero, associate professor of Asian History and Religious Studies at Penn State Abington, provides an introduction to the principles of Sino-Buddhist medicine, the product of centuries of cross-cultural exchange between medieval India and China, with particular focus on pharmacology and medicinal plants. This program is part of the East Asian Garden Lecture series.

Internationally renowned botanist David Lee, emeritus professor at Florida International University, discusses blue pigments in plants and why they are so rare. Lee is the author of Nature's Fabric: Leaves in Science and Culture.

Pamela H. Smith, Seth Low Professor of History and Director of the Center for Science and Society at Columbia University, tells of her adventures with the Making and Knowing Project in hands-on history and in the experimental history of art and science in this Dibner Lecture.

What's a schrank and why do we have one? Elee Wood, Fielding Curator/Educator of Early American Art explains.

Alexander Ji, Hubble Fellow at the Carnegie Observatories, leads a short tour of the early history of our Universe, offering intriguing glimpses of an epoch known as Cosmic Dawn, when the first stars and galaxies were born.