Origins Project Science and Culture Festival
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An eclectic panel of cultural innovators and performers opened the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival April 8 at Neeb Hall. Discussing the intersection of science and culture were (left to right): German filmmaker Werner Herzog, ASU School of Music director Kimberly Marshall, ASU Origins Project director Lawrence Krauss, award-winning choreographer Liz Lerman, and legendary broadcaster Hugh Downs. More at <a href="http://origins.asu.edu">http://origins.asu.edu</a>.
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Theoretical physicist and Foundation Professor Lawrence Krauss, director of the ASU Origins Project, led a discussion during the opening panel of a science and culture festival at ASU April 7-11.
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Award-winning choreographer Liz Lerman, left, and legendary broadcaster Hugh Downs were two members of an opening panel April 8 during the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival. The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange performed “The Matter of Origins” at ASU Gammage April 11 as part of the festival.
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Kimberly Marshall, director of the School of Music in ASU’s Herberger Institute, participated on the opening panel April 8 during the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival.
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German filmmaker Werner Herzog was one of the celebrities who participated in the opening panel April 8 during the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival.
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It was not the typical NPR Science Friday radio broadcast on April 8, but rather a conversation, when Ira Flatow’s guests included Cormac McCarthy, a novelist, playwright and resident faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute, left; Lawrence Krauss, a theoretical physicist, professor and director of the ASU Origins Project; and Werner Herzog, a German filmmaker whose latest work is the 3-D film “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.” The three talked about writing, films and the intersection of science and culture from the KJZZ studios in Tempe, Ariz. The show corresponded with the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival April 7-11. A podcast of the Science Friday show is at <a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201104085">http://www.sci…;.
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Lucy Hawking, right, addressed children, parents and her father, Stephen Hawking, on April 9, at the awards ceremony for the “Dear Aliens” intergalactic-focused writing contest. Lucy Hawking, the ASU Origins Project writer-in-residence, conceived the idea to have children from the Phoenix metro area craft messages to be beamed into space. Standing to the right of Hawking is Paul Davies, a theoretical physicist at ASU who also chairs the SETI Post-Detection Science and Technology task group, charged with responding if Earth is contacted by aliens. More at <a href="http://asunews.asu.edu/20110407_dearaliens">http://asunews.asu.edu/2011…;.
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Proud uncle Jeffrey Dreyer held up a sign as Madelyn Norstrem, a seventh-grader from Foothills Academy College Preparatory in Scottsdale, received an award certificate in the “Dear Aliens” writing contest from Lucy Hawking, the ASU Origins Project writer-in-residence.
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Mary Bosen, left, and students from the Scales Technology Academy in Tempe, watched with Lucy Hawking, far right, as a message from the winning entry of the “Dear Aliens” writing contest was sent into space via a moonbounce. The children were part of The Alien Club, a before-school group at Scales. They received a certificate from the ASU Origins Project in appreciation for their intellectual curiosity and enthusiastic participation in the “Dear Aliens” contest.
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Benjamin Lee, a seventh-grader from Pardes Jewish Day School in Phoenix, was interviewed by Cronkite News reporter Bradford Dworak at the awards ceremony for the “Dear Aliens” intergalactic-focused writing contest. Hundreds of entries were received in the contest that was launched by the ASU Origins Project as part of its science and culture festival. Lee’s entry was the overall winner and an excerpt from his letter to aliens was sent into space during the ceremony via a moonbounce. The message read: “Please help us save our world. Not from you, but ourselves. We are destroying our planet. Please, come live among us and share your wisdom.”
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Nine children from metropolitan Phoenix were congratulated by Stephen Hawking, far left, his daughter, Lucy Hawking, and ASU theoretical physicists and cosmologists Lawrence Krauss, center, and Paul Davies, far right, as winners in the “Dear Aliens” intergalactic-focused writing contest. Hundreds of entries were received in the contest that was launched by the ASU Origins Project as part of its science and culture festival.
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An image of space filled the screen above the stage at ASU Gammage, as William Reber, the artistic director of the Lyric Opera Theatre, conducted the ASU Symphony Orchestra and Women’s Chorus of the Choral Union during a performance of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.” The symphonic film was narrated by ASU Foundation Professor Lawrence Krauss on April 9 as part of the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival. More at <a href="http://asunews.asu.edu/20110408_originsfestival">http://asunews.asu.edu…;.
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ASU Foundation Professor Lawrence Krauss introduced freshman Jessica Piper to an audience at ASU Gammage on April 9. Piper, a chemical engineering major, won the first place scholarship of $1,000 for her essay “Plumbing the Depths of Culture” as part of the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival essay competition.
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Cambridge professor and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking presented a special lecture titled “My Brief History” at ASU Gammage on April 9 as part of the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival.
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Lawrence Krauss, left, director of the ASU Origins Projects, chatted in the green room at the Tempe Center for the Arts with German filmmaker Werner Herzog, philosopher Anthony Grayling, and Grayling’s wife, Katie Hickman. The Tempe Center for the Arts was the venue for three events April 10 as part of the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival.
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Anthony Grayling, the “Mick Jagger of philosophy,” according to one fan in the audience, gave a “secular sermon” at the Tempe Center for the Arts April 10 as part of the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival. Grayling, a British professor of philosophy, based his talk on his latest work: “The Good Book: A Humanist Bible.”
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Jean Auel, right, author of “The Clan of the Cave Bear” chatted with ASU journalism professor Ed Sylvester about how science informed and shaped her writing. They were on stage at the Tempe Center for the Arts April 10 as part of the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival.
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Jean Auel, author of “The Clan of the Cave Bear” and “The Land of Painted Caves” told a packed audience at the Tempe Center for the Arts April 10 that she spent years in the Portland, Oregon, library and museum doing research for her Earth's Children books, a series of novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores interactions of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals. Her talk was part of the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival.
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German filmmaker Werner Herzog, right, discussed his latest work, the 3-D film “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” before a screening at the Tempe Center for the Arts on April 10. The film explores the earliest known images produced by humans in the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc caves of southern France. In describing the images in the caves, Herzog said there was “charcoal dust under the painting. If we were to sneeze we would disturb the powder there.” The discuss and screening was arranged by Lawrence Krauss, left, director of the ASU Origins Project as part of a multi-day science and culture festival.
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ASU Foundation Professor Lawrence Krauss, center, responded to a point made by Curtis Marean, left, about the use of red ochre by early modern humans who inhabited caves in South Africa. Marean, a paleoanthropologist at ASU joined Krauss and German filmmaker Werner Herzog, right, in a discussion at the Tempe Center for the Arts as part of the ASU Origins Project Science and Culture Festival. More at <a href="http://asunews.asu.edu/20110408_originsfestival">http://asunews.asu.edu…;.