Cosmic Africa : Black FUTURE MONTH Thur Feb. 12, 7pm Adm $6

Feb 5, 7pm, Admission $6
SMG Chatham 14, 210 W 87th St
#blackfuturemonth #cosmicafrica

PROGRAM 2: Cosmic Africa – A Seed is a Star
Special Guests: Brian Nord and Hunter Adams

AFRONAUTS,USA, 2014, 14min
A Short Film by Frances Bodomo

In 1964, immediately following Zambia’s independence, grade school science teacher Edward Makuka Nkoloso set up the Zambia National Academy of Science, Space Research, and Astronomical Research in an old farmhouse 7 miles outside of Lusaka. Without resources (the £7,000,000 grant he applied to from UNESCO never came through), he hoped to launch a spacegirl (17-year-old Matha) and two cats into space before America or Russia could. To prepare his astronauts, Nkoloso rolled them down hills in 44-gallon oil drums or cut the rope of a swing at its highest point to simulate weightlessness. We do not know what became of them, other than that Matha became pregnant and was taken away by her parents.

World Premiere: 2014 Sundance Film Festival

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Cosmic Africa, South Africa, 2003, 78 min.
Language: English, Bambara, and Ju’hoansi
Director: Craig and Damon Foster
http://youtu.be/n2lCSTTY128

Searching for the links between Western scientific thought and African mythology and spiritualism, filmmakers Damon and Craig Foster and noted South African astronomer Thebe Medupe travel across continental Africa to demonstrate how the two traditions come together in the 2002 documentary, Cosmic Africa. A native South African whose own cosmological fascination arose from the oral histories he heard from his village elders, Medupe’s quest for uniting the scientific with the mythological began in high school when many of his contemporaries began leaving behind their own histories and legends in favor of Western lines of thought. With the Fosters, Medupe’s journeys take him from the Namibian deserts to cliff dwellings in Mali and other significant sites in Kenya, Ghana, Swaziland, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Egypt, all of which contain numerous examples that reflect the importance which the night sky had on the various inhabitants of the continent and how those peoples integrated their view of the cosmos into their lives and legends.Cosmic Africa premiered in the United States in January 2003 with a screening at the Carnegie Institute, which was followed later that year with a premiere screening in Cape Town, South Africa. ~ Ryan Shriver, Rovi

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Hubble’s Diverse Universe (2009)
USA, 38 min.
Director: Dean Tapia
http://www.imdb.com/video/withoutabox/vi4120512025?ref_=ttvi_vi_imdb_1
The scientific research and experiences of six African American and three Hispanic American astronomers and astrophysicists are presented in this documentary. ‘Diverse’ refers to both the ethnic diversity of the scientists who appear in the film and the diverse set of astronomy topics explored. The film has four chapters: Science, Diversity, Mentoring and Outreach, and NASA’s Contributions. The astronomers discuss their scientific projects and the role of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in their research. They share what it takes to succeed as an astrophysicist and talk about the people who have helped them along the way. Though their lives have included challenges, they provide an inspirational message to future students of astronomy.

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Our special guests for Black Future Month will be Research Scientist Hunter Adams and Brian Nord from Fermilab.

Author of the ground breaking essay, African and African-American Contributions to Science and Technology, Hunter Havelin Adams, III is a Research Scientist, Historian and Consultant. Since 1970 he has been at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois. He designed and developed diagnostic equipment for the particle accelerator, was technical advisor and lecturer for the High School Summer Student’s Research Apprenticeship Program, and is currently researching the biological effects of magnetic fields. Adams is Co-founder and Associate Director of the Life-Ways Sciences Institute.

Brian Nord received his PhD in physics at the University of Michigan and now works as a post-doctoral researcher at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He works primarily on the Dark Energy Survey, studying clusters of galaxies, gravitational lensing and dark energy. A few times per year, he travels to Chile to observe for DES on the Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter- American Observatory. Nord also frequently engages in public outreach and endeavors to express science through art, like large-scale visualizations of the cosmos. He also edits and writes the blog,DarkEnergyDetectives.org, which is geared toward revealing the darkness to the public. You can find him on Twitter @briandnord.