Chasing Dark Skies: Milky Way Photography in Michigan

Astrophotographer Adrian Bradley has been chasing dark skies — seeking out the Milky Way in particular — throughout Michigan for several years, honing his skills as a photographer. In this presentation, Adrian will share some of his photographs, give a brief overview of his process and equipment, and present tips for finding and measuring dark sky locations in Michigan.

Friday Night AI | Is AI Robust Enough to Withstand Attacks?

As we work on developing advanced AI technologies that are more and more often deployed in real settings, we increasingly face the risk of ‘attacks’ on these technologies -- malicious or sometimes even unintended uses of technology that can lead to nefarious outcomes. Think for instance of the use of AI to fool self-driving cars, or the AI-generated very realistic-looking deepfakes used to blackmail individuals and even influence elections. How can we build AI systems that are robust enough to counteract such attacks?

SciFri Book Club | Women at the Harvard Observatory, 1875-1950 on AADL.TV

Starting in the late nineteenth century, the Harvard Observatory hired women to study stars via the Astronomical Photographic Glass Plate Collection. Some of these women—such as Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Leavitt, and Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin—made discoveries that changed astrophysics forever. However, they were far from the only women working at the Harvard Observatory during the era of astronomical glass plate photography. Harvard’s glass plate collection acted as a haven for women who wanted to study the stars, long before they found equality in the field of astronomy.