Science On Tap – Seeing the Big Picture: How the Brain Manipulates our Visual World
When we open our eyes, are we perceiving reality? Why do we fail to agree on the color of “The Dress” (that went viral in 2015)? Have you ever glanced at ticking clock and noticed the second-hand suddenly freeze for a split second? Neuroscience research suggests that the brain evolved to make rapid, best-guesses about the objects in our environment, rather than create a one-to-one representation of the world. Through stories and demonstrations, Dr. Mark Pitzer will discuss some of the effects of this strategy and how our visual system can highlight some objects, delete others, and alter our conscious awareness in an attempt to help us navigate our visual world.We’re excited to welcome Mark Pitzer back to Science on Tap! (Remember that great Making Memories show??)Mark Pitzer, Ph.D. is a neuroscientist at the University of Portland. For the last 25 years he has worked to better understand and treat diseases of the brain, including Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases. Currently, his lab studies how developmental influences in the womb can alter the number of dopaminergic neurons involved in movement and reward. Mark is also an award-winning teacher that uses the findings from the fields of learning and neuroscience to invoke enduring enthusiasm, curiosity and deep learning in his college students. Tickets:$45.00 SUPPORTER: Premium seating, pint glass, and good feelings for supporting the program$35.00 VIP: Premium seating in the front several rows of the center section$25.00 GENERAL ADMISSION$15.00 STUDENTReview our Health & Safety Policies HERE
Science On Tap – Kombucha SCOBY: A (mostly) Happily-Ever-After Story of Microbial Cooperation
Kombucha has gone from a weird home-brewed beverage only consumed by health-obsessed hippies (and everyone in Portland, of course) to a popular non-alcoholic alternative to soda. At the heart of this story is the perception of kombucha as healthy, and the relative simplicity of carrying out a kombucha fermentation – make some sweet tea, throw in the “SCOBY” and when it starts to smell vinegary, taste it to see if it’s done. What can go wrong? As it turns out, the simplicity of the fermentation system relies upon a complex mixture of microbes each needing to do their part. That slimy chunk of cellulose that floats on top of an active kombucha ferment, known as “the SCOBY”, contains bacteria and yeast working together, hence the acronym (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast). The yeast in the SCOBY turns sugar in the sweet tea into alcohol, and the bacteria turn that alcohol into the acid that gives the vinegary flavor. Sometimes these processes are not fully synced-up and kombucha may end up tasting a bit too funky, or may not meet the requirements of a non-alcoholic beverage. At this Science on Tap, Dr. Chris Curtin will describe his laboratory’s quest to work out which yeast and bacteria are most commonly found in SCOBY and how they cooperate to deliver tasty, non-alcoholic kombucha. He will also discuss the sometimes controversial topic of whether kombucha is a probiotic beverage.Dr. Chris Curtin is an associate professor of fermentation microbiology at Oregon State University, chairs the Microbiology committee of the American Society for Brewing Chemists, and serves as associate editor for the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. His lab focuses on the role of microbes in beverage fermentation and food stability…and enjoying the consumption of those products! Tickets:$45.00 SUPPORTER: Premium seating, pint glass, and good feelings for supporting the program$35.00 VIP: Premium seating in the front several rows of the center section$25.00 GENERAL ADMISSION$15.00 STUDENTReview our Health & Safety Policies HERE
CONSIDER THIS with Kiese Laymon
Join Oregon Humanities for an onstage conversation with Kiese Laymon, author of How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America and Heavy. Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. In his observant, often hilarious work, Laymon does battle with the personal and the political: race and family, body and shame, poverty and place. This program is part of Oregon Humanities’ 2023 Consider This series on people, place, and power. General AdmissionPrice: $15 Conversation StarterPrice: $30 Ticket sales do not cover the full cost of presenting Consider This events. When you buy a Conversation Starter ticket, you help us keep ticket prices low for everyone. Conversation Starter tickets convey no special benefits beyond good feelings and our gratitude. No CostTo make sure as many people as possible who want to attend are able to, some tickets are available at no cost. (More information below) If you’re able to pay for a ticket, we ask that you do so to help keep this program accessible to all. Click here to register for no-cost tickets to Consider This. About Our Guest Kiese Laymon is the author of the award-winning memoir Heavy, the groundbreaking essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and the genre-defying novel Long Division. Laymon’s IndieBound bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2018 Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. A personal narrative that illuminates national failures, Heavy is defiant yet vulnerable—an insightful, often comical exploration of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family. When Laymon was a contributing editor at Gawker, he wrote an essay called “How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America.” This harrowing piece, which describes four incidents in which Laymon was threatened with a gun, evolved into a collection of lacerating essays on race, violence, celebrity, family, and creativity. In Laymon’s novel, the NAACP Image Award-winning Long Division, 14-year-old City, a newly minted YouTube star, is sent to stay with family in rural Melahatchie, Mississippi. What happens next transgresses the boundaries of fiction and reality, present and past, as City travels through time. Laymon founded the Catherine Coleman Initiative for the Arts and Social Justice, a program aimed at getting Mississippi kids and their parents more comfortable reading, writing, revising and sharing. He is the Libby Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Review our Health & Safety Policies HERE
Consider This with Casey Parks
Join Oregon Humanities for a conversation about family, belonging, and gender with Casey Parks.A longtime reporter for the Oregonian, Casey Parks now covers gender and family issues for the Washington Post, where she has written about abortion access, Texas’ investigation of parents of trans kids, and the long tail of the US military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. In her 2022 book, Diary of a Misfit, Parks relates her own story of coming out in a rural Louisiana town in 2002 and her efforts to uncover the story of Roy Hudgins, a small-town singer who, like Parks, didn’t conform to the expectations of his community. This conversation—the first in our 2023–2024 Consider This series about fear and belonging—will explore how attitudes about gender affect where people seem to fit in. We’ll also discuss where these attitudes come from and how they might change.This event is part of Oregon Humanities’ series on Fear and Belonging. General AdmissionPrice: $15 Conversation StarterPrice: $30 Ticket sales do not cover the full cost of presenting Consider This events. When you buy a Conversation Starter ticket, you help us keep ticket prices low for everyone. Oregon Humanities uses income from Consider This ticket sales to pay for venue rental and honoraria for our guests. Conversation Starter tickets convey no special benefits beyond good feelings and our gratitude. No Cost To make sure as many people as possible who want to attend are able to, we make a portion of tickets available at no cost. (More information below) If you’re able to pay for a ticket, we ask that you do so to help keep this program accessible to all. Please click the link below to register for no-cost tickets. Click here to register for no-cost tickets to Consider This. About Our GuestCasey Parks is a Washington Post reporter who covers gender and family issues. She spent a decade at the Oregonian, where she wrote about race and LGBTQ+ issues and was a finalist for the Livingston Award. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Oxford American, ESPN, USA Today, and the Nation. A former Spencer Fellow at Columbia University, Casey was most recently awarded the 2021 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for her work on Diary of a Misfit. She lives in Portland.
Consider This with Father Greg Boyle
Join Oregon Humanities for a conversation about community, belonging, and ending violence with Father Greg Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries, a gang intervention, rehab, and reentry program based in Los Angeles.Father Boyle is a Jesuit priest who served as a pastor in Boyle Heights during the wave of gang-related violence that began in the 1980s and peaked in 1992, when more than one thousand people were killed in the city. While law enforcement and criminal justice authorities turned to suppression and mass incarceration to address gang violence, Boyle and members of his parish and community adopted a radical approach: treating gang members as human beings.Today, Homeboy Industries employs and trains former gang members in a range of social enterprises and provides critical services to thousands of people each year.This event is part of Oregon Humanities’ series on Fear and Belonging. General AdmissionPrice: $15 Conversation StarterPrice: $30 Ticket sales do not cover the full cost of presenting Consider This events. When you buy a Conversation Starter ticket, you help us keep ticket prices low for everyone. Oregon Humanities uses income from Consider This ticket sales to pay for venue rental and honoraria for our guests. Conversation Starter tickets convey no special benefits beyond good feelings and our gratitude. No Cost To make sure as many people as possible who want to attend are able to, we make a portion of tickets available at no cost. (More information below) If you’re able to pay for a ticket, we ask that you do so to help keep this program accessible to all. Please click the link below to register for no-cost tickets. Click here to register for no-cost tickets to Consider This. About Our GuestFather Greg Boyle is the author of several books, including Tattoos on the Heart, Barking to the Choir, The Whole Language, and most recently Forgive Everyone Everything. He has received the California Peace Prize, has been inducted into the California Hall of Fame, and was named a Champion of Change by President Barack Obama in 2014.
Consider This with Eli Saslow
Join Oregon Humanities for a conversation about poverty and addiction in America with Eli Saslow. Eli Saslow is a national reporter for the New York Times. His recent reporting has focused on homelessness, inequality, and opioid addiction in Arizona, California, and Oklahoma. He lives in Portland. This conversation will explore how intersecting crises of housing, drug addiction, and mental health affect people and communities across the country. We’ll also discuss the stories we tell about these crises. From what perspectives are they told? And who are they for? General AdmissionPrice: $15 Conversation StarterPrice: $30 Ticket sales do not cover the full cost of presenting Consider This events. When you buy a Conversation Starter ticket, you help us keep ticket prices low for everyone. Oregon Humanities uses income from Consider This ticket sales to pay for venue rental and honoraria for our guests. Conversation Starter tickets convey no special benefits beyond good feelings and our gratitude. No Cost To make sure as many people as possible who want to attend are able to, we make a portion of tickets available at no cost. (More information below) If you’re able to pay for a ticket, we ask that you do so to help keep this program accessible to all. Please click the link below to register for no-cost tickets. Click here to register for no-cost tickets to Consider This. About Our Guest In his Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting, Eli Saslow, who has been called “one of the great young journalists in America,” reveals the human stories behind the most divisive issues of our time. From racism and poverty to addiction and school shootings, his work uncovers the manifold impacts of major national issues on individuals and families. Saslow has twice won the Pulitzer Prize: first in 2014 for Explanatory Reporting for a yearlong series about America’s food stamp program for the Washington Post, later collected into the book American Hunger; and in 2023 for Features for his coverage of people struggling with the pandemic, homelessness, addiction and inequality.
CONSIDER THIS with Vanessa Veselka
Oregon Humanities presents a conversation about class, power, and labor with Vanessa Veselka. Vanessa Veselka has been, at various times, a teenage runaway, a sex-worker, a musician, a student of paleontology, a union organizer, a cab driver, and a mother. She is the author of the novel The Great Offshore Grounds, which won the Oregon Book Award for fiction in 2021, and Zazen, which was awarded the 2012 PEN/Bingham Prize for debut fiction. Her short fiction appears in Zyzzyva and Tin House Magazine, and her essays appear in the New York Times, GQ, the Atlantic, Bitch Magazine, and Best American Essays. This program is part of the 2023–24 Consider This series, People, Place, and Power. General AdmissionPrice: $15 Conversation StarterPrice: $30 Ticket sales do not cover the full cost of presenting Consider This events. When you buy a Conversation Starter ticket, you help us keep ticket prices low for everyone. Conversation Starter tickets convey no special benefits beyond good feelings and our gratitude. No CostTo make sure as many people as possible who want to attend are able to, some tickets are available at no cost. (More information below) If you’re able to pay for a ticket, we ask that you do so to help keep this program accessible to all. Click here to register for no-cost tickets to Consider This. Minors ok when accompanied by a parent or guardianReview our Health & Safety Policies HERE
CONSIDER THIS with Mónica Guzmán
Join Oregon Humanities for an onstage conversation with Mónica Guzmán, author of I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. Guzmán is a bridge builder, journalist, and author who works to get people to talk across thier perceived divides. She will be joined by Adam Davis, executive director of Oregon Humanities.Tickets: General AdmissionPrice: $15 Conversation StarterPrice: $30 Ticket sales do not cover the full cost of presenting Consider This events. When you buy a Conversation Starter ticket, you help us keep ticket prices low for everyone. Oregon Humanities uses income from Consider This ticket sales to pay for venue rental and honoraria for our guests. Conversation Starter tickets convey no special benefits beyond good feelings and our gratitude. No Cost To make sure as many people as possible who want to attend are able to, we make a portion of tickets available at no cost. (More information below) If you’re able to pay for a ticket, we ask that you do so to help keep this program accessible to all. Please click the link below to register for no-cost tickets. Click here to register for no-cost tickets to Consider This. About Our Guest Mónica Guzmán is a bridge builder, journalist, and author who lives for great conversations sparked by curious questions. She’s Senior Fellow for Public Practice at Braver Angels, a nonprofit working to depolarize America, host of Crosscut’s interview series Civic Cocktail, and author of I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. Guzmán was a 2019 fellow at the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, where she studied social and political division, and a 2016 fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, where she studied how journalists can better meet the needs of a participatory public. Before committing to the project of helping people understand each other across the political divide, Mónica cofounded the award-winning Seattle newsletter The Evergrey and led a national network of groundbreaking local newsletters as VP of Local for WhereBy.Us. A Mexican immigrant, Latina, and dual US/Mexico citizen, she lives in Seattle with her husband and two kids and is the proud liberal daughter of conservative parents.
CONSIDER THIS: Redrawing Borders
Join Oregon Humanities for an onstage conversation on borders and divides. Why are our borders in the places they are, and when should they be redrawn? When are borders useful, and when are they symbolic? Should borders be based on geography, history, culture, or some other criteria? Confirmed guests for this event are Matt McCaw, spokesperson for the Greater Idaho movement, and Carina Miller, chair of the Columbia River Gorge Commission and a research analyst with Warm Springs Community Action Team. General AdmissionPrice: $15 Conversation StarterPrice: $30 Ticket sales do not cover the full cost of presenting Consider This events. When you buy a Conversation Starter ticket, you help us keep ticket prices low for everyone. Oregon Humanities uses income from Consider This ticket sales to pay for venue rental and honoraria for our guests. Conversation Starter tickets convey no special benefits beyond good feelings and our gratitude. No Cost To make sure as many people as possible who want to attend are able to, we make a portion of tickets available at no cost. (More information below) If you’re able to pay for a ticket, we ask that you do so to help keep this program accessible to all. Please click the link below to register for no-cost tickets. Click here to register for no-cost tickets to Consider This. About Our Guests Matt McCaw is a born and raised Oregonian who has lived and worked on both sides of the state. He is currently the spokesperson for the Greater Idaho movement and a board member of Move Oregon’s Border. McCaw and his wife are small business owners and foster parents who are raising their family in Powell Butte. Carina Miller is a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. She is chair of the Columbia River Gorge Commission, the co-chair for the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians Energy Committee, chair of the Native American Caucus for the Oregon Democrats, and was formerly an Agency district representative on the 27th Tribal Council of Warm Springs. She lives in Warm Springs, Oregon, with her partner and their newborn son.
Science On Tap – Making Memories: Using Neuroscience to Enhance Teaching and Learning
How does your brain learn best? As the field of neuroscience uncovers the neural mechanisms of perception and learning, can we begin to bring these findings into the classroom to help improve how students learn? Back by popular demand, this hilarious Science on Tap will discuss the brain’s learning networks, emotional connections and how the visual and motor pathways influence what we process. Join us as Dr. Mark Pitzer demonstrates of how each brain circuit can be recruited by instructors to improve teaching/learning in and out of the classroom and how neuroscience can make learning truly memorable. Mark Pitzer, Ph.D. is a neuroscientist at the University of Portland. For the last 25 years he has worked to better understand diseases of the brain. He has worked on techniques to improve the survival of newly transplanted brain cells as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease and, more recently, conducted experiments using a genetic technique to halt the production of toxic proteins in the brain as a potential treatment for Huntington’s disease. Currently, his lab is conducting experiments designed to identify the neural circuits and neurotransmitters that play a role in the personality changes that affect those who suffer from Huntington’s disease. Mark is also an award-winning teacher that uses the findings from the fields of learning and neuroscience to invoke enduring enthusiasm, curiosity and deep learning in his college students.Tickets:$45.00 SUPPORTER: Premium seating, pint glass, and good feelings for supporting the program$35.00 VIP: Premium seating in the front several rows of the center section$25.00 GENERAL ADMISSION$15.00 STUDENT$15.00 ONLINE (tune into the live stream only) COVID POLICY Vaccine cards required and checked at entry. Masks are recommended (and subject to be required following any County mandate changes). Review our Health & Safety Policies HERE
