Join evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen to explore a new dawn of natural history, practiced by community scientists in their own urban jungle. Schilthuizen will be joined in conversation by Boston College Assistant Professor Courtney Humphries.

Imagine taking your smartphone-turned-microscope to an empty lot and discovering a rare mason bee that builds its nest in empty snail shells. Or a miniature spider that hunts ants and carries their corpses around. With a team of citizen scientists, that's exactly what Menno Schilthuizen did — one instance in the evolutionary biologist's campaign to take natural science to the urban landscape where most of us live today. In this delightful book, The Urban Naturalist, Schilthuizen invites us to join him, to embark on a new age of discovery, venturing out as intrepid explorers of our own urban habitat — and maybe in the process do the natural world some good.

Special welcome remarks provided by the Mark R. Epstein (Class of 1963) Director, MIT Museum and Professor of the Practice of Science, Technology and Society, MIT, Michael John Gorman.

Copies of The Urban Naturalist will be available for purchase onsite from the MIT Press Bookstore.

Join acclaimed designer and bestselling author Kevin Bethune and MITdesignX Faculty Director Svafa Grönfeldt as they explore a nonlinear approach to navigating design's nuances in pursuit of meaningful innovation.

In Nonlinear, Kevin Bethune shows us that we can reject trodden paths of digital or physical product creation by taking advantage of a nonlinear approach. To unlock meaningful innovation that breeds new and novel outcomes, he writes, teams need to embark on a journey into the proverbial forest of ambiguity, the result of a rapidly converging, dynamic, and exponentially changing landscape. The journey is less about getting it right or wrong, and more about using the information we have at our disposal to understand our choices and unlock new learning.

Copies of Nonlinear (MIT Press, 2025) and of Reimagining Design (MIT Press, 2022) will be available for purchase onsite from the MIT Press Bookstore.

Join MIT Professors David Mindell, Suzanne Berger, and 2024 Nobel Prize winner Simon Johnson to discuss Mindell's new book, The New Lunar Society, on how we can create our industrial future with inspiration and lessons from the originators of the industrial revolution. Special welcome remarks provided by Mark R. Epstein (Class of 1963) Director, MIT Museum and Professor of the Practice of Science, Technology and Society, MIT Michael John Gorman

Climate change, global disruption, and labor scarcity are forcing us to rethink the underlying principles of industrial society. In The New Lunar Society, David Mindell envisions this new industrialism from the fundamentals, drawing on the eighteenth century when first principles were formed at the founding of the Industrial Revolution. While outlining the new industrialism, he tells the story of the Lunar Society, a group of engineers, scientists, and industrialists who came together to apply the principles of the Enlightenment to industrial processes. Those principles were collaboration, the marriage of practice and scientific knowledge, and the belief that the world could progress through making things.

Copies of The New Lunar Society will be available for purchase onsite from the MIT Press Bookstore.

This event will be recorded by C-SPAN. Please let an MIT Museums staff person know if you do not want to be filmed.

Join us for a conversation with Harvard University Professor Cass Sunstein and Knight Science Journalism Fellow Emily Foxhall on the social cost of carbon.

If you're injuring someone, you should stop — and pay for the damages you've caused. Why does this simple proposition, generally accepted, not apply to climate change? In Climate Justice, a bracing challenge to status quo thinking on the ethics of climate change, renowned author and legal scholar Cass Sunstein clearly frames what's at stake and lays out the moral imperative: When it comes to climate change, everyone must be counted equally, regardless of when or where they live — which means that wealthy nations, which have disproportionately benefited from greenhouse gas emissions, are obligated to help future generations and people in poor nations that are particularly vulnerable.

Copies of Climate Justice will be available for purchase onsite from the MIT Press Bookstore.

Join Humanist Chaplain and author Greg M. Epstein in conversation with Thea Keith Lucas and Chris Gilliard to explore global technology worship and the case for skepticism and agnosticism as a way of life.

Today's technology has overtaken religion as the chief influence on twenty-first century life and community. In Tech Agnostic, Harvard and MIT's influential humanist chaplain Greg Epstein explores what it means to be a critical thinker with respect to this new faith. Encouraging readers to reassert their common humanity beyond the seductive sheen of "tech," this book argues for tech agnosticism — not worship — as a way of life. Without suggesting we return to a mythical pre-tech past, Epstein shows why we must maintain a freethinking critical perspective toward innovation until it proves itself worthy of our faith or not.

Epstein asks probing questions that center humanity at the heart of engineering: Who profits from an uncritical faith in technology? How can we remedy technology's problems while retaining its benefits? Showing how unbelief has always served humanity, Epstein revisits the historical apostates, skeptics, mystics, Cassandras, heretics, and whistleblowers who embody the tech reformation we desperately need. He argues that we must learn how to collectively demand that technology serve our pursuit of human lives that are deeply worth living.

In our tumultuous era of religious extremism and rampant capitalism, Tech Agnostic offers a new path forward, where we maintain enough critical distance to remember that all that glitters is not gold — nor is it God.

Copies of Tech Agnostic will be available for purchase onsite from the MIT Press Bookstore.

Co-presented by MIT Radius and the MIT Press.

November 12
6 - 7:30pm
$5

Join MIT Professor and Solvable author Susan Solomon and atmospheric scientist Noelle Selin to explore a compelling and pragmatic argument: solutions to yesterday's environmental problems reveal today's path forward.

We solved planet-threatening problems before and we can do it again. Susan Solomon knows firsthand what those solutions entail. She first gained international fame as the leader of an expedition to Antarctica in 1986, making discoveries that were key to healing the damaged ozone layer. She saw a path — from scientific and public awareness to political engagement, international agreement, industry involvement, and effective action. Solomon, an atmospheric scientist and award-winning author, connects this career-defining triumph to the inside stories of other past environmental victories — against ozone depletion, smog, pesticides, and lead — to extract the essential elements of what makes change possible.

Solvable is a book for anyone who has ever despaired about the climate crisis. As Solomon reminds us, doom and gloom get us nowhere, and idealism will only take us so far. The heroes in these stories range from angry mothers to gang members turned social activists, to upset Long Island birdwatchers to iconoclastic scientists (often women) to brilliant legislative craftsmen. Solomon's authoritative point of view is an inspiration, a reality check, a road map, and a much-needed dose of realism. The problems facing our planet are Solvable. Solomon shows us.

Copies of Solvable will be available for purchase onsite from the MIT Press Bookstore.

Free with Museum admission.

Join Rich Pell, author of This Is NOT An Artifact: Selections From the Center for Postnatural History, for a conversation with Boston Globe Editor Anna Kuchment.

The manipulation of life is one of the oldest and most popularly neglected forms of cultural production. Yet it is evident in prehistoric cave dwellings, organic vegetable gardens, concentrated animal feeding operations, and myriad other sites and scenes. PostNatural History is the study of the origins, habitats, and evolution of organisms that have been intentionally altered by humans through captivity, breeding, or engineering. These lifeforms relay stories that challenge and transform our understanding of human culture.

This Is NOT An Artifact catalogs 15 years of investigation by the Center for PostNatural History. Featuring essays and photography by founder Rich Pell, and a catalog of PostNatural organisms featuring contributions by Center for Genomic Gastronomy, Terike Haapoja & Laura Gustafsson, Steve Rowell, Nicholas Daly, Ian Nagoski, Roderick Williams, and Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr.

This program is presented as part of the Cambridge Science Festival. The MIT Museum is free during the Cambridge Science Festival.

Interested in attending? Letting us know is strongly encouraged!

You’ll be the first to receive reminders and other details for this event. Please note that signing up does not reserve a seat. Seating is first come, first served; please arrive early. Doors will open 30 minutes prior to start time.

Join renowned computer scientist Neil Lawrence for a conversation with MIT Professor David Mindell on Lawrence's new book, The Atomic Human: What Makes Us Unique in the Age of AI.

The greatest fear of AI is not that it rules our digital lives but that it displaces human intelligence entirely. If artificial intelligence takes over decision-making what, then, is unique and irreplaceable about human intelligence? The Atomic Human is a journey of discovery to the core of what it is to be human, in search of the qualities that cannot be replaced by the machine.

Lawrence brings a timely, fresh perspective to this new, emerging era, recounting his personal journey to understand the riddle of intelligence. By understanding the essential element of what makes us human — the "atomic human" — Lawrence shows how AI can enable us to choose the future we want.

Copies of The Atomic Human will be available for purchase onsite from the MIT Coop.

Leading robotics and computer scientist Daniela Rus, MIT Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics David Mindell, and science writer Gregory Mone explore how we can use a new generation of smart machines to help humankind.

There is a robotics revolution underway. A record 3.1 million robots are working in factories right now, doing everything from assembling computers to packing goods and monitoring air quality and performance. A far greater number of smart machines impact our lives in countless other ways ―improving the precision of surgeons, cleaning our homes, extending our reach to distant worlds―and we’re on the cusp of even more exciting opportunities.

Join The Heart and the Chip authors Daniela Rus and Gregory Mone for a conversation on the interconnected fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The discussion will be moderated by David Mindell.

Copies of The Heart and the Chip will be available for purchase onsite from the MIT Press Bookstore.

Join us for an engaging talk with MIT Senseable City Lab co-founder Carlo Ratti and Harvard architecture historian Antoine Picon as they discuss their new book Atlas of the Senseable City. Learn how the growth of digital mapping, spurred by sensing technologies, is affecting cities and daily lives. The program will be moderated by Nicholas de Monchaux.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing after the event.

And while at the Museum, don't miss the Mapping the [In]visible installation now on view.