Profs and Pints Meetup-Metro DC

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Cuba, Our Closest Enemy,” on our country’s volatile relationship with an island nation off Florida’s coast, with William M. LeoGrande, professor of government at American University and leading expert on U.S.-Cuban relations.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-cuba .]

The United States and Cuba are fractious neighbors who can’t get along but can’t move away from one another. From Fidel Castro’s defiant revolution to Donald Trump’s “Donroe Doctrine” asserting U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, U.S. relations with Cuba have been acrimonious, tumultuous, and often dangerous—marked by invasion, attempted assassinations, nuclear confrontation, and half a century of economic warfare.

Gain a deeper understanding of relationships between the two countries with Dr. William LeoGrande, widely recognized as one of the nation’s foremost experts on Cuban politics and U.S. policy toward the island, having authored or edited seven books on the subject, including Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana.

Professor LeoGrande’s talk will chronicle the trajectory of this unique relationship of “perpetual hostility,” as Henry Kissinger called it, from confrontations to secret talks aimed at reconciliation.

We’ll see how America’s playground of the 1950s became a cold war ally of the Soviet Union and how Cuban refugees became a powerful force in American politics. We’ll look at how the end of the cold war changed U.S.-Cuban relations—or didn’t—and how repeated attempts at rapprochement failed to rebuild the bridges that had burned in the early days of Cuba’s revolution.

Since Fidel Castro left center stage in 2006, U.S.-Cuban relations have lurched back and forth at stomach-churning velocity. Professor LeoGrande, who has advised Congress on Cuba as a member of its foreign policy staff, will explore the stories behind the headlines. You’ll learn how changes from Republican to Democratic presidents produced radical swings in relations between Washington and Havana, most dramatically between President Barack Obama’s attempt to normalize relations and Donald Trump’s threats to bankrupt or invade the island. ( Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: A Cuban military truck in Havanna in 2006 (Photo by Thomassin Mickaël / Creative Commons).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Exploring the Deep Sea,” a scholarly dive into an enormous and little-understood ecosystem, with Melissa Betters, deep ocean explorer and deep-sea biologist at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-deep-sea .]

If you’re afraid of the deepest, darkest reaches of the ocean, you aren’t alone. For centuries, humans have imagined the ocean’s depths to be inhabited by all manner of monsters, from the Kraken to Godzilla.

But what is the cost of viewing over 70% of our planet with fear and aversion? Who benefits from that?

Come to see the deep sea as far more worthy of fascination than fear with the help of Dr. Melissa Betters, a biologist and marine ecosystem researcher who has made nine trips to the bottom of the ocean and taught at Bryn Mawr College and Temple University.

She’ll take you on a scholarly exploration of various deep-sea ecosystems around the world such as deep coral reefs and boiling-hot hydrothermal vents. We’ll get to know some of the deep ocean’s captivating biodiversity, examining where it lives, what it does, and why it matters to us.

With her help you’ll come to see the deep ocean as a tapestry of different environments, each of which host their own forms of life and present their own suite of ecological challenges.

Importantly, we’ll also look at how the deep ocean is portrayed in both myth and media, considering how our perceptions are skewed by the rhetoric used to describe it and the images used to depict it.
Despite appearing far-removed and out of reach, the deep ocean is still a part of our planet, subject to all the same challenges and human impacts as life on land. The final part of this talk will examine the variety of human impacts affecting the deep ocean and actions we can take to protect Earth’s final frontier. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Magnoteuthis magna, the most common deep-ocean squid, as photographed in Kinlan Canyon off of Rhode Island (NOAA Ocean Exploration photo).

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “The Twister Talk,” on tornadoes and advances in our understanding of them, with Jeffrey Halverson, professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and author of An Introduction to Severe Storms and Hazardous Weather.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-twister-talk .]

Springtime brings tornado outbreaks and devastation across the United States. The good news for those of us who anxiously eye the skies: Tornado science is rapidly evolving and improving, as are the means by which we detect funnel clouds and warn of their approach.

Get up to speed with what’s known about tornadoes with the help of Dr. Jeffery Halverson, a severe storm expert with the Washington Post Capital Weather Gang who previously has given excellent Profs and Pints talks on hurricanes and snowstorms.

He’ll describe how, with the help of research conducted by tornado hunters, meteorologists are using ever more sophisticated computer simulations and datasets to try to “crack the code” when it comes to how and where tornadoes form.

We’ll look at how science teams wielding Portable Doppler Radars on small trucks are learning that tornado wind speeds are much stronger than once presumed. We’ll consider how decades of data are changing how we think about “Tornado Alley,” and we’ll review what’s known about the relationship between tornadoes and climate change.

Professor Halverson will conclude by discussing the technological strides being made in terms of tornado warning and detection, and how tornado scientists are teaming up with social scientists to gain a better understanding of what leaves us vulnerable to natural hazards. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: An F5 tornado over Elie, Manitoba in June 2007 (Photo by Justin Hobson / Wikimedia Commons).

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: "Eugenics Then and Now,” on a dangerous movement in science and its lessons for current research, with Carlo Quintanilla, molecular biologist and health science policy analyst at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/nv-eugenics-then-and-now .]

Global concerns about the return of eugenic thinking were reignited by Chinese scientist He Jiankui’s 2018 announcement of the first gene-edited babies, Lulu and Nana. He was quickly condemned by the scientific community and jailed for illegal medical practice, but he and others around the world continue experiments with goals echoing eugenic ambitions.

As genetic technologies advance at extraordinary speed, society faces a new set of ethical questions about shaping the traits of future generations. Are we entering a new era of eugenics? If so, how should we respond?

Hear such questions tackled by Carlo Quintanilla, who studied rare genetic mutations in human disease as a graduate research scientist and instructor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and now works at the intersection of genomic medicine, science, and society.

Dr. Quintanilla will begin by discussing the origins and history of eugenics, tracing its development in the 19th and 20th centuries as an idea, a scientific movement, and a set of policies. He’ll examine the rise of Social Darwinism in the United Kingdom, forced sterilization programs in the United States, and the atrocities committed by the Third Reich in the name of “racial hygiene.”

From there, he’ll explore how our ability to shape human health and heredity have been transformed by modern reproductive and genetic technologies such as in vitro fertilization, prenatal and embryo screening, and genome editing. You’ll learn how these tools hold enormous promise when it comes to the prevention and cure of rare and debilitating genetic conditions, yet also raise profound questions related to their potential enablement of a new, technologically driven form of eugenics.

Dr. Quintanilla will then delve into the ongoing debate among scientists, bioethicists, and policymakers over what should be classified as eugenics today. He’ll highlight recent controversial uses of genetic and reproductive technologies that are pushing ethical boundaries faster than society can define them, from embryo selection for traits like IQ and height to speculative military interest in genetically enhanced soldiers. These examples raise urgent questions: Where should society draw ethical boundaries? Who gets to decide? And is the term “eugenics” still useful for guiding policy and public debate?

We’ll close by examining the social, political, and regulatory forces that will determine the future, considering whether they will restrain the push toward further genetic control or accelerate it. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: The frontispiece of the 1883 book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, by pioneering eugenicist Francis Galton (Wikimedia Commons / Metropolitan Museum of Art).