Rainfall and fertile soils combine to make the Mississippi Delta one of the most important agricultural areas in the United States. It is also one of the most heavily irrigated regions where steady declines in the alluvial aquifer are occurring in both Mississippi and Arkansas. In coming decades, the soil and water resources of the Delta will only grow in importance. This presentation will provide an overview of water issues in the Delta, the approaches that are being taken to address aquifer overdraft in the region, and explain why this issue is important to all Mississippians.

Biography: Joe Massey is an associate professor (20% teaching, 80% research) in the department of plant and soil sciences at Mississippi State University where he also serves as the program coordinator for MSU's Environment and Sustainability certificate program. His research focuses on increasing irrigation efficiency in rice production and other water-related issues in agriculture. He derives great pleasure in working with students and farmers to address 21st century crop production issues.

With the recent retirement of NASA Space Shuttle fleet, there have been many people have been asking what comes next. Is the end of our manned space program? Will NASA ever be able to field a replacement for the Space Shuttle? Why do we even have a manned space program anyway? Recent media reports and Congressional press releases have been dominated by opinions and rhetoric that have only managed to add to the overall confusion rather than addressing legitimate concerns. The future of NASA hangs in the balance, and most people seem to be unaware of what this means for our future.

In this presentation, we will attempt to shed some light on where we have been, and where we are going. We will take a brief trip down memory lane, reviewing many of the major milestone of the first fifty years of the Space Age. We will look at how our national space exploration efforts have changed over time, and how our thoughts about the future have changed with them. Through this introspection we hope to discover some of the deeper reasons for why we feel the need to explore the unknown. From there, we will take a look at where we stand and what our current capabilities are. This will serve to ground us as we look to the future, and what is likely to come in the years ahead. We hope that this program will help kick off a wider discussion about who we are and what we want to become.

Speakers Bio

Black Rock - A City of Front Porches

A review of the geography, community, structures and opertations of Burning Man

6:00pm Tuesday, August 30, 2011
[Please note the date change from 08/23 to 08/30, due to scheduling conflicts]
Zorba's Greek Tavern

Café Scientifique will meet Tuesday, August 30, at 6:00pm at Zorba’s Greek Tavern in downtown Starkville. Dr. Ronald Cossman will present "Black Rock - A City of Front Porches: A review of the geography, community, structures and operations of Buring Man" The talk focuses on the study of how is it that 50,000 people can live together on a dry lakebed for a week and FUNCTION as a city? One reason is geography. The city is laid out in a semi-circle with streets and boulevards. Every camp faces a street and every participant is there to engage others, in art, music, discussion and learning from each other. Thus, every camp has a “porch” that is designed to draw in and engage residents of this walking and cycling community. Participation is one of the 10 Principles of Burning Man and is core to its senseof community. Dr. Cossman will touch on the art, fire, nudity, fire, music, art cars, fire as art, mutant vehicles and burning of The Man.

Dr. Ronald Cossman is a health and economic geographer by trade. He has also attended Burning Man twice (’08 & ’10), assisting with the Black Rock Census of the residents. When he isn’t pushing for bike lanes, sidewalks and other “radical” notions in Starkville he is seeking out geographic patterns of health and musing on the interaction between “place” and “people”.

For more information contact Nancy Cain at 662-312-8080 or info@greenstarkville.org.

It’s free and open to everyone.

"Bioremediation of Environmental Pollution (including oil)" by Dr. Susan Diehl, Professor of Forest Products, Mississippi State University

6:00pm Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Zorba's Greek Tavern

Dr. Diehl will discuss:

What are bioremediation and phytoremediation?
What is the nature of environmental pollutants?
Why and when does bioremediation work?
Why and when does bioremediation not work?
Could bioremediation work for the Gulf oil spill?

Dr. Susan Diehl is a Professor in the Department of Forest Products. She did her undergraduate work at University of Florida, Masters atUniversity of South Florida and PhD here at MSU in Plant Pathology. She began working at Forest Products in 1993 and was hired to work onbioremediation of wood preservatives in soil and water. She currently still has a few bioremediation projects but mostly is focused on the effects of wood preservatives on the wood decay process (on wood).

For more information contact Ron Palmer at 325-8242 or ron.palmer@greenstarkville.org.

It’s free and open to everyone.

The Café Scientifique will meet Tuesday, August 24, at 6:00pm at Zorba’s Greek Tavern in downtown Starkville.  Lynne Cossman will present "Health Care Reform and Mississippi." 

 

Dr. Cossman will describe aspects of health care reform that will be implemented this year and show how insuring all of our citizens might exacerbate physician shortages.  For people who are curious about what Health Care Reform really means or what's included in the Affordable Care Act, this talk will explain how we might expect access to health care to shift within Mississippi.  Dr. Cossman is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the Mississippi Center for Health Workforce at the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University.

 

It’s free and open to everyone.

 

 Looking forward to seeing you there!

For further information, contact Ron Palmer at 325-8242 or ron.palmer@greenstarkville.org

 

 

 

The Café Scientifique will meet Tuesday, April 27, at 6:00pm upstairs at the State Theatre in downtown Starkville.  John W. O’Hear will present "Excavations and Other Investigations at the Feltus Mound Group in Jefferson County, Mississippi, 1846-2010"