Time Domain and Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (16 Apr 2026)

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:30:00 GMT

Time Domain and Multi-Messenger (TDAMM) Astrophysics: An Explosive Example of Community Driven Science Talk by Chris Fryer

NEW: Free child care provided at the STEAM Lab - spaces for up to 15 children, register separately via Google Form.

The Universe is bursting with activity with hundreds of cosmic explosions occurring every second. These explosions provide astronomers a window into the universe, studying everything from the production of compact objects (neutron stars or black holes) to the synthesis of the heavy elements in the Milky Way (including iron, gold and uranium). These explosions are typically produced in extreme environments (densities exceeding nuclear densities where matter could be broken down into their constituent quarks and temperatures 10,000 times that of the core of the sun). As such, these explosions allow astrophysicists to probe fundamental physics in extreme conditions. With new survey telescopes, astronomers expect to discover over 100,000 transients per year. Despite the development of a broad range of ground- and space-based observatories, astronomers are ill-prepared to study even a small fraction of these transients.

To successfully study these objects, astronomers must work together with a broad range of expertise in fluid-dynamics, radiation transport, atomic physics, nuclear physics, and plasma physics that require coupling experimental and modeling expertise. Such efforts require a village, not the typically-funded Principal Investigator led science studies and there is a growing realization that science progress and innovation in this field requires community-led efforts. Here we will discuss how the astronomy community, working with NNSA scientists, are poised to dramatically advance our understanding of time domain astrophysics through broad community-driven research. These advances will provide a window into the Universe we live in and the physics governing it.

$10 admission; free for BSMA members (you can become a member on our Join Us page).

Thursday, April 16, 6:30-8pm at the Bradbury Science Museum. Free childcare available!

Chris Fryer holds a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Arizona (1996) and a degree in mathematics and astronomy from the University of California, Berkeley (1992). He came to LANL permanently in 2000 (he first visited LANL in 1994 as a graduate student) as a computational physicist and is currently the director of the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos. Fryer has contributed deeply to the understanding of supernovae, gamma-ray bursts and binary stellar evolution. At LANL, he studies a broad range of computational physics problems in turbulence, radiation hydrodynamics, nuclear physics and plasma physics. For his work both in astrophysics and the LANL missions, Fryer was made a laboratory fellow as well as a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received the E.O. Lawrence award for his work advancing fusion and plasma sciences (2014), the Marcel Grossmann Award for Relativistic Astrophysics (2024) and the American Physical Society’s Hans Bethe award for nuclear astrophysics (2025).

The Cardiovascular System and its Impact on Human Health (06 May 2026)

Wed, 06 May 2026 06:00:00 GMT

Postponed - new date will be announced soon

The Cardiovascular System and its Impact on Human Health

Talk by Wayne Newhauser, Professor (retired), Louisiana State University

NEW: Free child care provided at the STEAM Lab - spaces for up to 15 children, register separately via Google Form.

Human health depends on good blood circulation because it supplies the body's vital organs with enough oxygen and nutrients needed to operate. When blood flows throughout the body, the lungs, heart and muscles function properly and efficiently, and one feels healthy and physically fit. Blood delivers the oxygen and nutrients each organ needs. In addition, good circulation allows one to avoid or fight off many sicknesses, as the circulating white blood cells in your immune system reach the parts of the body where they are needed. Blood flow also carries away carbon dioxide and other byproducts of metabolism. For all of these reasons, a healthy cardiovascular system is essential to maintaining or restoring good overall health.

Impaired cardiovascular function can cause many types of health problems, ranging from reduced quality of life to death. For example, if the flow of blood to the brain is disrupted (ischemia), it can cause stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, and a myriad of other problems. If a vessel leaks just a bit more than it should, the leakage can cause damage to nearby tissue.

For example, age-related macular degeneration (a leading cause of blindness) occurs when vessels of the eye leak fluid that damages cells in the nearby retina. Generally speaking, poor blood circulation can harm any organ in the body and cause many types of maladies. Hence, the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of these maladies depend on a good understanding of the cardiovascular system. Yet, despite decades of research and many medical advances, cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death, taking about 18 million lives each year worldwide. This suggests there are important aspects of the cardiovascular system we don’t yet understand, which is the focus of Prof. Newhauser's research laboratory.

In this lecture, we will review the healthy cardiovascular system and how it works, as well as what happens when things go wrong. With an eye toward reducing morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular and related diseases, we will explore recent research breakthroughs in high-performance scientific computing that will lead to vastly improved understanding of the human cardiovascular system. One application is the so-called digital twin model, where an individual person obtains a personalized and realistic computational model of their body. This emerging technology offers a pathway to reducing cardiovascular and related diseases where traditional approaches have failed.

$10 admission; free for BSMA members (you can become a member on our Join Us page).

Date TBD. Free childcare available!

-----------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Wayne Newhauser is a board certified and licensed medical physicist. After earning degrees in nuclear engineering and medical physics from the University of Wisconsin, he worked at the German National Standards Laboratory (PTB), Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Newhauser has published more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles, leads federal research grants, and mentors students and post-doctoral fellows. In his spare time, he serves in leadership roles of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine and the American Nuclear Society.

Dr. Newhauser's research team focuses on cancer prevention and cancer survivorship. Specifically, we seek to better understand the risks of treatment-related health problems faced by cancer survivors. The long term goal is to provide an enhanced based of evidence for making clinical decisions (e.g., selection of radiation treatment modality) and health care policy decisions (rational allocation of scarce health care resources). Our recent research has focused on children and young adults, e.g., with tumors of the central nervous system and Hodgkin Disease. We have also studied treatments for cancer of the prostate, liver, lung, and other sites. Our research examines advanced radiotherapies, such as intensity modulated proton and photon therapies, as well as conventional photon therapy. This research is trans-disciplinary, including medical physics, software and nuclear engineering, high performance computing, statistics, cancer prevention and epidemiology, and oncology.

Bradbury Science Museum Association upcoming events

Time Domain and Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (16 Apr 2026)

The Cardiovascular System and its Impact on Human Health (06 May 2026)