Tallahassee Scientific Society's series starts with 'Sound of the Sea' author

The Tallahassee Scientific Society will kick off the 12th annual Horizons 2023 speaker series at 7 p.m. Feb. 22 with Cynthia Barnett, Gainesville author and environmentalist, who will give a talk on the beauty and wonder of seashells.

She is a familiar face in Tallahassee having spoken at two previous Horizons events and Word of the South in 2022. Barnett is an award-winning environmental journalist who has reported on water and climate change around the world.

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Her book, "The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans," is a natural and cultural history of seashells and the animals that make them — revealing what they have to tell us about nature, our changing oceans, and ourselves. It has been named one of the top science books by NPR’s Science Friday.

Barnett is also author of the water books "Mirage"; "Blue Revolution"; and "Rain: A Natural and Cultural History," which was considered for the National Book Award and a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. She has written for National Geographic magazine, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal the Atlantic, Discover magazine, Salon, Politico, Orion, and many other publications.

Barnett teaches environmental journalism at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where she lives with her family.

The rest of the 2023 Horizons Series will include Matthew Greenhouse who will visit in March to discuss the history and accomplishments of the James Webb Space Telescope Mission. In April, local geologist Thomas M. Scott will go back over 200 million years to discuss our local geology. Closing out the series will be Akito Kawahara from the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, to speak on the evolutionary arms race of butterflies and bats.

The Horizons speaker series was founded by the Tallahassee Scientific Society in 2011 to promote public interest in science and technology. The series features one presentation per month, from February to May. All presentations are held at the Challenger Learning Institute's at 7 p.m. with doors open at 6:30 p.m. For tickets ($25-$50) and more information, go to tallysci.org. Admission is free for high school and college students.

The 2023 Horizons Speaker Series

Feb. 22: Cynthia Barnett

“The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans” by Cynthia Barnett, Gainesville, author and Environmentalist. In the 1950s, the nation burned with a shell-collecting fever only a Florida beach vacation could cure. Traveling from Florida to the Bahamas to the Maldives, West Africa, and beyond, Barnett uncovers the ancient history of shells as global currency, their use as religious and luxury objects, and the rarely appreciated but remarkable creatures that make them.

March 29: Matthew Greenhouse

“The James Webb Space Telescope Mission,” by Matthew Greenhouse, Ph.D, Project Scientist for JWST Laboratory for Observational Cosmology, Goddard Space Flight Center. The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day, 2021, as a successor to the Hubble Telescope. It is the largest space telescope ever constructed and will extend humanities’ high definition view of the universe into the infrared spectrum. Greenhouse will discuss the remarkable history and ongoing accomplishments of the JWST mission.

April 19: Thomas M. Scott

“Florida’s Geology–A Story of Beaches, Lakes, Sinkholes, and More!” by Thomas M. Scott, PhD, PG, Tallahassee, Assistant State Geologist Emeritus, Florida Geological Survey. The State of Florida is the emergent portion of the Florida Platform. The foundation of the Florida Platform is a piece of the African Plate that remained attached to the North American Plate when Pangea broke apart some 200 million years ago. The landscape of Florida was created over millions of years by marine and fluvial deposition and erosion.

May 17: Akito Y. Kawahara

“Evolution and Diversification of Butterflies and Moths: Anti-Bat Ultrasound Jamming, Acoustic Deflection, and Visual Lures,” by Akito Y. Kawahara, Ph.D, Gainesville, Professor and Curator of Lepidoptera, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida. Butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) are one of the major superradiations of insects, comprising nearly 160,000 described extant species. Kawahara will talk about his research on the evolution of butterflies and moths, and how moths have evolved many different defenses, such as ultrasound production to combat bat attack.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee Scientific Society opens lecture series Cynthia Barnett