Kaapi with Kuriosity is a monthly public lecture series organised by the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS-TIFR), in collaboration with the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium and other educational institutions in Bengaluru.

The aim of the talks in this series is to stimulate the curiosity of the public towards the myriad aspects of science. The setting for these talks will be informal with a lot of scope for open discussions. The scientific background assumed will not be beyond the school level. As such, they are easily accessible to school/college students, families and working professionals interested in science.

Contact: outreach @ icts . res . in

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Past Talks
Mohit Kumar Jolly (Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 17 March 2024
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
Abstract: Despite major advancements in past decades, cancer remains a formidable disease and claims millions of deaths per year. Two key processes underlie the clinical challenges of treating cancer – the ability of cancer cells to metastasize (spread from one organ to another) and to adapt...more
Claudia Bank (Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University of Bern)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 25 February 2024
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
Abstract: Fitness landscapes describe the relationship between genes and their carriers’ long-term reproductive success. The shape of the fitness landscape determines whether evolution is predictable or repeatable, i.e. whether we can forecast the endpoint or the path of evolution. Therefore,...more
Abhay Deshpande (Stony Brook University)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 28 January 2024
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
Abstract: Protons and neutrons are the building blocks the observable universe. However, despite much experimental and theoretical effort over the past century we know surprisingly little about the origin of their intrinsic properties. For example, how do the quarks and gluons — discovered in the...more
Sherine Sonia Cubelio (Centre for Marine Living Resources & Ecology, Kochi)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 10 December 2023
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
Abstract: The Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE), under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, is a national facility undertaking dedicated R&D activities related to marine living resources within the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and beyond. Through extensive ecosystem...more
Reji Philip (Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru)
11:00 am to 12:30 pm Sunday, 19 November 2023
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
Abstract: The inception of sound reproduction technologies can be traced back to more than a century and half. Subsequently, significant advancements have taken place in this field. The era of wax cylinders and phonographs has been supplanted by high-fidelity digital files and top-tier audio...more
Nils Andersson (University of Southampton)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 08 October 2023
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
Abstract: A neutron star is born when a massive star runs out of nuclear fuel and dies in a supernova explosion. The object that emerges when the dust settles – effectively, a zombie star – involves physics at the edge of our understanding (and beyond!). We need to consider many extremes, in terms...more
Rajaram Nityananda (ICTS-TIFR)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 17 September 2023
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
Abstract: A camera, or eye, transfers light from a point on the object to a corresponding point on the image. The best images are made very differently today, combining many measurements, each of which is not a picture at all. MRI and CT in medicine and pictures made by modern radio telescopes are...more
Michel Mitov (French National Centre for Scientific Research)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 13 August 2023
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
Abstract: This lecture will narrate the strange space-time odyssey of a carrot, beginning in 1888 at the German University of Prague in the Czech Republic and completing in 1968 on the ground floor of Rockefeller Center in New York–USA. RCA revealed there a breakthrough in the field of liquid...more
Michael Lacey (Georgia Institute of Technology)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Sunday, 02 July 2023
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
Abstract: John Conway has given us a method to tangle two ropes, with each tangle identified with a rational number. We start with untangled rope. With twists and rotations, one can arrive at any rational number. Remarkably, the tangles can be added, just like rational numbers. All of this will be...more
Ranjini Bandyopadhyay (Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru)
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Saturday, 17 June 2023
Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bengaluru
Abstract: Pierre de Gennes received the Nobel prize in Physics in 1991 for ‘discovering that methods developed for studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers’. Liquid crystals, polymers, foams,...more

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