Biology inspires Architecture graduate student Neri Oxman. Working at the interface of environmental design, science, and art, Oxman is inventing the future of energy-efficient building materials. A Presidential Fellow at MIT's Department of Architecture, Oxman is inventing novel ways to design, fabricate, assemble, and maintain building "skins" so they can respond to load, light, and heat simultaneously. Think buildings that breathe, sweat, and grow. "I believe that, within two decades, buildings will be designed and constructed as biological tissues," says Oxman. Daily hours may vary. Museum of Science visitor info

Photographer Angus Boulton traverses Berlin's complex layers of memory and history to record this visually-exhilarating, transfigured cityscape.

Join your fellow MIT community members in supporting this great MIT holiday tradition. Through the Giving Tree, you can donate gifts to children in the Boston and Cambridge area. Each year, over 500 MIT staff and students provide gifts to over 600 children affiliated with 13 local service agencies. Co-sponsored by the MIT Public Service Center and the Panhellenic Association, the Giving Tree allows participants to choose specific gifts for specific children, making the gift-giving process a more personalized one for all. Here's how to participate: 1.) Stop by the MIT Public Service Center (PSC) in 4-104 between now and December 14 (Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm). 2.) Pick up a gift label for a child (or choose more than one!). 3.) Purchase, wrap and place the gift label on your gift, and return to the PSC in 4-104 NO LATER than 10am on Tuesday, December 15. Questions? Email mitgivingtree@mit.edu.

A photography portfolio of 12 works, originally a project of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, that was purchased for the Student Loan Art Collection. Artists include Tina Barney, Tanyth Berkeley, Sophie Calle, James Casebere, Rineke Dijkstra, Candida Höfer, Nicholas Nixon, Catherine Opie, Laurie Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Massimo Vitali, and James Welling.

Exhibit of works by MIT students David Appleyard, Ta-Chung Ong, Liv Rachelle Gold, Alexander Reben and Kat Wong. Opening Reception: Nov 19, 7:30-9:30pm. The Beachcombovers, featuring MIT's resident punk legend Thomas White (from oldschool Boston punk band Unnatural Axe) will be bringing a tsunami's worth of instrumental surf music to the reception

Installation of winning entry of the Sixth Annual Student Mural Competition. The winning work will be on view for one year.

Working as a collaborative team from 1976 until 1982, Kit Fitzgerald and John Sanborn created dynamic fusions of video art and television tactics. Their kinetic use of editing and post-production effects defined their energetic juxtapositions of visual, musical and conceptual themes. In Ear to the Ground, Fitzgerald and Sanborn collaborated with acclaimed New York musician David Van Tieghem. This 1982 video depicts Tieghem as he uses the city of Manhattan as his musical instrument, playing the surfaces of the sidewalks, buildings and phone booths with his drumsticks to elicit an ingenious range of percussive sounds. On view 24 hours/day.

Corridor poster and library display on Galileo's 1610 book Sidereus Nuncius (known in English as Starry Messenger), which announced what he observed in the skies through use of a telescope - at the time, a recent invention. In May 2009, a limited edition printing of Galileo's landmark publication from the collections of the MIT Libraries accompanied MIT alumnus Mike Massimino into space. Massimino and six other astronauts traveled on the space shuttle Atlantis to conduct final servicing of NASA's Hubble Telescope. Massimino returned the volume to the Libraries at an October 28 event, available for viewing on TechTV.

LSC Fall 2009 Film Series

LSC Fall 2009 Film Series

Tonight's folk dance features live music by the Cambridge Folk Orchestra! Sit-in musicians welcome. Teaching and beginner dances from 8:00 to 9:00 pm. A mixture of all skill levels from 9:00 to 11:00. Our repertoire includes circle and couple dances from Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Greece, and others) and around the world (Israel, France, Russia, Germany, China, Sweden, South Africa, even England and the US). No experience necessary! Beginners are always welcome.

LSC Fall 2009 Film Series

Classical Indian music fundraiser commemorating the 25th anniversary of the world's worst chemical disaster, in Bhopal, India.

Thanksgiving gathering with home made food, beverage and snacks.

Catholic Mass

Africa Kabisa host Julia Goldrosen presents a special on Angolan music, past and present, with special guests Belmiro Mongo, DJ Nando, and Benjamin LeFabvre. From 4pm - 6pm, we will feature and discuss a broad range of music from Angola, with a special emphasis on the historical and political significance of artists involved in the war for Independence in 1975.

(Press release) Composer/violinist/violist Mark Berger, and composer/pianist Ketty Nez joined forces in the spring of 2009 for a series of concerts mixing the new with the established. They will perform MIT Prof. Peter Child's Sonata for Viola and Piano (2000); Berger's Catapult (2006); Nez's transit out (2009, world premiere); Charles Koechlin's Viola Sonata op. 53 (1902-15, published 1923).

(Press release) Debut North American tour of five US cities presents Turan and the Symphony Orchestra, showcasing two facets of Kazakhstan's rich musical culture: the ancient instrumental and vocal folk traditions of its historically nomadic people, and the European tradition of classical music introduced to the country through Russian influence. Under the direction French conductor Christophe Mangou and Kazakh conductor Kanat Omarov, the program begins with the Symphony Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, followed by Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring Kazakh pianist Jania Aubakirova. Kazakh traditional music ensemble Turan was founded in 2008 by a group of students from the Kurmangazy Kazakh National Conservatory. Turan performs on ancient Kazakh instruments, including the lute-like zhetygen, sherter, and dombra (all plucked); the kyl kobyz ("the most ancient bowed instrument on earth"); the flute-like sybyzgy and saz syrnay; together with a host of percussive instruments, mouth harps, and throat singing. The program continues with the world premiere of a Jamilya, a symphonic poem for Turan and soloists with orchestra, by contemporary Kazakh composer Aktoty Raimkulova. The concert concludes with Rossini's William Tell Overture, and Leonard Bernstein's Overture to Candide.

Come learn how to ballroom dance!

Catholic Mass