Olin Library/NASA-JPL

The late Cornell astronomer Carl Sagan with a model of the Viking lander in 1980. The contemporary update of his ‘Cosmos’ TV series is being screened Monday nights in the Plant Science Building.

Student films

The Department of Performing and Media Arts will present student-produced and -directed films, May 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Cornell Cinema in Willard Straight Theatre. Free and open to the public.

Filmmakers include Lisa Malloy ’16, Elizabeth Brooks ’14, Daniel Torres ’14, Ryan Larkin ’14, Jesse Turk ’14 and graduate students Emily Hong and Mariangela Jordan, who created films as their final projects in assistant professor J.P. Sniadecki’s Introduction to 16mm and Digital Filmmaking and Advanced Film Production classes.

“The first set of screenings are all by first-time documentarians, each filmed with a personal and cinematic approach to depict experiences, communities and places beyond conventional narrative and technique,” Sniadecki said. The advanced students’ projects ranged “from short narrative videos to 16mm film art to poetic ethnographic explorations,” he said.

Life on the lost continent

Canadian paleontologist Scott Sampson will address ideas and controversies surrounding the isolation of North American prehistoric species in a lecture, “Dinosaurs of the Lost Continent,” May 17 at 3 p.m. at the Museum of the Earth, 1259 Trumansburg Road (Route 96).

About 96 million years ago, exceptionally high sea levels flooded central North America, resulting in a shallow, narrow seaway from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico – isolating life forms on eastern and western landmasses for the next 26 million years. The western landmass, Laramidia, flourished with dinosaurs and other Cretaceous life forms.

Sampson is host of the PBS children’s series “Dinosaur Train” and the author of “Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life.” He serves as vice president of research and collections and chief curator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

His talk is for scientists and adult science enthusiasts. Sampson also gives interactive presentations for children, March 17 from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. at the museum and May 18, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. at Cayuga Nature Center. All events are included with regular admission.

Mayfest returns

The Department of Music presents its seventh annual springtime chamber music festival, Mayfest, May 17-21, with six intimate concerts in Barnes Hall Auditorium and at the Carriage House Café, 305 Stewart Ave.

Mayfest 2014 will feature the East Coast premiere of Steven Stucky’s Violin Sonata and a string sextet on “Souvenir de Florence” by Tchaikovsky; French harpist Florence Sitruk; and English soprano Ruth Holton, performing with Malcolm Bilson.

Six string players also return: violinists Mikhail Kopelman and Xiao-Dong Wang, violists Cynthia Phelps and Guy Ben-Ziony and cellists Steven Doane and Zvi Plesser. Festival artistic directors are pianists Xak Bjerken and Miri Yampolsky.

Admission at each concert is  $20 adults, $10 students; under age 18 free with an accompanying adult. Festival passes ($100) include one ticket for each of the six concerts. Tickets are available online and at the door.

Go for baroque

Educator Carol Hockett will highlight objects in the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art’s newly reinstalled second-floor galleries in “Art History in a Nutshell: Baroque Art,” Sunday, May 18, 2-3:30 p.m. The event begins with a brief talk in the wing lecture room. Free and open to the public; meet in the museum’s Appel Lobby.

The event is being held on the Association of Art Museum Directors’ (AAMD) Art Museum Day, coinciding with International Museum Day. Last year, the Johnson Museum and nearly 170 other AAMD member museums across North America participated in Art Museum Day.

Art Museum Day emphasizes the essential role art museums play in their communities, highlights the value of the visual arts in society, and provides new opportunities for audiences to participate in programs offered by 240 AAMD member museums in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Visitors are invited to share their Art Museum Day experiences via social media with the hashtag #ArtMuseumDay.

Big-screen ‘Cosmos’

Cornell has been celebrating the 21st-century remake of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” this semester, with weekly Monday night screenings on the big screen in 233 Plant Science, presented by Science Cabaret.

The next two screenings, free and open to the public, are May 19 and June 2, 8-9:15 p.m., with a guest speaker followed by the television series – which, like the original, appeals to science enthusiasts and general audiences.

Guests provide commentary, insights and anecdotes in their talks, and participate in an interview or Q-and-A after each episode. Speakers at the screenings have included Cornell graduate students, postdocs and an undergraduate, from such fields as astronomy, microbiology and math.

The series finale will be part of a special event June 9 at a location TBA, said event coordinator and host Jay Worley, a postdoctoral researcher at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research.

Fertile discussion

Spring has sprung, and Cornell researchers will discuss the biology of reproduction and aspects of fertility and fertilization in the next Science Cabaret event, “A Spring Sex Talk,”May 20, 7-8:30 p.m. at Lot 10 Bar and Lounge, 106 S. Cayuga St., Ithaca. Free and open to the public.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, between 2006 and 2010, 12 percent of U.S. couples that were intending to get pregnant had problems doing so or were not able to conceive at all. On the other hand, almost half of all pregnancies are unintended. Research on male and female reproductive biology is crucial to provide better services to couples desiring to have children, to create better contraceptives and prevent STDs.

Marla E. Lujan, assistant professor of human nutrition in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, will discuss the “critical fat” hypothesis and how the obesity epidemic is prompting different thinking about body fat and its effects on fertility in women. Susan S. Suarez, professor of biomedical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, will focus on how sperm move through the reproductive tract.

The program is co-sponsored by the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research.

Wellness celebration

The Cornell University Wellness Program is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a gathering May 21, 11 a.m.-noon, in G10 Biotechnology Building. The first 300 to attend will receive a goodie bag with a healthy snack.

The event features the Wellness Program’s celebration video with Cornell employees and speakers Mary Opperman, vice president for human resources and safety services, and Beth McKinney, Wellness Program director.

Winners of the 2014 No Excuses eight-week weight loss contest will also be announced.

The event is free and open to the Cornell community and will be live streamed on wellness.edu.