Past Events

Mirror Lab Symposium: Frontiers in Recent Human Evolution We will describe and discuss projects that explore genetic variants that emerged in the evolution of modern and archaic humans, and how such archaic variants affects humans today. We will also discuss projects that use ancient DNA to reconstruct the early peopling and history of the Japanese Archipelago. We will explore how we can intensify our collaborations in these areas and brainstorm about future research directions. 

Guest seminar hosted by CDQT. Speaker: Prof. Jeroen van den Brink (Institute for Theoretical Solid State Physics, IFW Dresden) Title: Topological surface superconductivity in PtBi2

Workshop on Cognitive Neurorobotics Organized by Jun Tani, Tani Unit, OIST March 5, 13:30—18:00, Seminar room L5D23, Lab 5 Tentative program 13:30-13:40: Introduction, Jun Tani, OIST 13:40-14:40: Collective Intelligence in LLM agents, Takashi Ikegami, Univ. of Tokyo 14:40-15:40: Deep Active Inference for Real-World Robotic Systems, Shingo Murata, Keio Univ. 15:40-16:00: Coffee break 16:00-17:00: A Consideration of Robot Foundation Models as Embodied Intelligence, Tetsuya Ogata, Waseda Univ. 17:00-18:00: Propagation of Mind Through the Mechanism of Superposition, Hiro Iizuka, Hokkaido Univ.  

QG Seminar Speaker: Will Horowitz (University of Cape Town) Title: Hamilton Revisited: The Action Principle for Initial Value Problems

Language: English

Title: In-plane oscillations of a slack catenary using assumed modes. Speaker: Dr. Anindya Chatterjee, Professor, Mechanical Engineering, IIT Kanpur (collaborators: Bidhayak Goswami and Indrasis Chakraborty)

Join Zoom link Target audience: Interns, Students, PostDocs, and those who are interested in the same research field. Language: English

OIST Workshop | Website | Main organizer: Tomomi Kiyomitsu (Cell Division Dynamics Unit) | OIST members are welcome to attend all scientific sessions. Meals are closed sessions for registered participants only.

The Graduation Ceremony to award degrees to those who graduated in the period May 2025 to January 2026. The ceremony will take place at the OIST Auditorium on Friday, February 27, 2026.

Moderated by Lauren Ha, Associate Vice President for Technology Development and Innovation, the conversation will explore Kris’s career, current initiatives, and his perspective on the global tech industry. After a 20‑minute interview, the floor will open for audience questions. The event will be followed by a special OIST Teatime in Center Court.

TSVP Talk Language: English (no interpretation). Target audience: General audience / everyone at OIST and beyond. Freely accessible to all OIST members and guests without registration (also via Zoom).

Speaker: Cindy Poo,  a senior scientist with the Allen Institute for Neural Dynamics and an Affiliate Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington

TSVP Talk Language: English (no interpretation). Target audience: General audience / everyone at OIST and beyond. Freely accessible to all OIST members and guests without registration (also via Zoom).

Speaker: Dr. Samuël Borza, University of Vienna Title: Ollivier-Ricci curvature in non-smooth Lorentzian geometry and causal set theory Abstract: This talk will explore some aspects of non-smooth Lorentzian geometry, the mathematical framework underlying Einstein’s general relativity, which is currently being developed. Just as metric length spaces provide a synthetic generalisation of smooth Riemannian manifolds, the time-separation function plays the role of a “distance” in Lorentzian geometry. The need for a non-smooth Lorentzian framework appeared early on, most famously with Penrose’s singularity theorems. After introducing the basic concepts and some initial results in this synthetic setting, we will turn to causal set theory, a radical approach to quantum gravity in which spacetime is modelled as a discrete causal graph. I will formulate a new notion of curvature, inspired by Ollivier-Ricci curvature on metric graphs, using optimal transport between causal diamonds. We will see that it does recover Ricci curvature on smooth Lorentzian manifolds, and numerical examples will be presented.

Title: Rocks instead of clocks: Bayesian modelling of the fossil record enlightens the diversification and extinction of Hemiptera in deep time Abstract: Untangling the patterns and drivers behind the diversification and extinction of highly diversified lineages remains a challenge in evolutionary biology. While insect diversification has been widely studied through the “Big Four” insect orders (Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, and Diptera), the fifth most diverse order, Hemiptera, has often been overlooked. Hemiptera exhibit a rich fossil record and are highly diverse in present-day ecosystems, with many lineages closely associated with their host plants, making them a crucial group for studying how past ecological shifts—such as mass extinctions and floral turnovers—have influenced insect diversification. This study leverages birth-death models in a Bayesian framework and the fossil record of Hemiptera to estimate their past diversity dynamics. Our results reveal that global changes in flora over time significantly shaped the evolutionary trajectories of Hemiptera. Two major faunal turnovers particularly influenced Hemiptera diversification: (i) the aftermath of the Permo-Triassic mass extinction and (ii) the Angiosperm Terrestrial Revolution. Our analyses suggest that diversification of Hemiptera clades was driven by floristic shifts combined with competitive pressures from overlapping ecological niches. Leveraging the extensive fossil record of Hemiptera allowed us to refine our understanding of diversification patterns across major hemipteran lineages. We also the recently developed Bayesian Brownian Bridge model, which estimates the timing of lineage origin and extinction through fossil-based Bayesian modelling, to provide a temporal framework for the rise and fall of 310 major hemipteran lineages.

旅費相談会を開催いたします。 February 24th  (Tue) @A151 Center Bldg. 15:00-16:00

Prof. Mircea Dincă, Department of Chemistry, Princeton University  

TSVP Talk Language: English (no interpretation). Target audience: General audience / everyone at OIST and beyond. Freely accessible to all OIST members and guests without registration (also via Zoom).

Speaker: Dr Lewis Picard, Caltech, USA Title: Entanglement-assisted readout and cooling of neutral atom qubits in an optical tweezer array

A workshop on developing collaboration across sectors to work effectively with community to advance research and activities addressing social challenges.  Speaker: Takuji Hiroishi, CEO,  Empublic Inc., Japanese with English translation Register