Sid Hastings
High school students Isabella Kanak (left) and David Weinstein share a few laughs about the dark side of the universe with Edward W. “Rocky” Kolb, PhD, a cosmologist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and a professor at the University of Chicago. The three were chatting March 31 after Kolb delivered the 2011 McDonnell Distinguished Lecture in Whitaker Hall on the Danforth Campus. Kolb spoke about the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, which account for most of the mass and the energy in the universe, but about which very little is known. Kanak and Weinstein are members of the Junior Academy of Science, the youth group associated with the St. Louis Academy of Science, which annually sends a delegation to the McDonnell lecture. The annual lecture is sponsored by the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.