The fall 2014 Sigma Xi Lecture, “The Mars Science Laboratory Experience,” will be given by David Bish, a co-investigator on the CheMin X-ray diffraction (XRD) instrument on NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity, on November 13 from 3:30–5 p.m. in Life Sciences Building, Room 111. All are welcome. The lecture is hosted by Carlo Segre, Duchossois Leadership Professor of Physics. The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) is a robotic space probe mission that began its journey to Mars in November 2011 and landed the rover Curiosity in Gale Crater the following August. MSL carries 10 instruments on or inside the Curiosity rover, including a variety of cameras and radiation, weather, and chemistry analyzers. The rover also includes a device for analyzing gases in the Mars atmosphere and in soils and rocks (the SAM instrument) and an XRD instrument for detecting the minerals in soils and rocks using CheMin. Bish will talk about what the MLS has been like, what has been discovered, and what remains to be done. Bish is the Haydn Murray Chair of Applied Clay Mineralogy, Department of Geological Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington.