Hooray for Vacay

Well, I'm jetting out of here today and heading for Texas country. Because of the holiday, science events seem to have been put on hold for a while. I'll leave you with these pretty pictures that won the Olympus Bioscapes competition. Have a great Turkey Day, everyone.

Pleasurable Kingdom

Anyone who has access to a computer has probably received forwards from friends and family that highlight Internet's favorite horse, Patches. I think all of us have witnessed emotion in animals, whether it is a dog's love or a cat's disdain (Sorry, cat lovers - I'm a dog person myself).

Animal emotion goes further than that. They enjoy pleasure, including sex and chemical imbalances from time to time. The "documentary" Animals are Beautiful People has a specific segment on mammals eating fermented fruit for a buzz. They can even have anti-evolutionary motherly instincts.

Tonight, the author of Pleasurable Kingdom will be at the New York Bird Club to talk about human-like animal behaviors and the need to treat animals more ethically. Maybe we won't move to a Patches-based relationship with all of Earth's creatures, but we could definitely move toward a more ethical standard of living.

The Hipster in All of Us

Tonight there are a lot of science-fueled festivities going on around town. Interested in getting your groove on? Then head over to AMNH for their monthly One Step Beyond party. DJs and live bands will be pumping out the beats at the Rose Center. Or maybe you want to tap into the freegan spirit? Check out ScrapCycle, a musical/artsy homage to junk, in Bushwick tonight.

Shout out to the late Michael Crichton

Not much has been happening on the science in NYC front the past couple of days, but I did chance by this article and thought it was cool. Pleistocene Park, anyone?

Science Cafe Tonight

The idea of sipping coffee (or another kind of beverage) and talking about science really appeals to me. Warm drink, good conversation, casual atmosphere. Science cafes are often the epitome of these ideals - they offer up one of their own professors to talk about his or her research with anyone who shows up. Tonight, CUNY will be hosting a science cafe on the Upper West Side. Chat with CUNY professor Kenneth Olden about cancer. Olden will be specifically discussing the causes of cancer, both genetic and environmental.

Tonight's Highlights

Happy Monday! It's that time of the week where I wonder how my weekend got sucked into a black hole. Luckily, there are two promising events tonight that will help keep me grounded:

Saving Darwin
Being from the Bible Belt, it was always really hard to explain my college studies in evolution. I remember one woman with high bangs saying to me, "Can YOU beliEVE that there are some people in this world who believe in evolution? There are SO many miracles in the world!" I have never been able to provide a good answer in defense of my major because I was afraid that I would transform into that stomach-busting creature from Aliens and destroy everyone around me. I suppose that I get a little defensive about evolution when I feel cornered.

Tonight, two people who have been more successful at explaining why evolution is the real deal will be at The Harvard Club. Skeptic founder Michael Shermer and author Karl W. Giberson will be discussing how a person can have faith in God and science at the same time without exploding. Maybe next time I'm in Texas I will have a better time explaining myself and my major.

Drill, Baby, Drill?
Geologists have found a mother lode of natural gas that is scarily close to our city's water supply. Should we drill there just for the heck of it? Tonight at Solar One, NRDC attorney Kate Sinding and conservation guru Joe Levine will be talking about the pros and cons.

Margaret Mead: American Icon

Many people talk about traveling to exotic places and getting to know the locals, but few people actually follow through with it. Margaret Mead, however, was true to her words. Though her academic advisor at Barnard encouraged her to stay and study Native American culture, Mead hopped over to Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Bali and a few more islands in the Pacific. Her primary research focus was the nature vs. nurture question; specifically, she wanted to know if Polynesian gender roles were similar to American gender roles and to determine if adolescent experiences were shared across the Pacific.

During her entire life, Mead spoke about our interdependence in the world and about finding ways to foster cooperation and peace. Perhaps the most famous female scientist to live, she has inspired thousands of women to pursue their dreams. The Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival is a testament to her legacy. It is the longest-running film festival (30+ years) dedicated to showing documentaries from around the world that celebrate different cultures.

To kick off this year's festival, AMNH is hosting a kind of memorial in honor of the renowned anthropologist. Anthropology professor and Mead biographer Nancy Lutkehaus will be there as well as Mead's daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, and granddaughter, Sevanne Kassarjian. They will be sharing their memories about the woman who brought modern psychology to anthropology. Life Magazine photographer Ken Hyman will also be there to show images taken from Mead's illustrious life.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world."
--Margaret Mead

Wednesday Night

Tonight there are events for all kinds of science enthusiasts:

Real Forensics Laboratory
Larry Kobilinski, a professor of forensic science, will be at the 92nd St Y tonight to talk about the differences between NYPD forensics work and TV shows like CSI Miami. Who knew there was a difference? If you have any trouble getting in, tell 'em David Caruso sent you.

American Waters: A Unique Photography Show
Have you ever heard that we know more about the surface of the moon than our own planet's ocean environments? One couple is trying to help us understand what's below the surface. Photographer Alex Kirkbride and producer Hazel Todd spent three years traveling over 100,000 miles to capture underwater areas in every state in the nation. They just released a book of the best photographs from the endeavor, and Kirkbride will be at the Audobon Society tonight to talk about his experience and to show off his pictures.

Screening: The Greening of Southie
And finally, GreenHomeNYC will be hosting a screening at Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO. The movie is The Greening of Southie, which is about the construction of the environmentally-friendly Macallen Building in South Boston.

Fearful Brains in an Anxious World

Tornadoes. Ever since I saw The Wizard of Oz for the first time as an impressionable toddler, I have been irrationally freaked out by tornadoes. There's something in the chaotic and unpredictable motion that makes me hide in the bathtub whenever there's a tornado watch.

Everyone has their fears - whether they are about losing the house or about giant man-eating spiders. Tonight The New York Academy of Sciences is hosting a meeting about how our brains react to fear. NYU professor and researcher Joseph LeDoux will be leading the discussion as well as presenting his research. His band, aptly named The Amygdaloids, will be playing at the reception.

The Birthday Paradox

It's my birthday today (25 is SO last season), which made me start thinking about the age-old Birthday Paradox. The question is, If you are in a room with 30 people, what's the probability that 2 people share the same birthday? I'm sure a lot of reasonable people will assume the chances are pretty low, say 10%. In reality, there is a 70% likelihood that there will be two people in that group of forty that have the same birthday.

How is this mathematically possible? Well, you have to remember that you are looking for the probability that ANY two people have the same birthday, not that two people share a specific birthday. It starts by figuring out the probability that everyone in the room has a different birthday. The first person can have any 365 days of the year. The second person can have any birthday except the first person's birthday - 364 out of 365 days. The third person can have any birthday besides the first two - 363 out of 365 - and so on. When you multiply these ratios together - 365/365 x 364/365 x 363/365 ... you will get the probability of people not having the same birthday. Subtract that number from one and voila! the Birthday Paradox comes to light. When we take out those pesky things like leap year babies and seasonal birth rates, the chance that two people will have the same birthday nears 99% for a group of 60.

Computer nerds have known about this little phenomenon for a while and have used it to decrypt codes. I probably won't become a code breaker anytime this year, but maybe I'll be able to impress my friends... or make money off of bets with them.

Monday Madness!

As I've mentioned before, Monday seems to be THE day for science in the city. Here's a sampling of events happening tonight - check out the calendar for more:

Dolphin Mysteries: Unlocking the Secrets of Communication
In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, dolphins have superior mental capabilities to humans (as well as being way, way cuter). With their amazing ability to create a mental picture from echolocation and their complex communication skills, it's not an unimaginable premise. Tonight, researchers Kathleen Dudzinski and Toni Frohoff will be talking about progress in understanding dophin communication and their new dolphin dictionary at the Explorer's Club.

Cafe Science: Mending a Broken Heart
He won't help you with your relationship issues, but Warren Sherman will be ready to discuss how stem cells seem to patch up just about anything, including heart muscle cells. Columbia University continues its Cafe Science series tonight at PicNic Cafe.

Thirteen Things That Don't Make Sense
Author and physicist Michael Brooks will be at AMNH tonight to promote his new book and discuss unexplained topics like the placebo effect, why we die, dark matter, and life on Mars.

A Perfect Marriage

We depend so much on our sense of sight. But music is something that speaks to all of us; seemingly, it is a kind of universal language. So it's not surprising that we have combined sight and music and have created operas, musicals, and MTV.

The Natural History Museum has joined up with MTV2 and Moby to hypothesize how we actually see music. The result is an amazing soundtrack with David Bowie, Radiohead, Flaming Lips, and others, as well as a swirly, all-encompassing visual landscape.

Now that's music to my eyes.

Post-Election

I've been spending the whole day reading about the election and watching videos of people's reactions. It's a little hard to write today because I am overwhelmed by all of these emotions from this amazing election. As the writer of FiveThirtyEight.com, Sean Quinn, said, "It's a day of happy and exhausted stupor."

I'm probably celebrating tonight (again!) but if you want to celebrate science and probably Obama too, head on over to the Secret Science Club in Brooklyn to hear Tyler Volk talk about carbon and global warming.

Now, back to watching Colin Powell talk about Obama winning...

Election Day Mania

It's a very big day in our history, and with a high voter turnout comes long lines to exercise our right to vote. Luckily, I skipped the lines and mailed in my no-count vote to the voter's office in Dallas, Texas.

The electoral college is kind of like our appendix - we don't really know what it's for, but we keep it anyway. A really good chart in the New York Times shows how much our vote is actually worth. I'm curious to find out if we ever remove this vestigial part of us.

Monday Monday

Happy Monday, everyone! Tonight there are three main events taking place around the city. If you like geobiology, you will be happy with the picks:

Hooked on a Feeling: The Science of Touch
Science in the City is back! This public-aimed organization is a great resource for science people and they are kicking off the new season with the first of five lectures about our senses. Tonight scientist Ranulfo Romo and filmmaker Kun Chang will discuss our sense of touch. I guess it's hard to imagine not having any of our senses, but for me this one would be the biggest. Not being able to feel pain sounds like a great superhero power to have until you get your hand chopped off without realizing it. The event begins at 6:30pm and ends at 9:00pm.

Post-Pleistocene
The Explorer's Club will be hosting a discussion of primal art with Jeff Whetstone. Whetstone has just published a book about post-Civil War cave paintings in Tennessee and Alabama and he will compare those paintings to those from the Ice Age. Deep down, how much have we really changed?

Biogeography of Pantropical Angiosperms
If you are interested in plant evolution, this is the place to be. Andrea Weeks will giving her lecture titled "Historical Biogeography of Pantropical Angiosperms: A Case Study Using 'Terebinthaceae.'" As I said before, it will be a thrill for people interested in exactly that. The talk will start at 6:30pm at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

Tonight

In the 92nd Street Y's Giants of Science series, Irene Pepperberg will be addressing the topic of animal communication. Pepperberg is famous for raising Alex, a grey parrot that knew over a hundred fifty individual words and whose emotional expression forced scientists to rethink their ideas of bird intelligence. She will be talking about her experience training Alex and other parrots, and the future of animal cognition research.