Wednesday, 4/15/2015
Doors at 7 pm, show at 8
Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St @Van Ness
$8, all ages
Tickets available here!
First we took away Brontosaurus (and no, dear readers, it is not back. Yet.), and now we’re going to tell you that dinosaurs probably don’t even look the way you think they do. That will go over well, we’re sure. Then we’ll school you on schooling (fishes) and finally give you the buzz on bees! So come enjoy lectures with drinks, music, grilled cheese, librarians, and the company of your fellow nerds. Be(e) there and be(e) square!
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“Extreme Dinosaur Makeover” by Brian Engh
Most of the dinosaurs you see in media are highly speculative and their accuracy and realism is often fiercely debated. Using a newly discovered species of dinosaur called Aquilops americanus as an example, I’ll take you through the painstaking process of reconstructing dinosaurs as accurately as possible, starting from scrappy bone to a complete life restoration of the animal behaving in its environment.
Brian is an artist, animator, filmmaker and monsterologist. His depictions of prehistoric creatures have been published in scientific papers and blogs, and soon to be in several museum exhibits, an interpretive trail in Moab Utah, and in a book on Australia’s ancient inland sea published by the Melbourne Museum.
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“Socializing Through a Fisheye Lens” by Ray Engeszer
Social systems and interactions are central to our lives as human beings, and yet they just won’t let us perform controlled experiments on people! Not even children! Ridiculous, I know. So I tried to use a small fish as a model system to answer questions about how social groups form.
Ray Engeszer knows quite a bit about schooling beyond fish, having a bachelors in Integrative Biology from U.C. Berkeley and a doctorate in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior from U.T. Austin, and is now a high school teacher.
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“Sex, Wax, and Pollen: The Honeybee Super-Organism” by Ryan Smith
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Why bees are a (hu)man’s best friend
Bees are highly industrious dance fanatics who have a knack for mathematics and are obsessed with pleasing their queen. These goddesses of the garden have helped humans for thousands of years to make candles, get drunk, sweeten our lives, and most importantly: put food on our plates. But as global populations of honeybees are declining, we are scrambling to find out the roots of the imbalance. We will fly into the hive to understand the big story of this tiny bug and how we can keep the sweetness flowing. Come find out what honeybees mean when they dance and what the world looks like in bee-vision!
Dr. Ryan Smith is a laser physicist, musician, seasoned beekeeper, and physics professor at Cal State East Bay. While his bee-keeping interests began in the Southeastern U.S., he is now an advocate on the sweet west coast.
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With: Alpha Bravo, who’ll be spinning tunes specially selected to match the presenters’ themes. Follow the setlist on Twitter @djalphabravo.
Sammies available for purchase from Grilled Cheese Guy.
Plus: The librarians will be here! The librarians will be here! SFPL’s finest will dole out library cards, reading lists, and the hottest branch gossip.