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Announcing the most beastly event of the year . . . • Calling all science geeks, nature freaks , and rogue geniuses • Your stuffed squirrel got game? Got a beaver in your brownstone? Then enter it to win in the Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest! • Show off your beloved moose head, jarred sea cucumber, snake skeleton , raven remains, and other specimens. Compete for prizes and glory! • Eligible for prizes: --Taxidermy (bought, found, or homemade) --Biological oddities (articulated skeletons, skulls—and beyond) • The contest will be judged by our panel of savage taxidermy enthusiasts , including Robert Marbury, co-founder of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists , and Dorian Devins, WFMU DJ and Secret Science Club co-curator • Don’t miss the feral taxidermy talk by beast mistress Melissa Milgrom , author of the forth-coming book, Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy • Plus! --Groove to taxidermy-inspired tunes and video --Imbibe ferocious specialty drinks! --Meet an...

According to conventional wisdom, 40 is the new 30. But how about 80 being the new 20? The search for a proverbial fountain of youth has been the subject of legend for centuries, but today the quest for a medical equivalent is the focus of intense research. Molecular biologist Leonard Guarente pioneered the anti-aging field at MIT with his discovery of genes that control longevity. When activated, these longevity genes cause the body to conserve resources, and they’ve been found to “dramatically boost the life span of yeast, worms , mice and potentially humans.” Specifically, Dr. Guarente studies proteins called sirtuins , which regulate longevity genes and show great promise for developing therapies that slow aging. Dr. Guarente asks: --Could future drugs decelerate the aging process and allow us to stay young longer? --Could diseases of aging—cancer, Alzheimer’s, type-2 diabetes, and others—be prevented by prospective anti-aging medications? --Could we extend not only our life s...

Check out these drawings from the Sketchy Science Contest at the October 20 Secret Science Club . . . robots, future evolution, pair bonding, UFOs, and beer . . .

SPECIAL EVENT: Techno noir. Animation. Documentary. Music Video. Join us for a selection of short films from the Imagine Science Film Festival. The brainchild of SSC resident scientist/filmmaker, Alexis Gambis, the Imagine Science Film Festival attracted over 300 international entries this year. We’ll be showing some of the quirkiest and best-est entries at the Bell House, featuring subjects like madness & molecules, time travel & trans-species friendships , and the dwarf planet Pluto . Check out the following films from the USA, UK, Israel, France, Canada, and the Kuiper Belt: Naming Pluto, Animated Minds, The Moth and the Firefly, PCR Rap, Lab Waste, The Exquisite Corpse of Science, A Micrometer from Here, Natural Selection , and more! Alexis Gambis, the festival's founder and artistic director, will be on-hand to answer your brainiest questions and oversee the mixing of the cocktails. Before & After --Groove to tunes from our mixology lab --Participate in our “S...

The term “cosmic ballet” has just taken on a whole new meaning. Apparently outer space has a soundtrack. It’s not Tchaikovsky, but … when two spinning black holes orbit each other, engaging in an invisible pas de deux , they create gravitational waves—essentially ripples in the fabric of space-time —that cause the cosmos to “ring like a drum.” Astrophysicist Janna Levin is in hot pursuit of these orbiting drumbeats —and the information they carry about the distant universe. Predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity, gravitational waves have never been directly detected. But the interstellar search is on, and two far-reaching space-science experiments— LIGO and LISA —now seek to capture and “hear” the beatbox of the universe for the first time. A professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University, Janna Levin is the author of two award-winning books A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines and How the Universe Got Its Spots , as well as dozens of scienti...