Meet Your Microbiome with Martin Blaser (Free Drinks, Fast Science - December 2015)

In this series, students interview scientists about their work, research, and passions.

Piul Rabbani And Monica Mugnier

Ecologist DanTainow

Professor Stuart Firestein discuss how informed ignorance leads to more important questions, and how meaningful failure drives scientific discovery.

Ignorance & Failure: Why Science is So Successful (Free Drinks, Fast Science - March 2016)

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

In collaboration with Lower Eastside Girls Club
402 E. 8th Street (@ Avenue D), New York City

Marine snails are deadly predators: using specialized venom, they can paralyze animals many times their size. Now, scientists are finding a new use for snail toxin – turning this poison into medicine to treat chronic pain and other ailments of the nervous system.

Join us as Mandë Holford discusses her pioneering work to extract and characterize snail venom, and then use her discoveries as the basis for new drug development. Professor Holford’s work is a unique combination synthetic chemistry with evolutionary biology – for the purpose of creating better medicines for us all.

Mandë Holford is an Associate Professor in Chemistry at CUNY- Hunter College and Graduate Center, with scientific appointments at the American Museum of Natural History and Weill Cornell Medical College. She is a AAAS Science & Technology Fellow, an awardee of NIH grants, an NSF CAREER Award, and the prestigious Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. Dr. Holford has a sustained and active involvement in science education; she is co-founder of KillerSnails.com, a learning games company and RAISEW.org, an NSF project focused on increasing the retention of women in science.

Killer Snails: Turning Venom into Medicine (Free Drinks, Fast Science - April 2016)

Carter Emmart uses astronomy and computational modeling to create scientifically accurate, three-dimensional tours of our universe. As the Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History, Carter Emmart directs their groundbreaking space shows and heads up development of an interactive 3D atlas called The Digital Universe. He coordinates scientists, programmers and artists to produce scientifically accurate yet visually stunning and immersive space experiences in the AMNH’s Hayden Planetarium. Over the last decade, he has directed four shows: Passport to the Universe, The Search for Life: Are we Alone?, Cosmic Collisions and Journey to the Stars. 

Emmart’s interest in space began early, and at ten he was taking astronomy courses in the old Hayden. As a child born into a family of artists, he naturally combined his love of science with his tendency for visualization. His first work was in architectural modeling, soon moving on to do scientific visualization for NASA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, before joining the AMNH. Carter serves as a Board Member for the Lower Eastside Girls Club. 

BioBus & BioBase