Sketchy Science II

Thanks to all the participants in our Sketchy Science contest at the Secret Science Club's Kickstarter party. The challenge was to draw the “Future of Science,” and sketchers envisioned oversexed computers, jellyfish-powered vehicles, scientists wet-wired to their iPads, and scary robot monsters. Congratulations to our winner, Aaron Lampell!

The Secret Science Club presents the Census of Marine Life with Jesse Ausubel, Wednesday, September 14, 8 pm @ the Bell House, FREE!

Step into liquid, and explore strange blue worlds where no one has gone before . . .

Dive beneath the waves at the Secret Science Club with Jesse Ausubel, co-founder of the Census of Marine Life. For an entire decade, 2,700 scientists in 80 countries conducted an unprecedented exploration of the oceans, studying undersea ecosystems from hydrothermal vents to the icy Arctic. Their results reveal an astonishing diversity of life, as well as an ocean biosphere dramatically impacted by humans. Dr. Ausubel shares their amazing findings, among them: 

--More than 1,200 ocean species completely new to science, including the hairy-clawed Yeti Crab living 7,200 feet down in the South Pacific, a Darth Vader-shaped deep-sea jellyfish in the Arctic, and a new genus of “zombie worms” that feed on bones of dead whales

--The “White Shark Café,” a mysterious open-ocean hangout between Baja and Hawaii where these cartilaginous creatures congregate for purposes that remain unknown

--An almost incomprehensibly vast world of microscopic life, including tiny microbes forming ginormous mats on the Pacific seafloor, one of which is the size of Greece

An environmental scientist and recipient of the Peter Benchley Ocean Award for Excellence in Science, Jesse Ausubel is director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, and vice president of programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Following the completion of the Census of Marine Life in 2010, a newly discovered genus and species of deep-sea lobster was named in Dr. Ausubel's honor: Dinochelus ausubeli, which roughly translates as Ausubel's terrifying-clawed creature.

Before & After

--Sway to sea shanties and the murmurs of mermaids

--Stick around for the salty Q&A

--Try our wet and wild cocktail of the night, the Deep-Sea Vent. (It’ll take you down… down…)

This undersea edition of the Secret Science Club meets Wednesday, September 14 @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn, p: 718.643.6510  Subway: F to 4th Ave; R to 9th St; F or G to Smith/9th.

Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID: 21+. Free!

Photos: Jellyfish photo by Kevin Raskoff; Yeti crab by Ifremer/A. Fifis.