Wednesday, December 2, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Biologist & Animal Behavior Specialist Simon Garnier at the Bell House, FREE!

What is intelligence? Good question . . . Safely encased in our human skulls, our 85 billion neurons gather information, form thoughts, and dictate our actions. But is that the only kind of smarts? Biologist Simon Garnier studies animals that use a more external operating system and exhibit highly coordinated group behavior—or collective intelligence. Think army ants, schools of fish, flocks of birds, the Borg (gulp).

Director of the Swarm Lab and professor of biology at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Simon Garnier researches ant-mimicking robot swarms, bridge-building army ants, and socially networked slime molds to learn how intelligent collective behaviors and decision-making emerge in groups of social animals. He also considers the question of self-organization in nature—in everything from cells to human crowds. Simon Garnier’s work has been widely covered in the media, and he has been a featured scientist on Science Friday, the Guardian technology video series, National Geographic, Scientific American, and Mashable.

Before & After

--Try our hive-minded cocktail of the night, the Perfect Swarm

--Wiggle to grooves that wriggle

--Stick around for the scintillating Q&A

This crowd-sourced edition of the Secret Science Club meets Wednesday, December 2, 8 pm @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave; R to 9th Street.

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

No cover. Just bring your smart self!

Smashing! Monday, November 23, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Particle Physicist Kyle Cranmer @ the Bell House, FREE!

Particle physicist Kyle Cranmer beams into the Bell House!

Take a spin through the science at the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator with physicist Kyle Cranmer—from the discovery of the elusive Higgs boson (one of the fundamental particles that make up the Universe) to the ongoing search for dark matter. After a two-year break, the atom-smashing Large Hadron Collider is now back for Season 2—running at nearly double its previous energy, hurling 600 million protons together every second, and reaping juicy, cosmos-hacking data.

Just back from LHC headquarters in Geneva, Kyle Cranmer asks:

--What is the process that LHC researchers use to search for new particles and new physics?

--What exactly is the Higgs boson? How is it challenging our understanding of the Universe and fundamental laws of nature?

--What about dark matter—the invisible stuff calculated to make up 27 percent of the Universe?

--What are physicists looking for next? What mysteries remain?

Kyle Cranmer is a professor at NYU's Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics and NYU's Center for Data Science. He is part of the team at the Large Hadron Collider that first detected the Higgs boson—the subatomic particle thought to be responsible for the existence of mass in the Universe. He is the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the National Science Foundation Career Award. His research was featured in the award-winning documentary Particle Fever, and he has been a featured scientist on StarTalk Live with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Before & After

--Groove to high-energy tunes

--Stick around for the quantum Q&A

--Try our quarky cocktail of the night, the Atom Smasher

This subatomic edition of the Secret Science Club meets Monday, November 23 @ The Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd aves) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave, R to 9th St.

Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. Just bring your smart self!

Kick it into warp drive! Tuesday, October 27, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Astrophysicist Jason Kalirai @ Symphony Space

Grab your space boots! Secret Science Club is rocketing to Symphony Space in Manhattan for a special event...

Tuesday, October 27, 8pm, Secret Science Club (North) presents Astrophysicist Jason Kalirai @ Symphony Space, $20 (Shh… use code SECRET15 to get $15 tickets.)

It’s 100 years since Einstein presented his General Theory of Relativity—changing forever how we think about space and time—and ushering in discoveries beyond even Einstein’s wildest imagination. Blast off with astrophysicist Jason Kalirai to explore where Einstein’s theory has led since 1915—from supermassive black holes to the evolution of the Universe itself.

Astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute and Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s next flagship observatory, Jason Kalirai takes us on a stunning visual tour of the cosmos.  

Don't miss a nanosecond of this out-of-this-world talk!

Before & After: Countdown to launch with cosmic cocktails from our Space Station bar and groove to interstellar tunes!

Snag tickets for $15 here with code SECRET15, by phone at 212.864.5400, or in person at the box office. 

This special edition of Secret Science Club (North) meets Tuesday, October 27, 8pm @ Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway @ 95th St in Manhattan. Subway: 1, 2, or 3 to 96th Street. 

Doors open at 7:30pm. This is an all-ages event!

Tuesday, October 13, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Cognitive Philosopher & Author Alva Noë at the Bell House, FREE!

Tech + Art + Brains = ? 
Secret Science Club presents Cognitive Philosopher Alva Noë on Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature

Chimps and a few other animals can use simple tools. When given a brush, elephants and even pigs have been known to paint on occasion. But only humans use tools as if they were born with them, and only humans are obsessed with making and experiencing art—from Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa to Banksy’s wall rats, from Shakespeare's Macbeth to HBO's Game of Thrones. In his new book, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature, cognitive philosopher Alva Noë asks: What is art? Why do we make it? Why does it matter to us? What does it tell us about human nature, biology, the brain, and consciousness?

Alva Noë is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and member of the Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences. He writes for NPR’s 13.7 Cosmos & Culture blog, and his previous books include Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness and Action in Perception.

Before & After

--Sway to pleasure-inducing neuro-grooves

--Bibo ergo sum! Sip our tricky cocktail of the night, the Logical Fallacy.

--Snag a signed copy of Alva Noë’s provocative new book, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature

--Stick around for the singular, scintillating Q&A

This edition of the Secret Science Club meets Tuesday, October 13, 8PM @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave, R to 9th St.

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

No cover. Just bring your smart self! 

Photo of Alva Noë: Serena Campanini/AGF/Writer Pictures

Tuesday, September 22, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Primatologist Patricia Chapple Wright @ the Bell House, FREE!

Go wild at the next Secret Science Club with primatologist and explorer Patricia Chapple Wright...

Madagascar is a strange place. It’s sometimes called the 8th continent due to its unique evolution and physical isolation. Ninety percent of its wildlife is found nowhere else, and its lemurs are Earth’s most diverse group of primates. With no monkeys to compete with, Madagascar's lemurs evolved into over 100 species, from the 3.5-inch Berthe’s mouse lemur (the smallest primate in the world) to the now-extinct giant sloth lemur (which weighed as much as a gorilla).

When primatologist Patricia Chapple Wright first visited Madagascar in the 1980s, she discovered the golden bamboo lemur, so called because of the golden fur on its head and belly and a habit of eating cyanide-laced bamboo shoots that would kill any other primate. At that time, the lemur's rain forest habitat was on the verge of being chopped down. To save the lemurs, Dr. Wright lobbied the Malagasy government and local villagers—as well as conservationists around the world. Her efforts led to the creation of Ranomafana National Park, where she's been studying the social and family behaviors of wild lemurs for three decades, and advocating for the preservation of Madagascar’s endangered wildlife.

Winner of the MacArthur “Genius Grant” and the 2014 Indianapolis Prize for her extraordinary contributions to wildlife conservation, Dr. Wright is one of the world’s foremost experts on lemurs, professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University, and founder of Centre ValBio Research Station in Madagascar. She is the author of over 150 scientific papers, as well as the books High Moon Over the Amazon: My Quest to Understand the Monkeys of the Night and For the Love of Lemurs: My Life in the Wilds of Madagascar. She has organized and led over 40 expeditions to study the world’s primates. She and her field research have been featured on film in Michael Apted’s Me and Isaac Newton and the 3-D IMAX movie, Island of Lemurs.

Before & After

--Try our wild cocktail of the night, the Nocturnal Prowler

--Swing by your tail to almost-human grooves

--Stick around for the eye-popping Q&A

This lemur-tastic edition of the Secret Science Club meets Tuesday, September 22, 8 pm @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave; R to 9th St.

Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. Just bring your smart self.

Tuesday, August 18, 8PM, Secret Science Club & the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation present the "2015 Lasker Public Lecture in Honor of Al Sommer" with Neuroscientist Gregory Petsko at the Bell House, FREE!

WARNING... the year is 2050... your brain is undergoing malfunction... memory evacuation will begin in 5...4...3...  memory evacuation now in progress.  No new memories can be stored. 

Sounds like a bad sci-fi plot? You may as well quit worrying about the Zombie Apocalypse. What's really coming is a massive collision between the human brain and America's changing demographics. As the population ages, we're facing a tsunami of neurodegenerative diseases, and the incidence of Alzheimer's is projected to double. Yikes. 

To prepare for (and possibly change) this brain-boggling future, neuroscientist Gregory Petsko is researching the mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative conditions and working to develop new drugs. He asks: What's the connection between Alzheimer's, ALS and Parkinson's? What treatments are being investigated? Why do some very elderly people NOT get Alzheimer's? Are there scientifically proven ways of improving and protecting our cognitive health? 

The Mahon professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College and director of the Appel Alzheimer's Disease Research Institute, Gregory Petsko writes frequently about science and culture, and has been a featured scientist at TED and TEDMED, and on PBS's NOVA. 

Before & After
--Sample our wet-wired cocktail of the night, the Memory Palace 
--Groove to synapse-stimulating tunes
--Stick around for the scintillating Q&A

This edition of the Secret Science Club is sponsored by the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. The Foundation works to foster the prevention and treatment of disease and disabilities by honoring excellence in basic and clinical science, educating the public, and advocating for support of medical research. Yeah! 

The next Secret Science Club meets Tuesday, August 18, 8pm @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F/G to 4th Ave, R to 9th St.  

Doors open at 7:30 pm.  Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. Just bring your smart self!

Beyond Pluto? Tuesday, July 14, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Planet Hunter Jeremy Kasdin @ the Bell House, FREE!

Secret Science Club rockets into the Milky Way with Planet Hunter Jeremy Kasdin

As NASA’s New Horizon’s mission makes its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, Secret Science Club asks: What’s next? What planets and dwarf planets exist beyond our solar system? Are any like Earth?

“The Universe is teeming with planets,” says Princeton’s Jeremy Kasdin. But astronomers have only been able to detect potentially Earth-like planets through indirect observation. Kasdin and his NASA colleagues want to change that with a revolutionary space-based telescope and starshade. With this new observatory, scientists could get snapshots of some of the billions of exoplanets located in the habitable zones of other solar systems. They could also discover which exoplanets have biomarkers—qualities that are friendly to life, such as water, oxygen, and atmospheres.

What’s out there? Jeremy Kasdin is principal investigator for the “Exo-Starshade” project, part of NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program, professor of aerospace engineering at Princeton University, and head of Princeton’s High Contrast Imaging Laboratory. He researches space optics, spacecraft design and control, and astrodynamics.

Before & After

--Countdown to launch with our Plutopalooza cocktail (it will knock you into orbit)

--Groove to tunes from alien worlds and dimensions

--Stick around for the interplanetary Q&A

This out-of-this-world edition of the Secret Science Club meets Tuesday, July 14, 8pm @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave, R to 9th St.

Doors open at 7:30 pm.  Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. Just bring your smart self!

Photo of Jeremy Kasdin: Peter Murphy; Image of Exo-Starshade: NASA/JPL 

Tuesday, June 2, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Physicist and Author Leonard Mlodinow @ the Bell House, FREE!

Secret Science Club presents Theoretical Physicist, Best-Selling Author, and Star Trek writer Leonard Mlodinow on The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos

Leonard Mlodinow takes a spin through the history of science and human progress—from the invention of stone tools to theories of quantum physics. It’s going to be epic!

Here’s what Stephen Hawking has to say about this: “Mlodinow never fails to make science both accessible and entertaining.” Well said, Dr. Hawking!

Leonard Mlodinow received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of California, Berkeley, was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute, and was on the faculty of the California Institute of Technology. His previous books include Subliminal (winner of the PEN/E. O. Wilson Award), The Grand Design (with Stephen Hawking), The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, War of the Worldviews (with Deepak Chopra) and Feynman’s Rainbow. Did we mention that he wrote for MacGyver and Star Trek: The Next Generation?

Before & After

--Groove to out-of-this-world tunes

--Sip our improbable cocktail of the night, the Quantum Theory

--Snag a signed copy of Leonard Mlodinow’s epic new book, The Upright Thinkers

--Stick around for the cosmic Q&A

This edition of the Secret Science Club meets Tuesday, June 2, 8PM @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave, R to 9th St.

Doors open at 7:30 pm.  Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. Just bring your smart self! 

 

Tuesday, May 19, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Computational Geneticist Joe Pickrell @ the Bell House, FREE!

Bones, artifacts, cave paintings, and prehistoric tools are the clues traditionally used to learn about our earliest human ancestors. But scientists are discovering that human history is also written in the subtle variations of our genetic code.

Geneticist Joe Pickrell compares and contrasts the DNA of living humans and those who are looooong dead to learn about history, evolution, and human health. He asks:

--How are new studies of ancient DNA rewriting assumptions about human history?

 --What effects did the shift from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a life of farming and settlement have on the human genome?

 --How have recent technological advances allowed geneticists to accomplish feats that were once considered science fiction? Where is genetics taking us?

A computational geneticist at the New York Genome Center and contributor to "Genomes Unzipped," Joe Pickrell and his research have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New Scientist, and Nature.

Before & After
--It’s ba-a-a-a-ck… Sip our cocktail of the night, the Double… Make That a Triple Helix

--Shimmy to ever-evolving grooves
--Survival of the most curious! Stick around for the highly adaptive Q&A

This Mendelian edition of the Secret Science Club meets Tuesday, May 19, 8pm @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave, R to 9th St.

Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. Just bring your smart self! 

Tuesday, April 14, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Visual Neuroscientist Susana Martinez-Conde @ the Bell House, FREE!

Visual neuroscientist, author, and Scientific American Mind blogger Susana Martinez-Conde talks about perception, deception, and illusion.

Susana Martinez-Conde is director of the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience at SUNY Downstate, blogger for the Illusion Chasers column at Scientific American Mind, co-author of the best-selling book Sleights of Mind, and an organizer of the Best Illusion of the Year Contest. Dr. Martinez-Conde has conducted groundbreaking research on fixational eye movements—our eyes are never still, even when our gaze is fixed on an object—and how these movements affect our vision, perception, and visual processing. She also researches the connections between art and visual science, and neuromagic, the relationship between neurobiology and stage magic. Dr. Martinez-Conde's research has been featured in the New York Times, New Yorker, Nature, and Wired.

Before & After

--Groove to eye-popping tunes

--Stick around for the brain-bending Q&A

--Try our tricky cocktail of the night, the Sleight of Mind

This now-you-see-it-now-you-don't edition of the Secret Science Club meets Tuesday, April 14, 8PM @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave, R to 9th St.

Doors open at 7:30 pm.  Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. Just bring your smart self! 

Art/Illusion from "Rotating Snakes" by Akiyoshi Kitaoka, Department of Psychology, Ritsumeikan University

Tuesday, March 24, Secret Science Club presents Geneticist Christopher Mason on the Urban Microbiome @ the Bell House, FREE!

Teeny-Tiny New Yorkers! Christopher Mason led a team that swabbed New York City's subway stations and trains to uncover the microbes among us. The subway samples (from turnstiles, poles, seats, ticket machines, and more) were sequenced for DNA, revealing 637 known species of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and microscopic animals. There were even some fragments of anthrax and bubonic plague. Eek! No worries though, those anthrax and plague bits weren't live, and most of the city's microscopic citizens are benign or even beneficial. Dr. Mason and his crew are using the data to create baseline PathoMaps of the Big Microbial Apple. The PathoMaps of NYC and other cities could be used for "long-term disease surveillance, bioterrorism threat mitigation, and large-scale health management." 

Get to know your microscopic neighbors and fellow travelers!

Before & After

--Sway to teeny-tiny grooves

--Imbibe our cocktail of the night, the Third Rail

--Stick around for the itty-bitty Q&A

Christopher Mason is assistant professor of physiology & biophysics and computational biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. In 2014, he was named one of Popular Science's Brilliant Ten, and he and his research have recently been featured in

Wired, the New York Times, NPR, and the PBS NewsHour. Next up? Dr. Mason is working on a project for NASA, comparing the DNA and RNA of astronauts (and twin brothers) Scott and Mark Kelly--after Scott spends a year in space.

This edition of the Secret Science Club meets Tuesday, March 24, 8 pm @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave, R to 9th St.

Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. Just bring your smart self!

Tuesday, February 17, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Neuroscientist Carl Schoonover on “How to Look Inside the Brain” @ the Bell House, FREE!

Trip the light fantastic through the human brain with neuroscientist Carl Schoonover

Spectacular data. Exquisite images. Our understanding of the brain depends on the tools invented to look at it. Neuroscientist Carl Schoonover presents a whirlwind survey from the seminal innovations that launched the field of neuroscience to the latest technologies powering research today.

With medieval sketches and intricate drawings by groundbreaking scientists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Santiago Ramón y Cajal, to the architectures revealed by microscopes, electrophysiological instruments, and MRI machines, Dr. Schoonover illuminates the brain’s gorgeous complexities and some of neuroscience’s most brilliant achievements.

Before & After

--Light up your brain with our cocktail of the night, the Golgi Method

--Sway to serotonin-enhanced grooves

--Stick around for the synapse-stimulating Q&A!

Carl Schoonover is a postdoctoral fellow in the Axel laboratory at Columbia University, where he studies the neural circuitry of odor-driven behaviors. He is the author of Portraits of the Mind, has written for the New York Times, Le Figaro, and Scientific American, and he cofounded NeuWrite, a collaborative working group for scientists, writers, and those in between. His radio program on WKCR 89.9FM, focuses on opera, postwar classical music, and their relationship to the brain.

This neuroscience-meets-Mardi Gras edition of the Secret Science Club convenes Tuesday, February 17, 8 pm @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave, R to 9th St. Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. Just bring your smart self!

Photos: Elaine Zhang (Schoonover); M. Hendricks & S. Jesuthasan (Neuron Scaffolding)

Tuesday, January 20, 8PM, Secret Science Club presents Paleoanthropologist Shara Bailey on Human Origins @ the Bell House, FREE!

Dig into 2015! Several different species of humans (hominins) have existed over the last few million years. They're gone now. All that's left is good-old Homo sapiens. But don’t feel too lonely. At the next Secret Science Club, Shara Bailey introduces our long-lost cousins—the Neandertals, Homo floresiensis (the “Hobbit”), Australopithecus, and more.

A physical anthropologist at NYU and the Center for the Study of Human Origins, Shara Bailey delves into the the history of human evolution. She asks:

—What hominin species existed before modern humans—or even co-existed with us?

—How did our human ancestors change as they evolved? How are we different, and where were the earliest Homo sapiens found?

—What can 3-D imaging, confocal microscopy, computer modeling, and genetic analysis of bones and teeth tell us about the lives, childhoods, and diets of our ancient ancestors?

Before & After

—Sip our early-modern cocktail, the Paleo Riot
—Bone up! Stick around for the taxonomically challenged Q&A
—Stomp to Anthropocene grooves

This all-too-human edition of the Secret Science Club meets Tuesday, January 20, 8 pm @ the Bell House, 149 7th St. (between 2nd and 3rd avenues) in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Subway: F or G to 4th Ave, R to 9th St.

Doors open at 7:30 pm. Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. Just bring your smart self!