Secret Science Club presents Primatologist & Best-selling Author Frans de Waal, MONDAY March 18, 8PM @ the Bell House, FREE!

Secret Science Club presents Primatologist and Best-selling Author Frans de Waal on the Fascinating World of Animal & Human Emotions

With rigorous science and riveting storytelling, Frans de Waal jumps off from his new book, Mama’s Last Hug: Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us About Ourselves.

Drawing on decades of research, Frans de Waal delves into the inner lives of animals, showing that humans are not the only species with the capacity for love, revenge, guilt, hope, pride, and empathy.

Frans de Waal discusses facial expressions, the emotions behind human politics, the role of feelings in survival, as well as “depressed fish, empathetic rats, envious monkeys,” and the chimpanzee Mama, whose dying farewell to her longtime caretaker provided the inspiration for de Waal’s latest book. 

The takeaway is one of continuity between humans and other animals and the many ways in which species are connected via evolution, physiology, and brain chemistry.

Frans de Waal is director of the Living Links Center at Yerkes National Primate Research Center and professor of primate behavior in the department of psychology at Emory University, He is the author of numerous best-selling books, including Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, Our Inner Ape, The Age of Empathy, Bonobos, and Chimpanzee Politics, as well as over 150 scientific papers, and essays in the New York Times, Science, Nature, and Scientific American. 

BEFORE & AFTER

• Hot off the presses! Snag a signed copy of Frans de Waal's new book, Mama’s Last Hug
• Groove to wild tunes & try our cocktail of the night
  
• Stick around for the scintillating Q&A

This edition of the Secret Science Club meets Monday, March 18, 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 to the performance space open at 7:30PM. Please bring ID: 21+. No cover. (We're expecting a big crowd, so consider arriving early. First come, first served!)

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Secret Science Club presents Microbiologist & Ebola Researcher Kartik Chandran, MONDAY, February 25, 8PM @ the Bell House, FREE!

Ebola is one of the most lethal viruses on the planet. Fifty to ninety percent of Ebola patients die once infected, and over 500 have succumbed in the current outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Microbiologist Kartik Chandran knows the Ebola virus well. He compares it to a clever thief that picks molecular locks, breaks into the body’s cells—and then wreaks havoc. And yet… despite Ebola's virulent nature, some untreated patients manage to fight off the infection and survive. Why?

By discovering exactly how Ebola breaks into cells in the first place and working with engineered antibodies from the blood of Ebola survivors, Kartik Chandran and his team are on their way to defeating the deadly virus—and developing a potential cure for all Ebola strains.

At the next Secret Science Club, Dr. Chandran takes on Ebola and other emerging viruses. He asks:

--How do viruses like Ebola take over healthy cells?

--How did Ebola make the jump from wild animal hosts to human populations?

--What molecular mechanisms and experimental therapies are scientists deploying to fight Ebola?

Kartik Chandran is a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Harold and Muriel Block Faculty Scholar in Virology. He has conducted groundbreaking research on the molecular warfare between cells and invading viruses, and works to harness that research to develop antiviral treatments, focusing on filoviruses, such as Ebola virus and Marburg virus, and hantaviruses, such as Sin Nombre virus and Hantaan virus. Dr. Chandran and his research have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Atlantic, and National Geographic, and on BBC news, MSNBC, and Through the Wormhole.

BEFORE & AFTER

--Imbibe our cocktail of the night, the Outbreak of Love (drink in the love—and pass it on!)

--Groove to infectious beats

--Stick around for the scintillating Q&A

This edition of Secret Science Club meets Monday, February 25, 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.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.