June 7, 2012

Think bigger! Secret Science Club presents “A Whale of a Night” with Comparative Anatomist Joy Reidenberg of Inside Nature’s Giants, Wednesday, June 20, 8 PM @ the Bell House, FREE!

Dr. Reidenberg discusses her work dissecting big animals from sperm whales to the giant squid and hosts a special screening of Inside Nature’s Giants

As a scientist, Joy Reidenberg is a rare specimen. She has probed the innards of everything from beetles to human beings, but she specializes in big—whales and their kin. In pursuit of knowledge (and cetacean parts), she’s been chased by sharks, gone through the Lincoln Tunnel with a dead dolphin leaning out her passenger window, and plummeted into the carcass of a beached blue whale to retrieve its 25-foot-long larynx. It’s all in pursuit of studying body structures in order to better understand vertebrate biomechanics and the evolution of life on our planet.

Star of the PBS series Inside Nature’s Giants and professor of anatomy and functional morphology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Dr. Reidenberg asks:
--How does the mammalian body work and what are some incredible adaptations seen in extreme environments? 
--How is whale song produced?
--Can studying and discovering animal adaptations lead to biomimetric medicines and future machines? 
--Who put the “gross” in gross anatomy?  

Before & After
--Sample our capacious cocktail of the night, the Blue Whale . . . it’ll blast your blowhole
--Sway to humongous grooves and the murmurs of mermaids
--Stick around for the colossal Q&A

This ginormous edition of the Secret Science Club meets Wednesday, June 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.